A Sweetie Dream Land

by Lucar

First published 18th of March, 2019

Sweetie Belle finds herself in another world, working for a fat penguin self proclaimed king.

Sweetie Belle just wanted to ask Twilight to help her get better in magic. Too bad she didn't choose a good time... One magical accident later, and she is now in a throne room in an unknown castle. Hopefully, the fat penguin on the throne will help her return to her home. Seeing his expression, it's not looking good...

Ooh boy...

---

Currently being rewritten. Number of chapters rewritten: 44/123
Starts around the first half of season 5.
Kirby Right Back At Ya canon will not be used.
I don't possess anything that appears in this story. Kirby belongs to HAL Laboratory and Nintendo, and My Little Pony belongs to Hasbro.
Cover from NecroHorse

Prologue: A Sweet Falling

Author's Notes:

Hello! So, this is my first ever English story, so I hope that I'm not too bad. I'm ready to take any advices to better myself! Sadly, my kryptonite are the "s", so I may forget a few in this story. And sorry, but I don't think I will be able to do the Apple's accent. I understand some things like "Ah" instead of "I", but it's clearly not enought.

Know this, I LOVE Kirby. His OST, the final bosses, the lore... It's actually my favorite videogame saga, way beyond the likes of Mario, Zelda, or everything else, and in Smash Bros, he is my main since the first hour. So I really wanted to try my hand on a crossover with this saga. Beside, I saw sadly that there is not many Kirby crossovers in fimfiction, and Kirby crossovers that are updating are almost nonexistant. So more reasons!
This story is heavily inspired by Tatsurou's PWNY stories, without the age regression, and it will take into account only the games of the main timeline, so no spin off like the Battle Royale or the Team Kirby. Also no characters from the anime, sorry Escargoon's fans. The only thing that I will take from the anime is the fact that Kirby doesn't talk, or almost, and use poyo instead.
Oh ! And between Kirby and Sweetie Belle, prepare the insuline!

The story is currently being rewritten.

With the bell ringing the end of the school day, the fillies and colts could finally taste freedom! Or at least until the next day... And without counting the homework... Well it was good enough! And yet, among the young ponies were three fillies, one of them sighing sadly despite this great moment.

"Oh come on Sweetie! Are you still thinking about what Diamond Tiara said? Just forget her!" one of the three fillies said, a pegasus with orange fur and purple mane and tail. Her wings ruffled thinking about punching a certain pink filly for making her friend sad.

"Scootaloo's right. Ya know she told that only ta hurt ya for her fun. It's better to not pay attention to her," another of the three fillies followed, a yellow furred earth pony with a red mane and tail and a pink bow tied to her mane.

The third filly, a white unicorn with a curly purple and pink mane and a similar tail, sighed again in answer before saying, "I know Apple Bloom, I know... but it's hard! It's like when she insults your family or Scootaloo's wings! Even if we know better, it's hard to let it pass when she hits a touchy subject, and you know how I am with my magic..."

"Yeah..." her two friends answered before sighing too, knowing that Sweetie was right.

"Well... at least it's temporary!" Scootaloo suddenly said, trying to raise Sweetie's morale. "I mean, you are training with the help of Twilight at Twilight Time, and you have gotten better since we started!"

"And won't you get a little boost once ya get yer Cutie Mark? Ah think Ah have heard that unicorns have better magic once they get it," Apple Bloom continued, putting a hoof under her chin at the second sentence trying to think back to when she heard this info.

"Maybe? I heard it too, but not everypony have the same opinion. Rarity was already good at using many objects at the same time, and she got her gem finding spell just before getting her Cutie Mark, and she didn't tell if she got better after getting it. Maybe I should ask her."

"Or ask Twilight, I'm sure she knows about this stuff," Scootaloo replied.

"Yes, I will ask her. But still... Even if it's true, I don't want to wait to have my Cutie Mark to get better at magic..." Sweetie said as she started to think. Scootaloo was about to propose something when the unicorn suddenly exclaimed, "I know! I will just ask Twilight if she can train me more!"

But Apple Bloom was not as excited. "I don't know Sweetie Belle. What if she's too busy? Remember she's a princess. It's already good that she helps us once a week."

But that didn't stop Sweetie Belle. "But Twilight loves to teach! Especially magic! I'm sure she will say yes! I have to go girls, bye!" she said before charging in the direction of the big crystal tree castle that was the home of the princess.

"But what about our crusading?!" Apple Bloom yelled, trying to stop Sweetie Belle, without success. Seeing that, she sighed.

"Shouldn't we follow her?" Scootaloo asked.

"No. Let's just go at the clubhouse. If Twilight refuses, she'll join us there. If not, well... let's just search ideas for our crusading. Better than nothing."

"Alright."

On that, the two remaining fillies took the direction of their clubhouse, not knowing that they won't see their friend for quite some time.

---

"NEXT!" BAM "NEXT!" VLAN "NEXT!"

"Sorry your majesty, there are no dummies left..."

"Then go make more! Or I will use all of you as replacement!"

"The next batch will not be ready for some time."

"I don't care! JUST HURRY!" A chorus of "Yes!" followed by a stampede happened almost immediately.

Four beings were left in the room at the end of the stampede. The first was a large penguin, or penguin-like creature that was actually breathing heavily in both tiredness and anger, swinging around a large hammer before finally putting its head on the floor. He wore a red cap with a big white ball at the top and a golden rim, and a finery of the same color, without the gold. He had tan clothes around his body with an obi with a pattern of red and yellow zigzag, and also yellow mittens covering his hands. His blue head with a yellow beak that looked like a mouth was the only body part visible alongside his yellow palmed feet. Finally, a symbol that looked like a peace sign made with his fingers was visible on the back of his finery.

He took a big breath and screamed, "Curse that Kirby! I hate him! I hate him! I! HATE! HIIIM!" before violently hitting the floor with his hammer, making the whole room quake. The three other beings in the room with him lost their balance and fell on their face or on their back as a consequence. They all had a rounded body, two of them were identical to each other while the third had more unique features. The two that could pass for twins possessed pear-shaped tan faces surrounded by orange close to red with tubby arms of the same color. Their feet also were a lighter orange. The third being looked like the other two, but didn't have the same pear-shaped face. His round body was entirely of the same orange-red as the other two, and his feet were the same light orange. The main difference was that this one only possessed one big round eye with two strands of hair above it. A particularity of these three beings was that they didn't seem to possess a mouth.

They were on what was actually a boxing ring with the penguin's symbol at the center of it. Around the ring were stands, all empty, and above it were spotlights to illuminate it. Crushed pink dummy parts were littering the ring, and some were even on the floor beyond the edge.

"M-m-my king... I propose that... Well... Maybe we should go elsewhere while we wait. You have been destroying these dummies for hours," one of the first two creatures proposed shyly.

He was answered by the penguin turning his look full of promising doom toward him, making him suddenly go up before running toward the opposite corner of the ring in hope of escaping say doom.

Lucky for him, the penguin took another breath before letting his hammer rest on his right shoulder. "You are right. There is nothing more I can do here. Beside, I'm hungry. But once the next batch is ready, I'm returning here, YOU HEAR?"

"O-of course, my king!"

"I will warn the cooks to start preparing your meal, your majesty!" the cyclops creature then said before saluting, jumping above the edge of the ring, and exiting the room.

The king watched him go before pointing at one of the two creatures left, the one that hadn't talked yet. "You! Follow him and tell the cooks to bring my meal in the Throne Room! That is where I will wait." The creature saluted him before exiting the room. He then looked at the remaining one. "As for you, just follow me." he said before he walked toward the exit too, followed by the creature.

They just had to cross an hallway full of portraits and busts of the penguin with dozens of the same creatures either cleaning or guarding it. A carpet of the same red as his finery covered the floor almost entirely and his symbol appeared almost everywhere alongside red golden rimmed banners. After it, they reached the Throne Room where the same red carpet continued toward the throne itself, also red with golden rim like his cap, with a blue symbol at the top. The carpet ended in a hexagon at the foot of the throne, with yet again the symbol at the center, this time blue in an orange circle. The floor itself was patterned like a checkerboard in white and yellow. Windows with different geometrical forms were on the left grey wall, where a tower of the castle was visible outside. Grey columns were present between each windows and the same banners were present at the ceiling. Finally, a blue curtain was at the left, toward the throne, to cover all the left wall to hide the sunlight when needed.

Once the king was seated on his throne, the creature at his right, he started thinking about what happened a few days ago, the event that was making him SO angry! He wanted to prove to all the kingdom that he was the rightful king! For that, he sent his army to take all the foods, because as the king, he deserved that! But then... BUT THEN! That pink puffball! He appeared from nowhere and assaulted his castle, and even had the gall to send him flying through the roof of his castle! And then, he turned into a giant balloon and took his castle through all Dream Land to give back all HIS food! It took him and his army days to rebuild the castle at its rightful place at the top of the mountain, and it had been an absolute pain! Since then, he had been training nonstop, slaughtering hundred of dummies built like that pink pest to vent his anger while thinking of a plan to get his revenge.

"I will make him pay! I swear it!" he said while slamming his left arm on his throne.

That was when the doors of the Throne Room opened to let enter a few of the creatures wearing cook hats while they pulled a white covered table full of food on it. Meat, fruits, and at the center, a big cake that was only waiting to be devoured.

"Ah! Finally!" he said happily while putting a napkin to protect his clothes from what was going to be a messy dinner, like each time the king ate, to the despair of the cleaning crew.

Too bad for them, this dinner will be far messier than the previous times...

Unknowingly to everyone, a purple light appeared near the ceiling. It remained a few seconds, growing a little bigger, before suddenly disappearing with an almost inaudible pop. It was only when everyone started hearing a high pitched scream that they looked toward the ceiling, only for something to violently hit the cake which exploded, spreading it everywhere on the food, the creatures, and the king. Especially the king's face...

---

"Oh! Come On!"

Of course it had to happen! Of course! Of all the times, she had to reach Twilight in the middle of one of her magical experiments! What were the chances it would happen? She is normally reading! Well hopefully, she hadn't gotten teleported too far. Actually, if she was to trust her smell and her taste, she was teleported at Sugarcube Corner and fell on a cake. She will have to apologise to Pinkie and the Cakes, even if it wasn't her fault. At least it tasted good! Was this strawberry?

Quickly, she took the cake off her eyes to have a better look at her surroundings, only to freeze at seeing that no, she had NOT appeared at the bakery, if the angry look she was getting from this penguin whose face was full of the remains of the cake was proof enough...

"Oh boy..."

Chapter 1: Welcome to Dream Land!

"Come back here you little...!" BAM!

"I said I'm sorry!"

Why? Sweetie Belle could have been teleported to any castle! It could have been Canterlot's castle where the princesses would have helped her! It could have been the Crystal Empire's castle where princess Cadance would have done the same! It could have been the old castle in the Everfree, at least she would have been alone until somepony eventually found her! Instead, she found herself in a castle where the local king was trying to crush her just for accidentally ruining his cake! How was there even a penguin as the ruler of a kingdom? She though that penguins were just animals like Fluttershy loved to take care of! Unless there was a species of smart penguins she didn't know? Like, there were the dogs like Winona, and there were the Diamond Dogs?

BAM! "Stop here!"

"Eep!"

That was close! Right, she shouldn't think about that, but rather try to not end as a pancake! Where was the exit? This castle was like a maze, worse than Canterlot's castle! She was sure that she passed this hallway at least three times! It was hard to say, all these hallways looked alike with all these portraits and busts of the penguin currently chasing her. Seems like she found someone with an ego as big as the one of Rainbow Dash.

And then, said penguin suddenly fell in front of her! Strangely, two yellow stars appeared at his sides when he hit the floor. But she didn't have time to think about it because the hammer was already ready to crush her! Without thinking, she abruptly stopped herself before going for the door just at her left while barely dodging the hammer.

The door revealed leading to the kitchen where many of these strange creatures were hiding, some of them wearing a cook hat and others having a black bow just above their feet. Yet again, she couldn't stop, because this penguin was clearly not stopping! Instead, she jumped on one of the tables before bucking a bowl of cream right on the penguin's face, hoping to gain some time as she continued running on the long table knocking some of the food on it to the floor. That was without counting on the penguin, now really angry, taking the bowl too before throwing it at her! Thankfully, she saw it coming and jumped on the floor just before, the bowl instead hitting one of the cooks trying to catch her! Rather than jumping on another table, she decided to pass under it, and under the next one, before finally reaching a double door. Looking back, she saw the penguin jumping again, ready to crush her, this time under his weight! Before he fell on her, she passed the doors, leading to a really big room with many tables and chairs. Not stopping to admire the decor, she continued through the room to the nearest door.

"That's enough!" she suddenly heard behind her. Looking back again, the penguin was at the double door, but he had stopped... That was when he opened his mouth before inhaling.

"What?"

To Sweetie's surprise, she was then being aspired! It was like a tornado was sucking her up to the penguin's mouth! She could see the chairs and the table also moving, but not as much as her! And before she knew it, everything became black.

So was this how it ended? Eaten by a penguin?

It seemed that no, because the penguin spat her at the floor almost as soon, right at his feet.

"Got you!" he said victoriously before making gagging sounds. "Gah! Fur! Pouah!" After a few more gags, he stopped and glared at Sweetie Belle who was all icky because of his saliva.

Sweetie sat up, trying to regain her bearing before staring at the penguin who looked like a giant just before her because of him being a little over two times her size, totally at his mercy... If he had mercy. Tears started to gather at her eyes, fearing what he may do to her.

"Wait! Your majesty!" suddenly screamed someone behind the penguin. He turned around to reveal one of the creatures. He was about half Sweetie's size, a bit above.

"What do you want? I have finally gotten her! I will make her pay for ridiculing me!"

"I-I know, your majesty! But isn't trying to kill her a little too much? Maybe it was just an accident! I mean, who would willingly appear above a cake?"

Sweetie decided then to take the occasion. "Y-yes! Yes! It was an accident! I'm sorry! I didn't want to ruin your cake! I didn't even want to be teleported here!"

The penguin looked back at her before lowering his head at her level with a suspicious look. "Reeeally?"

Sweetie gulped before continuing. "Yes... I just wanted to ask princess Twilight to train me so I could get better at magic, b-but..." She then averted her eyes, rubbing one of her hooves behind her head. "I surprised her in the middle of a magical experiment. I think it was something about teleportation in really long range... Next thing I know, I'm here, or well... I was falling in your cake..."

"See, King Dedede?" the creature said, revealing the name of the penguin. "I was right! It was just an accident!"

Dedede continued to stare at Sweetie Belle before finally getting up. Seeing that, Sweetie couldn't help but letting out a big sigh of relief.

"It seems so. Well then Waddle Dee, toss her out of the castle. She is not my problem anymore," he said, starting to make his way toward the exit of the room.

"Yes my king!" the creature, Waddle Dee, said while saluting, before approaching Sweetie Belle. "I'm sorry for what happened. Follow me, I will guide you to the castle's exit. I'm sure you will be able to find your way home... Wherever it is."

"Hum... Thanks mister Dee. I live in Ponyville, Equestria. Do you know how I can get there?"

"Ponyville? Equestria?" Waddle Dee tilted his head before putting an arm under his... chin? After a moment of thinking, he said, "Sorry, I don't know where it is. It's the first time that I hear of this kingdom."

That surprised Sweetie Belle. "R-Really?! But it's like the biggest kingdom of Equus! Ruled by princess Celestia who moves the sun, and princess Luna who moves the moon!"

"Woah! Really? But that's impossible! The sun and the moon are... Wait, did you say 'Equus'?"

"Uh... Yes. Equuis. You know, the world!"

Waddle Dee looked at her for what seems like minutes, before his eyes suddenly grew bigger and he took a step back. "O-oh... Oh..."

Seeing his reaction, Sweetie started to get worried. "W-what? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Waddle Dee looked around trying to avoid looking directly at her. "Well..." He then sadly looked at the floor, bumping his two arms together. "Do... Do you know anything about Dream Land?"

Sweetie Belle raised en eyebrow in answer. "Dream Land?"

"It's the name of the kingdom we are in."

"No. Never heard."

"I see..." Waddle Dee startd to walk to the exit. "Follow me... Oh! And you don't need to call me 'mister'. Waddle Dee is alright."

"Mmh... Okay? Then you can call me Sweetie Belle."

"Alright..."

Sweetie Belle followed Waddle Dee outside of the room. Once they were back in the hallway, she could see that the other creatures that were like Waddle Dee have gotten out of their hiding places, cleaning the damages caused by Dedede's rampage. Some of them looked at Sweetie Belle in curiosity before getting back at their job. Sweetie didn't pay them too much attention, worried about Waddle Dee's reaction earlier.

"Can you tell me why you seem sad please? Is there a problem? I..." She gulped. "I can go home, right?"

Waddle Dee froze, then turned toward Sweetie in panic. "O-of course you can go home!" He started rubbing his left arm behind his head. "It... It's just that it may be harder than I first thought... And take longer..."

Sweetie bit her lips, starting to panic. "How much longer?"

Waddle Dee looked at her sadly for a few seconds that seemed to last forever, before saying, "Until... we find a way to send you back to your homeworld..."

Silence...

"You mean I'm in another world?"

More silence... Then Waddle Dee nodded. "Popstar."

...

...

She started crying. "N... No... That's not true... Sniff I can't... Sniff Why... Sniff" Waddle Dee almost immediately hugged her, patting her back. "Rarity... please... come save me... I don't wanna be alone... Sniff Rarity... Rarity...!"

"Hey... Let's think positive! I'm sure we will find a way! I mean, it's Dream Land! Where the dreams come true! Everything can happen!"

After a few more seconds of crying, Sweetie eventually answered, "R-Really...?"

"Yes! Really! And meanwhile... Well I was about to ask the king if he would accept to shelter you. So you will not be alone!"

Sweetie's body suddenly got tense in Waddle Dee's arms. She also stopped crying even if she still had some tears in her eyes. "Are you sure? I mean, he almost..."

"I know. He can be a little scary and you don't want to make him angry, but once he calms down, he can be good. I mean, he listened to me when I stopped him from... you know... He will probably ask something in return, but it's better than leaving you outside of the castle alone."

"If you say so..." she said, sniffling a last time.

"There. Better?"

"Yes... Thank you Waddle Dee."

"You are welcome!" he said while looking very happy, his eyes closed and almost bouncing. "Now follow me."

"Okay," Sweetie Belle said with a small smile. Better than seeing her crying, Waddle Dee thought before walking, followed by the filly.

In the way, Sweetie Belle asked a few questions, and eventually learned that the creatures were all called Waddle Dee, but a few of them called themselves in a different name to reflect something special about them. She of course asked how they could recognize each other, which Waddle Dee answered that they just do. Sweetie decided not to ask more about it, fearing a potential headache. Like everypony else in Ponyville, she learned not to ask too much thanks to Pinkie Pie, and she could tell that this subject was a potential Pinkie Pie level of weird. She also learned the names of a few other creatures wandering the castle, like the ones with only an eye were called Waddle Doo, or the flying ones that were pink balls with insect wings and yellow feet were Bronto Burt. Them and many others constituted King Dedede's army. But if Sweetie must be frank, they didn't look dangerous... In the contrary, a good number of them looked adorable. Most of them didn't even possess a weapon.

After walking a moment, they finally reached the Throne Room, which had been cleaned from the earlier... incident. Sweetie shivered just thinking about that table getting crushed while she barely avoided getting the same fate. Now that she thought about it, she still had some cake on her, and some other foods from the kitchen. If the king accepts to let her live in the castle, the first thing she will do is taking a bath!

Speaking of the king. Here he was, on his throne, listening to a trio of Waddle Dees, one of theme being a Parasol Waddle Dee as she learned earlier, recognizable by having a red and white parasol, actually closed. As Sweetie and her new friend got closer, she could hear the king talk.

"So they made him a home?" he said before crossing his arms. "Mph! Of course they made him one! They just couldn't let their 'hero" sleep in the wild! At least now I know where he is. Good job you three. Dismissed."

The three Waddle Dees saluted before exiting the Throne Room, passing by Sweetie. King Dedede then noticed her presence and asked to the Waddle Dee with her, "What is she still doing in my castle?"

Waddle Dee signed to Sweetie to remain where she was before he approached the throne while bowing. Once he was close enough, he said, "Excuse me my king, but I learned something about her which may change your opinion."

"And what did you learn?"

"That she can't go back to her home. She comes from another world."

At that, King Dedede screamed in shock, "An alien?!" before turning his eyes to the filly who was now trembling, looking at the floor, her ears pressed against her head. "Is that true?!"

Seeing her cue, Sweetie walked closer before stopping just behind Waddle Dee. She bowed, then looked hesitantly at the king and answered, "Yes your majesty. I am from a world named Equus."

"And how can I be sure you are telling the truth? You said that you have come here because someone accidentally teleported you here. If what you say is the truth, then they would have to be really powerful to be able to teleport you at such a long distance."

"Oh yes! Princess Twilight is one of the most powerful being in my world, and is also really smart! Her special talent is magic and a few months ago she became an alicorn, like princesses Celestia and Luna, and they can use their magic to move the sun and the moon!"

If Dedede had been drinking, he would have made a spit-take! Something powerful enough to move the sun and the moon?! How was it possible?

"You are kidding me!"

"No! I swear! That's why I wanted to ask her to train me, she is so good at magic! With her as my teacher I would become like my big sister! I would be able to use at least ten objects at the same time, and I could lift heavier charges rather than just things like brooms! Maybe I could even shoot magical lasers from my horn!" Sweetie suddenly lost all her excitation. "But now it will never happen..."

"Don't say that!" Waddle Dee shouted. He will not let the filly lose her morale like that! "I told you! I'm sure we will find a way!"

"And how?" Dedede asked. "It's not like we have spaceships. And even if we had spaceships, we don't even know where is her world."

Waddle Dee had to stop himself from glaring at the penguin. "With hope!"

At his answer, the Throne Room was invaded with Dedede's laugh. For a whole minute, the king slammed his arms on his throne while bending because of how much his belly was hurting. Tears started again to appear at Sweetie's eyes as she lowered her head more and more at each seconds the king passed laughing. Fortunately, Waddle Dee was here to make sure she didn't get too depressed by hugging her and whispering to her comforting words.

Once Dedede finally stopped laughing, he then asked Sweetie Belle, "Anyway...Huff! Huff! I suppose that until you eventually finds a way to go home, you hope that I will let you stay at my castle?"

"Can I?" she asked back, looking again at the king.

"You could."

Thanks to Waddle Dee, Sweetie understood what Dedede implied. After sighing, she asked, "What do you want me to do for you?"

"Easy. As long as you remain in my castle, I want you to work for me like all the others inhabitants of this castle. If we ask you to clean a room, you will clean it. If we ask you to cook, you will cook. If we ask you to guard, you will guard. Understood?"

"Yes. I understand. I accept."

"Then welcome in my army... aah... I don't think you told me your name."

"Oh! I'm sorry your majesty! My name is Sweetie Belle!"

"Then welcome in my army Sweetie Belle! You will start tomorrow morning. Waddle Dee, I charge you to give her a room before spreading the news."

"Yes sir! Follow me Sweetie Belle."

The two started to depart before King Dedede said one last thing. "Also, welcome to Dream Land Sweetie Belle. I hope that you will love your stay."

Well... only the future will tell...

Author's Notes:

With how the places constantly change from game to game, I had to choose how they would look. For exemple the Throne Room here is the one from Kirby Star Allies. That means that the places will not always look like in the games that actually take place. For the Throne Room again, don't wait to see the machine suddenly appears without reason like in Squeak Squad.

Chapter 2: First Day part 1

She should be sleeping. It was almost midnight and yet she was still awake. But who could blame her? She was now stuck in another world for who knew how long, and she had not even been there for an hour that she had gotten herself enlisted into the local monarch's army. Hopefully she will not have to take a weapon, she didn't know if she could use one.

How were everypony at home? Twilight was probably searching a way to bring her back. She was her best hope to get home, but who knew how much time will pass until she finds one? If she ever find one... And her family... They were probably worried sick. And her friends too. She hoped that Rarity wasn't too mad at Twilight for accidentally sending her to another world. Actually, had they even found out that she was sent to another world? Maybe they think she was just transported to another kingdom or, Celestia forbid, on a deserted island. If that was the case, they will search the whole world... without result. Will they even come to the conclusion that she had been transported to another world? Maybe they will just conclude that she was dead and stop searching. And she will have to serve that mad king until the end. And she will never see anypony ever again. Her mom, her dad, Rarity, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo...

"I miss you..."

---

Sweetie was suddenly awakened as someone knockd at the door.

"Mmh... What...?"

"Sweetie Belle, it's time!" a voice behind the door said. "I will wait behind the door! Hurry up to get ready so we can have breakfast before we start our day!"

Oh... Right... So this wasn't a dream. If only it was why this kingdom was called Dream Land. Well, she had to wake up, she didn't want to get the king mad again, he was kind enough to let her stay at his castle, even if she had to work for him in return.

She opened her eyes, and looked toward the window, only to have her first surprise of the day: the sun was barely raised at the horizon! Seriously? It's even sooner than a school day! Ugh! She should have tried to sleep as soon as she had hit the bed! Well, she will have to do with it. No choice.

As she got up, she looked at her new chamber. It was a little bigger than her chamber at Carousel Boutique, at least there was that. Waddle Dee gave her a good room. The problem was that it was empty. Outside of her bed, and a nightstand with a clock, there was absolutely nothing in there, not even a closet. If she had to live here, she will have to get this room more lively, even if she was not sure with what. If only she could make appear photos of her family and her friends, it would be a good start. A few plushies maybe? She could try her luck at sewing at least one that will look like Rarity. She was only able to sew correctly the Crusaders' capes, but maybe she could ask the Waddle Dees for help? She will have to think back to it once she had a break.

There was another room attached to this one, which was a bathroom. A really small bathroom. Without even a bathtub, just a sink to brush her teeth and a mirror above it. If she wanted to take a bath, she will have to take it with the others. She had already taken one the previous day after she was given her room, so she didn't need one right now. As for her need to use the toilet, she will have to use the ones at the end of the hallway outside of her room.

In short, she didn't need to take too much time to prepare herself before opening the door to come face to face with Waddle Dee, or she thought, the same one that helped her yesterday. They looked so much alike, it will be hard to keep track.

"I'm ready. Good morning."

"Good morning. I hope you didn't have any problem waking up."

"A little. I had a hard time falling asleep last night. But I think I will be alright. Still, it's really early."

"I know, you will become used to it. Let's go take our breakfast."

"Hum... First..." She didn't end her sentence, running right into the restroom at the end of the hallway.

"Oh, right..."

---

"So, I was told that your first duty will be cleaning the boxing ring. You need me to guide you?"

"A boxing ring? Really? There is a boxing ring in this castle?" Sweetie Belle exclaimed while watching curiously Waddle Dee eating. She had already seen Waddle Dees eating last night, when she had taken a dinner before going to bed, and she still couldn't help herself but ask How?! They didn't have a mouth! Waddle Dee was currently eating a watermelon, and it was just... disappearing! Just HOW?! And it's not just the Waddle Dees, she could see the same thing happening with a Waddle Doo a few chairs at her left!

Stop it Sweetie. You will just give yourself a headache. Just consider it Pinkie Pie level of impossible and be happy with it, she told herself.

"Yes. There is a boxing ring where the king trains himself. These days, it's almost always messy. There is probably some remains of last night's training. Don't worry, you will not be alone in cleaning."

"You will be here?"

"No, sorry. I'm guard duty at the treasure room."

"Oh..."

"Hey, like this, you will have the occasion to become friends with some others servants!"

Sweetie put a hoof under her chin. "Mmh... You're right. For now, I only know you and King Dedede here."

"See?"

After breakfast, Waddle Dee led Sweetie Belle to the room with the ring, showing her various things to help her find her way in the future. On the way, they encountered the rest of the cleaning crew, consisting of two more Waddle Dees and two Broom Hatters, pear-shaped yellow creatures with brown feet, a witch hat like the foals would wear at Nightmare Night, and of course, a broom. Oh! And they didn't have any eye or mouth... Creepy. One of the Waddle Dees had his right arm around two mops while lifting a bucket full of water with his left arm, and the last one had a household shovel, a feather duster and empty garbage bags, and he also had a white kerchief.

"Hey! You are the Rookie!" the Waddle Dee with the mops said upon seeing Sweetie Belle.

"Yes, it's me. Sorry if I'm late."

"You are right on time! Here, take this!" the same Waddle Dee said, giving her one of the mops, which Sweetie took with her magic.

"Thank you."

"Well..." Waddle Dee then said... the one that had been leading her. "It seems like you will be able to continue by yourself from now. I must go. Good luck Sweetie Belle. See you at lunch."

"Ok. Thank you for everything Waddle Dee. See you." She waved at the departing Waddle Dee who waved back, before turning to the cleaning crew.

Seeing she was ready, Mop Waddle Dee (she will name him that for now, and the other Shovel Waddle Dee) told her to follow them before they continued their way to the room with the boxing ring, the filly right behind them. In the way, one of the Broom Hatters gave her a white kerchief with green stars, which she put around her mane to protect it.

Not long after, they reached the room, and right now, Sweetie was thankful that she was not alone cleaning it, but was also wondering if they should have asked ten more Broom Hatters to follow them. The room was huge, and the ring at the center had many destroyed or crushed dummy parts on and around it. Some of them even ended up on the stands!

"Let's go!" Mop Waddle Dee said. "We have one hour to clean this!"

She gulped...

---

It... wasn't that bad, surprisingly. The Broom Hatters used their brooms to push the dummy parts and assemble them in a big pile that Shovel Waddle Dee put away in his garbage bags with his shovel. Meanwhile, Sweetie and Mop Waddle Dee dampened their mops with the water in the bucket and cleaned around where there was no dummy parts, starting close to the walls of the room, then around the stands, then on the stands once the dummy parts on them were removed, then around the boxing ring. The Broom Hatters had already finished their job and one of them was helping Shovel Waddle Dee, and there were almost no dummy parts left while the other took the feather duster and was dusting the ropes of the ring. And all the while, Sweetie Belle couldn't help herself but sing one of her little song. She had taken the habit to sing sometime while cleaning back in Ponyville, helping her to keep going without thinking about anything else.

Seeing their job almost accomplished, Sweetie decided to ask Mop Waddle Dee a question. "Say, what do these dummies represent ? The more intact ones look like a pink round... thing."

"That's Kirby. The newfound rival of King Dedede."

"What? But it looks so small!"

"I know. And yet, he-we are sure that he is a 'he'-was able to beat King Dedede. They fought in this same boxing ring, and at the end of their fight, Kirby was able to send King Dedede flying through the roof! He also beat by himself a great part of our army, including some of the king's strongest lieutenants. Since then, King Dedede is training really hard in the hope of beating him."

"Wow. He must be really strong then! King Dedede is so big and has this really big hammer! And he can suck up everything in his mouth!"

"Just a proof that size and power don't mean everything," the Broom Hatter with the feather duster said... Feather Duster Hatter?

"Don't let him hear that, you fool!" Shovel Waddle Dee said in horror.

"Don't worry," Feather Duster Hatter replied. "He is certainly having his breakfast as we speak. He shouldn't come before a few more minutes."

"Still... Watch out what you say... just in case."

"Alright alright... Pfff..."

"You are doing a really good job Sweetie Belle," Mop Waddle Dee then said to Sweetie. "This isn't the first time you clean, right?"

"Huhuh," Sweetie Belle answered while shaking her head. "Rarity often asks me to clean, either my chamber, or after disturbing one of the rooms." She then sighed thinking about Rarity. She really missed her.

"I see. You also sing very well, you know?"

Sweetie Belle hadn't thought she would get complimented, and couldn't help but blush as she looked at Mop Waddle Dee in surprise. "Uh? T-thanks!" She then averted her eyes and rubbed a hoof behind her head in embarrassment. "I love singing..."

Mop Waddle Dee chuckled at seeing her embarrassment, it was adorable... "Well, it was beautiful. You should try singing to everybody else at lunch, I'm sure they will love it too."

Sweetie couldn't stop the squeaky "eep" escaping her mouth. She could feel her blush growing and tried to hide it by lowering her head, turning her eyes to the floor. "S-sorry. I'm a little scared of singing in front of others, especially big crowds..."

Mop Waddle Dee was about to reply when they heard a "Urk!" coming from the ring. Once she looked, she saw Feather Duster Hatter on his back, waving the feather duster at his face (?) like a fan.

"Oh my gosh! Are you alright?" she screamed in panic.

The Hatter waved at her in return. "Yeah yeah. Don't worry for me. It's just heat. I will be alright."

Sweetie raised an eyebrow at his excuse. "But it's not hot. It's actually a little cold."

".......... It's a cold hot."

"What? But that doesn't make sense!"

"Just forget about him," Mop Waddle Dee interrupted while laughing. "Trust me. Leave him a minute and he will be back to work. He just needs a little air. Let's continue our cleaning."

Sweetie Belle tilted her head. "Okay...?"

Returning at their work, after a few more minutes, they finally finished cleaning the room with some minutes to spare.

"What now?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Do you know what is your next task?" Mop Waddle Dee said.

"No, nopony told me what I must do after cleaning this room."

"'Nopony'? You must mean 'nobody'."

"Oh? Uh... Yes! Nobody! Sorry, 'nopony' is the way we say it in Equestria."

"That's okay. So, if nobody told you what to do next, then you can either remain here until the king comes so he can give you something to do, or you can explore the castle in search of something to do."

As much as she was scared of the king, she didn't want to get lost in the castle. "I will remain here, just in case."

"Understood. It was good to work with you, I hope we will do it again someday. Until then, goodbye! Ah! I almost forgot, can you give me the mop?"

"Oh! Of course!"

After giving back the mop, the Waddle Dees and the Broom Hatters exited the room, pushing the now full garbage bags and waving goodbye at Sweetie Belle. While waiting for King Dedede to come, she decided to explore the few rooms next to this one. One of them revealed to be a storage with various weapons, probably to train with them on the boxing ring. Another room seemed to be a gym, full of equipment like weights. This one actually gave Sweetie Belle an idea. Maybe she could still train her magic, even if she was in a different world. Maybe she may even become powerful enough to teleport back to Equestria! With this idea in her head, she tried to lifts the weights with her magic one by one, from the smaller to the bigger, and once she found a weight that she could barely lift, she took it back to the boxing ring to train her magic with it until the king came.

A few minutes later, said king finally came through the door. He raised an eyebrow at seeing the filly on the ring.

"Mmh? What are you doing here? Don't you have a job to do?"

"Sorry king Dedede, I had nothing to do after cleaning the boxing ring, so I decided to wait for you to see if you have some task for me."

"And you are lifting a weight with your magic... why?"

"Remember when I said that I wanted to train my magic?"

"I see. Yes, if you can get stronger with your magic, you can be a better help at fighting that pink pest."

"I suppose... but I think I took a weight a little too big, my horn is already aching."

"Pfff. Of course. This is training after all. Pushing your body to its limit, lifting weights until your arms hurt, running until you have to crawl, that's how you get stronger!" he said as he struck a pose, flexing his arms to show the fruit of his training.

"So I should continue?"

"No. If you get too tired, you will not be able to continue your job. You know what? I propose you this. You will do what is asked of you until it is 6pm. At that hour, you will come here to train until dinner. What do you think?"

Sweetie smiled at that. Finally she will not be behind the other unicorns! "I'm okay with that!"

"Good! If you can become as powerful as you told you can be, then maybe you can become my trump card against that Kirby! If I don't crush him before, of course. Actually, you told me that that... Princess Twilight became an alicorn, right? An alicorn is, like, a stronger version of what you are? It means that if you become one, you will be more powerful, uh?"

"You can say that, yes. You see, in Equestria, there are unicorns, like me, pegasi, and earth ponies. Unicorns have a horn and can use magic with it. Pegasi have wings and can manipulate the weather, make rain, snow, or even a tornado. Earth ponies have neither, but they are really strong and tough and can be really good with plants. The brother and the sister of one of my friend can drop all the apples of a tree with just a buck. Alicorns are like a fusion of all the three, but really, really, REALLY more powerful, and they possess both a horn and wings."

"Interesting... And how did that Twilight become an alicorn?"

"Twilight was a really powerful unicorn before, so I think it counts. But my sis told me something about the Elements of Harmony shooting her with magical lasers making her explode. And when she reappeared, she had wings. I didn't understand everything, I think there was something about a poem? I remember that my sis' Cutie Mark was changed that day... Maybe-"

"So if I make you explode, you will come back more powerful?" Dedede interrupted her.

"What? No! Nonono! I don't think it's how it works! If that was the case, then there would be thousands of alicorns! But so far, there are only four. I really don't know how it really happened that day. All I know is that you must do something worth it. Twilight would be able to explain it better."

"But she is not here..."

"Yes... And that's why all I can do is try to get better by training."

"Mph... Then get out of this ring so you can go do your next task."

"And what must I do?"

"Ah yes. Well... I know! Go to the kitchen! I want to know if you are good at cooking!"

Sweetie saluted him. "Yes sir! And thank you!" she almost screamed before she jumped over the edge of the ring.

"By the way, good kerchief."

"Uh?" Sweetie put a hoof on her mane, only to feel that she was still wearing the kerchief given to her by one of the Broom Hatters. "Oops! I totally forgot that I still had it! I will have to give it back when I can." She took the kerchief, and instead put it around her neck. She then passed Dedede and exited the room. Maybe Waddle Dee was right and she could still hope.

Chapter 3: First Day part 2

Author's Notes:

I have edited the end of the previous chapter to add a little something that I had forgotten.

The door opened and out flew Sweetie Belle who fell face first on the floor. She quickly got up and turned around, before shouting angrily at the Cook Waddle Dee that expelled her, "Hey! You didn't have to do that!" The Cook Waddle Dee answered her by slamming the door. Two seconds later, the door opened again only for the Cook Waddle Dee to put on it a crude drawing of her with a big red cross above her head and he slammed the door a second time. It made Sweetie cross her hooves and pout in anger, not believing how she had just been thrown out of the kitchen. After a moment, she sighed and asked herself, "What now?"

"Seems like you have nothing more to do," someone said at her left. When Sweetie Belle looked to see who talked to her, she discovered that it was a Blade Knight. Like his name indicated, he was a creature using a sword and wearing a green armor with a part of his pink face visible, again without anything on it. Or maybe he had eyes hidden behind his golden visor. At least, rather than tubby arms like all the creatures she encountered until now, he possessed actual hands, with white gloves covering them. And he had also a real head above his body. His equipment also included a belt around his body, and brown armored boots. On his shoulder pads was a yellow symbol that seemed to be a fusion between a trident and a crescent moon. Sweetie remarked that he was pulling a wagon full of weapons behind him, mainly swords and a few spears.

"No. I should have been cooking until lunch, but they expelled me from the kitchen."

The Blade Knight chuckled. "I saw that," he said before taking a bag that he filled with a dozen swords. Sweetie could distinguish two varieties of swords. The first was the same kind as the one that the Blade Knight possessed, white blade and blue guard of the same form as his symbol on his shoulders with a yellow sphere at the center. The second were swords with a blue blade with two prongs jutting out of it, and a yellow crescent shaped guard. She could already guess what will be her new task.

"You want me to give these swords."

"Exactly." He then gave the bag to Sweetie Belle who awkwardly put it alongside her barrel. These bags were really not made for her. Once the bag given, the Blade Knight pointed at the end of the hallway behind her, where it separated into two other hallways. "Take the right hallway while I take the left, and give these swords to all the Blade Knights and Sword Knights that you encounter. Normally, there should be enough swords."

"Yes sir."

"Remember. The white swords are for the Blade Knights, and the blue ones are for the Sword Knights."

"I understand. But... why are there two kinds of swords? Why doesn't everyone have the same kind?" she asked while tilting her head in curiosity.

"Because we don't use the same style to fight. See?" he asked while showing his own sword. "This one is sharp mostly at the edges, it's made to hurt by doing big swing to give great cuts." He demonstrated it by swinging his sword. He then pointed at a blue sword in the bag. "This one is more sharp at the tip of the blade and the prongs. It's made essentially to attack by thrusting it to impale your enemies. The Blade Knights use the first style, the Sword Knights prefer the second."

"Oooh! I see! Well, if I have to take a sword someday, I will know what to do. Thank you mister Knight."

The Blade Knight chuckled before replying, "You are welcome. Now go."

Sweetie Belle left the Blade Knight and took the right hallway. Thankfully, it wasn't a hard job. She gave the right swords to the right knights and that was all, and it wasn't hard to differentiate the two kinds of Knights. Instead of wearing green armor, the Sword Knights wore purple armor with a helmet that elongated behind the head. Their mouth, if they have one, was also hidden, but not their eyes, which were two and yellow. The only part of their armor that was not purple was the one covering their body, being blue. They also wore white gloves and a brown belt. So yeah, easy job.

---

After her task, she yet again ended up with nothing to do. Rather than starting searching for a new task, she decided to use this break to search something else.

"Excuse me," she intercepted a Waddle Dee. "Do you know if there is a place to sew?"

"Of course! Continue this way and take left. Go down the stairs, then right, right again, the second left, down another staircase, third left, second right, another right, and it should be the first door."

Sweetie stared at the Waddle Dee. After a few seconds, she blinked and asked, "Can you repeat, please?" which prompted the Waddle Dee to facepalm.

---

It took some time, but the Waddle Dee gave her a paper with the directions, and after ten minutes, she reached the room she wanted: the sewing room. She wanted to try sewing this Rarity plushie that she had been thinking when she awakened. Better start somewhere to make her new room feel more like home.

The room was empty. Looked like nothing needed to be sewn right now. That was good! No one was here to bother her! She will be able to work like she wanted! Time to make a plushie before lunchtime!

---

Sweetie Belle looked at her plate with depression. Her tentative to sew hadn't ended very well... The less was said about it, the better. And now it was lunchtime, and there was no plushie. She heard someone coming and looked up, only to see a Waddle Dee sit down before her, with some fruits and meat on his plate. She was not as shocked at seeing meat as she had been the previous day when she had seen the Waddle Dees eat for the first time at dinner, but it will take time for her to get used to it. Apparently, almost everyone here ate meat. But right now, she had something else in her mind, so she didn't care too much about it. She looked back at her plate.

"Hey, are you alright?" the Waddle Dee asked. Maybe it was the Waddle Dee that had helped her yesterday and had awakened her this morning? She will assume that yes, seeing how much he was friendly toward her.

"Yes, don't worry. I'm just a little sad that I wasn't able to sew a plushie," she answered.

"You tried to sew a plush? You know how to sew?"

"A little, but not enough it seems. I can sew something like a cape, but definitely not a plushie."

"You simply need more experience. If you try and try again, I'm sure you will be able to sew one. But why do you want to sew a plush?"

"I wanted to sew a plushie looking like my sister, Rarity. It... It would help me feel better."

Waddle Dee could only look sadly at Sweetie after her answer. He didn't know what it was like to find himself in a different world, far away from all his loved ones, but for a child like Sweetie Belle, it must be hard. She must feel so lonely without them. No wonder she wanted something to make her feel like they were here with her. At least, he could help her.

"If you want, I can ask others to sew for you. Can you describe your sister to me?"

"You would really do that for me?" Sweetie asked with hope in her eyes.

"Yes! So?"

"Rarity is an unicorn, like me. See my horn?" Waddle Dee confirmed by nodding. "She possesses white fur and a purple mane and tail. She always watch out for her look, so her fur, mane and tail are perfectly groomed, with some curls on the two later. She is also as thin as a model, which she could be, if she wanted. Her eyes are blue, and she has three blue gems as her Cutie Mark."

Waddle Dee tilted his head at the last part. "Cutie Mark?"

"Erm... How to explain... I can see that none of you have Cutie Marks so... Well, a Cutie Mark is a symbol that appears on our flanks when we find our special talent. I don't have one yet, because I haven't found my special talent."

Waddle Dee nodded to show he understands before asking, "Do you have any other... family members that you want a plush of?"

She smileed at how much Waddle Dee was ready to help her. "There is my Mom, my Dad, and my two best friends Apple Bloom and Scootaloo."

"Then describe them to me."

"Are you sure you will remember?"

"Yes, don't worry."

"Alright." And so, she did that. When lunchtime ended, Waddle Dee promised her that the plushies will be given to her as soon as they were finished. Sweetie Belle waved at him as they went their separate ways, before coming to a realisation: she didn't have anything to do... again, and she had five hours until her training. After waiting a little to see if anyone would give her something to do, she decided to ask a Broom Hatter at her left.

Thankfully, he did have something for her: cleaning more rooms! Better than nothing. Armed with a broom and a feather duster and protected by a kerchief, the same one that she forgot to give back this morning, she spent the following hours going from room to room fighting a whole army of dust helped by her loyal companions the Broom Hatters and Waddle Dees, all the while singing her songs to keep the moral up. This was a dirty war, but she will not give up! Until she looked at a clock and saw that it was time for her to quit the front line to go training. And so, she gave her weapons to her companions, bid them farewell, put back the kerchief around her neck, and started heading toward the boxing room... after asking directions from a passing Waddle Doo. Thankfully, she wasn't too far, so she didn't have too much problem remembering them.

Everything was well, until she was stopped by a running Spear Waddle Dee wearing sunglasses and a red cape coming from before her. "Hey! Rookie!"

"Yes?"

"Sorry I don't have much time! I must go patrol! Here, take these!" He gave Sweetie Belle the spear, put the sunglasses on her eyes, and attached the cape around her neck before putting it on her back. "The spear belongs to Waddle Dee, the sunglasses to Broom Hatter, and the cape to Blade Knight. Please, give them back. Imustgobye!" And then he was gone.

"Wha- Hey! Come back! Which Waddle Dee? Hey!" But he didn't come back... "I don't have time for that! I must go training! I will give them at dinner, or after!" she said to herself.

Thus Sweetie Belle, now wearing a white kerchief with green stars around her neck, a red cape, sunglasses, and a spear in her magic, continued her way to the boxing room. Sweetie wouldn't be surprised to learn that the Waddle Dee was playing superheroes or something like that, because as Scootaloo would say, she must look awesome. Oh! The games they could play together with her wearing that! Of course, the spear would be a fake. She couldn't help chuckling at the thought, before sighing at remembering that she was alone.

She finally reached the boxing room a little in advance. King Dedede wasn't yet here, but there were already a few weights, smaller than the one she used this morning.

Well, rather than wait, why not start now?

And she jumped on the ring, putting the spear beside her before starting to lift one of the weights. When Dedede showed up, she was in the process of lifting two of the smaller weights at the same time so she could try to get better at manipulating more than one object at once. He smiled at that.

"So you have already started. Impatient, uh?" He jumped on the ring. "Why are you wearing this attire?" he asked, seeing the cape and sunglasses. He didn't ask anything about the kerchief earlier, but now that was curious.

Sweetie put the sunglasses above her horn to better look at the king. "A Waddle Dee gave them to me a little before coming here. He wanted me to give them at their right owners, but I didn't have time. He was gone before I could protest, so I had to bring them here. Beside, he told me that they belong to a Waddle Dee, a Broom Hatter, and a Blade Knight, but he didn't precise which ones, and I didn't want to lose time asking all the Waddle Dees, Broom Hatters and Blade Knights living in the castle. So I will just wait for dinner."

"The spear too?"

"Yes."

He nodded. "You know? It gives you a look. Cute, yet badass. You should keep this look for when you will eventually fight Kirby. This way, he will know that you are not just another simple soldier."

She looked at him while raising an eyebrow. "Wouldn't it be more effective if I just look cute and innocent? Like that, he will lower his guard and I could take him by surprise."

Sweetie Belle's idea surprised Dedede who remained silent for a few seconds before he suddenly started laughing loudly. He then slapped Sweetie on the back, making her fall on the floor with an "Eep!" and said, "You definitely have potential! Your idea may actually work! Well then, let's start!"

For the first half of the hour, Sweetie simply trained by lifting the weights with her magic until her horn ached so much that she couldn't use it anymore. She had to thank Dedede for pushing her beyond her limit. Once he saw that she couldn't use her magic anymore, Dedede decided to change the training.

"Alright! Let's do something else, this time without your magic."

"What will we do?" Sweetie asked from the floor.

Dedede took his hammer, and smiled menacingly. It made Sweetie gulp. "I will attack you. You just have to dodge. Don't go beyond the edge of the ring."

"Say WHAT?!!"

"Dodge!"

It was all the warning he gave before he started swinging the hammer down at her, Sweetie Belle barely having time to jump out of the way. She quickly ran to the ropes of the ring before turning around to look at Dedede. "You are crazy! It's not training, it's torture!"

"No!" he answered. He took his hammer in his two hands and started running after her. "It's tough love!"

I'm gonna die...

---

Sweetie Belle was roughly dropped on a chair. The poor filly could barely keep her eyes open and she ached absolutely everywhere. Well, actually, not too much in her horn anymore, so she could use a little magic again. She couldn't believe it. By some miracle, she was able to avoid being hit by Dedede's hammer. She guessed that the threat of being stuck in an hospital bed at best, crushed to death at worst, had given a spring in her legs that she didn't know she could have. For thirty whole minutes, she had run, jumped and rolled without stopping, until Dedede told that it was time to stop. By then, once the adrenaline disappeared, she couldn't even crawl. So Dedede had taken her under his arm and brought her... Where had he brought her, actually? She fully opened her eyes, and saw that she was beside a really big table in a room that was not where she had taken her breakfast and her lunch. In this room, there was just her, Dedede on a throne-like chair at her left, and a few guards. Oh... There was also all the food on the table. Meat-some kind of bird-, omelette, fries, a big watermelon, a bunch of grapes, fruit juice, cookies, and a cake. Sweetie Belle started to drool.

"After effort comes comfort!" Dedede said as he started eating the meat. "You have done well at your training, so you deserve it."

She watched Dedede eating the bird. It would have disgusted her, but her own stomach screamed at her, so she started eating. Beside, free cake and cookies!

---

She may have gone a little too far with the food. Now her stuffed belly hurt, and no matter how many times she told herself that it had been worth it changed that. At least now she could relax in this warm bath with the other servants, the kerchief, spear, sunglasses and cape on the floor just outside the giant bathtub. She could fall asleep right there...

"Hey Sweetie Belle! Where were you?"

"Uh?" She opened her eyes to see a Waddle Dee approaching her. She had no problems guessing who was this Waddle Dee and smiled. "Hey. Sorry for not being there at dinner. King Dedede took me with him to eat after the end of our training session."

"Wow," said another voice at her right. When she looked, she saw a Broom Hatter, without his broom and his hat, on a floating chair. "You are saying that in just one day, you got close enough to the king to the point that he let you eat with him at his private table? What have you done after we left the boxing room?"

"Wh-? Oh! You are one of the Broom Hatter that were with me at the boxing room!"

"You didn't recognize me?"

Sweetie Belle smiled sheepishly at him. "Sorry. I just can't manage to differentiate you from the other Broom Hatters. Same thing with Waddle Dee here."

"I see. If it helps you, I'm the one who had the feather duster."

Oh yeah. The one who got too hot even if it was not hot. "Nice seeing you again!"

"Me too. And don't worry about the kerchief, you can keep it."

"Really? Thanks!" she screamed excitedly. "I like it!"

"N-no problem," he said while waving dismissively at her. Was it Sweetie or were his cheeks a little pink?

"So it's true?" Waddle Dee exclaimed with stars in his eyes. "You ate at the king's table?"

That made Sweetie blush. "Yes." Using a hoof on the edge of the bathtub, she got herself half out of the water to show her slightly rounded belly. "Here is the proof," she said with a laugh, patting it before getting back in the water. "Too much cake..."

"How did you do it?"

"Apparently, with my magic, I have become his trump card against Kirby. So now he is training me."

"So lucky!" Waddle Dee cried.

"Indeed. Lucky you," Broom Hatter said.

At their words, Sweetie laughed in embarrassment, hiding the bottom of her head under the water. Strangely, Broom Hatter's cheeks became even more pink.

Waddle Dee then looked above the edge of the bathtub. "What about this cape, these sunglasses, and this spear?"

Sweetie got her mouth out of the water to answer. "It's a Waddle Dee who gave them to me, so I could give them to who they belong, but I didn't have time because I had to go train with the king. I wanted to do it at dinner but... Well, clearly I couldn't."

"You said that one of the objects are sunglasses?" Broom Hatter asked. "Can you show them to me?"

"They may be yours? Then of course! He told me that the sunglasses belong to a Broom Hatter." Sweetie used her magic to give the sunglasses to Broom Hatter.

"Yep, they are mine." he said. He put them on him before relaxing. "Better... Thank you."

"But there are still the spear and the cape. Wait..." Waddle Dee said. He then put his arms before his... mouth... before screaming, "Is there someone here who doesn't have his spear or his red cape?!"

One of the Waddle Dees started jumping. "Oh! Me! Me! Me!" He then came beside Sweetie Belle to look at the spear. "Yes, it's this one, and I know to who this cape belongs to. I will bring them with me once I get out. Thanks!"

"You're welcome!"

"And that ends a good day of job well done," Broom Hatter said. "I like days like this. No problems, everyone is happy, all is good in the world. Of course, it means that tomorrow will probably suck..."

"Don't say that...!" Sweetie Belle screamed before suddenly stopping. "Hum... You don't mind if I call you Broom Sunglasses?"

"Broom Sunglasses? Eh, it's cool, I like it. Ok, I don't mind. As for tomorrow, we will see. And I reserve the right to say 'I told you so.'"

That made Sweetie sigh.

---

Sweetie Belle walked toward her chamber, drained of her energy. She was ready to fall asleep at any moment, her still full stomach not helping. If she ever got to eat with Dedede again, she will have to watch out what she eats, or she may end up as fat as the penguin despite the training.

She opened the door to her room. Despite the dark, she could still see a little thanks to the moonlight from the window. Thanks again Waddle Dee. After a brief detour in the bathroom to brush her teeth, she finally moved to her bed, only to be greeted by a great surprise that she had totally forgotten: on her bed were five plushies, all exactly like she had described to Waddle Dee. It wasn't perfect, Rarity's Cutie Mark was a little off for example, but it still was very good. Without being able to stop the tears, she got on the bed, covered herself, and took the five plushies in her arms, nuzzling all of them while repeating "Thank you" again and again until she finally fell asleep.

And so ended her first day in Dream Land.

Chapter 4: Nightmare

"...No...No... I don't wanna be alone... No... Please... Rarity... Everypony... Where are you..." Sweetie Belle murmured in her sleep, hugging the Rarity plushie.

And then...

TUUUUUUUUUUUT!!!!!!!!

The sound of a horn rang in all the castle, making Sweetie Belle jump from her bed halfway to the ceiling!

"What?! Uh?! What's going on?!" she screamed while looking everywhere in panic. She saw through the window that it was still dark outside, the sun hadn't even risen yet! Leaving behind the bed with the cover and some of the plushies on the floor, she opened the door to see the servants and soldiers getting out of their chambers and running toward one of the end of the hallway. "What's going on?" she asked out loud at one of the Waddle Dees.

"Emergency meeting! We must all go to the main hall! Follow us!" he answered.

So Sweetie followed them to the main hall, an immense room in the center of the castle with a beautiful chandelier hanging from the ceiling, an oversized portrait of Dedede on one of the wall and all kinds of decorations, half of them in gold and with Dedede's face or symbol on them in one way or another. Dedede himself was waiting beside the portrait as the hall was filling with guards and servants of all shapes and sizes. Wait, was this an UFO over there? A living UFO? Sweetie decided to not question it. One of the Waddle Dees saw her and waved at her. She recognized the Waddle Dee and approached him.

"Hey! Sorry for the rude awakening! I swear it's not a regular thing!" he said while rubbing his arm behind his head.

"It's ok," she answered. She then hugged him. "Thank you for the plushies. Thank also all the ones that participated for me."

Waddle Dee blushed at being hugged. "Hehe...he... You are welcome."

"Everyone!!!" suddenly yelled Dedede once the room stopped filling. "Something really bad happened this night! And I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about, because it probably happened to all of you!" He then waited to add some drama. Some of the servants in front of Dedede took that to confirm to him what he was talking about. "So I'm right."

"What happened!" Sweetie asked loudly to be heard.

Dedede looked at Sweetie with a rising eyebrow before answering. "We all had a nightmare!"

Everyone in the room gasped, excepted Sweetie who gave a deadpan look at Dedede. "What...?"

Dedede raised the other eyebrow at her expression. "You had a nightmare this night, right?"

At that, Sweetie's expression saddened. "Uh... Yes."

Waddle Dee raised an arm to attract Dedede's attention. "Remember my king, she is not from here! She doesn't know!"

"Right. Then I will explain to you. You see, Dream Land is called like that for three reasons. First: it's good to live here. It's a real land of dreams. Second: like in dreams, almost everything can happen. Well, for that one, it can extend to all Popstar."

At that, Sweetie turned her head to the living UFO. No kidding...

"Third, and that's the most important in our situation: in Dream Land, we dream! Thanks to the Fountain of Dreams, nightmares NEVER happen!"

At that, it didn't take long for Sweetie to understand. "Wait! But we all had a nightmare! So does it mean that something happened to that fountain?"

"Exactly what I thought! And as the king of Dream Land, it is my duty to go and see what happened! With luck, it's just the Star Rod that has fallen from the fountain, but just in case, we must prepare! So get ready everyone!" Once he ended his speech, he started walking toward one of the exits of the hall. "I also want a dozen Bronto Burts to come with me!"

The exact number of Bronto Burts started to fly behind Dedede while all the other servants and guards scattered.

"I must go Sweetie. What will you do?" asks Waddle Dee.

"I don't know... I have no idea what to do." She then looked at the door where Dedede exited the room. "I'm gonna talk to Dedede. See you." Leaving behind her friend, she exited the hall by the same door and quickly caught up to the king. "Wait!"

At hearing her, Dedede turned around to see her approaching. "What do you want?"

"Can I come with you please? I don't know what to do here, and it will give me the occasion to discover Dream Land! I haven't gone out of the castle yet."

Dedede rubbed his chin at what she asked. "Maybe? What do you think you will be able to do alongside me?"

"Learn?" Sweetie proposed.

"Good enough, I suppose. Alright, come."

"Yaay!"

---

The group exited the castle, giving Sweetie her first real view of Dream Land, and it was beautiful! Fields full of flowers, green forests, uplands, ocean as clear as a mirror... It was really a land of dreams, very close to Equestria actually. She could see that they were at the top of a big mountain. But when she looked behind at the castle, she couldn't help but shiver at its design. It was a castle entirely made of brown stone, the same color as the mountain, and looking more like a fortress than a castle like the one in Canterlot. The most disturbing were the two glaring eye-like windows at the top of the castle, giving it the aspect of an angry beast, making the front door its mouth. It really looked more like where an evil overlord would live.

And now it was her home...

Dedede interrupted her. "Awesome castle, right? Sadly, we don't have time to admire it. Hop on me."

"Why?"

"You will see."

Sweetie nodded before jumping. Dedede being taller than a pony, she was not able to reach his shoulder, so she had to climb his finery the rest of the way.

"Mmh... I will have to train you to jump higher," Dedede said. "Everyone here can jump higher than what you just did."

"Really? Back at Equestria, it is an average jump."

"Yes, but trust me, if you are going to live here in Dream Land, you will have to learn to jump higher. This place possesses many spots where you have to jump to continue your way, unless you want to lose time with big detours."

"Okay... So what now?"

"Now you cling to me and watch."

Dedede then opened his mouth and started inhaling, making Sweetie shiver at the memory of her being inhaled. After two seconds of inhaling air, Dedede finally closed his mouth, now looking like a big balloon with his belly full of air. To Sweetie's surprise, he started floating.

"Whaaat?!"

At this, one of the Bronto Burts chuckled. "Impressive, right? After his defeat against Kirby, King Dedede spent days training to float like him."

"Kirby can do this too?"

"Yes, an annoying move, because he can avoid most of us and our attacks this way."

"So, can Kirby inhale too?"

"Oh yes... I... personally experienced it. Kirby possesses a stomach that is like a black hole and can eat almost everything, including us."

"Eep!"

"Don't worry! We don't know how, but if you are eaten by Kirby, then you will reappear elsewhere close enough as if nothing happened! You can ask around! At Kirby's first... visit, at least a quarter of our army got eaten by him, and yet, we are all alive!"

"I can confirm," another Bronto Burt said.

"Me too."

"Me three. But it's not a pleasant experience."

"I... see..." Now she was scared of encountering this Kirby. "But why did he attack you?"

All the Bronto Burts diverted their eyes at her question. One of them eventually answered. "We... kinda took all the food of the kingdom, and Kirby wasn't ok with that..."

It let Sweetie agape, not able to say a word. She then remembered how Dedede said the word 'hero' while speaking of who she thought was Kirby the first evening.

So I'm living with the bad guys?!

---

After some time, they finally reached the place where the Fountain of Dreams was, which one of the Bronto Burts named 'Rainbow Resort'. She had found Dream Land beautiful, but this place went beyond that! It was really high in the sky, to the point that there was not a cloud hiding the stars and whatever else there was up there. Instead, there were auroras mainly blue and purple. The floor was partly covered in ice reflecting the auroras alongside some yellow and green spots, and with that, she understood why it was called 'Rainbow Resort', even if there were no rainbows. There were even stars in some parts of the floors! And plants of the same colors here and there! She could also see a tall tower a little further, and she wondered why there was one here. An observatory? It would be perfect to observe the sky. Twilight would love it!

And exactly at its center was the famous Fountain of Dreams, and she could already see that there was indeed a problem. The water shouldn't be black, right?

When they reached the floor beside it, Sweetie hopped off from Dedede's shoulder and hid behind him. If she had to choose between two potential evils, best to choose the one that had been 'friendly' to her. Too bad for her, Dedede decided to approach the fountain and its dark water. She gulped, and chose to remain where she was alongside the Bronto Burts.

Dedede looked at the dark water, wondering what to do to get rid of it. He then decided to put his hand in the water to see if it would do something. That was when the Star Rod, a red and white scepter with a yellow star at the top that was in the center of the fountain, let out some black mist that started to take some form above it. Seeing the mist, Sweetie was reminded of Nightmare Moon, and took a few steps back. Dedede moved back too, scared of what was getting out of the fountain, as a dark laugh started resonating.

A figure emerged from the mist, with first a dark blue head with a long chin, and wearing dark shades that flashed above his eyes. He also wore an even darker blue helmet with gold jewels on it, and a pair of really long yellow horns. An evil smirk was present on his face, promising suffering to all present. Then came two hands of the same color as his head, with long fingers ending in really sharp nails.

If it didn't scream 'evil'...

The being then started to talk. "So, someone finally decides to come die before me. Who are you, fool?"

Dedede took a big gulp to resolve himself, and answered, "I am Dedede! King of Dream Land! And I ask who YOU are! And what do you want?!"

"My name is Nightmare. And what I seek is really simple: terror. Sweet terror."

"Why!"

"Terror is power. With it, I will soon be able to take a physical form. When that happens, I will plunge the whole world in an eternal nightmare, and spread my power to the whole universe."

"And do you expect me to let you?" Dedede replied.

"Will you be able to stop me?" Nightmare replied back.

"You wanna bet?!" He took is hammer, ready to clobber that thing. Then, he jumped, and hit Nightmare right on the head. Falling back on the floor, he jumped back to see how Nightmare will answer. Nightmare hadn't even flinched at the hit, instead laughing before pointing a finger at Dedede. From the finger, he shot blue star-shaped hollow projectiles at Dedede, in too much quantity for him to dodge all of them. Dedede found himself propelled on his back, groaning.

Sweetie Belle couldn't believe it! Dedede had seemed so powerful with this hammer, his inhaling technique, and his jump! And yet, not only he was getting trashed by Nightmare, but also, his hammer did absolutely nothing to that thing! If only she could help, but she didn't know how to fight! And it wasn't with her little hooves that she will be able to hurt him if even this hammer didn't work!

After a few minutes of a one sided fight, Dedede suddenly did something that took everyone by surprise, including Nightmare: he jumped on the fountain, took the Star Rod from its pedestal, and broke it!

"No! Stop!" Nightmare screamed as he started to disappear. After a few second, there was nothing left of him. Dedede just saved the world! But in consequence, the fountain had stopped working, leaving just enough water inside the fountain so it wasn't empty. At least, no more nightmares, but no more dreams too... How will they be able to fix it?

Badly hurt, Dedede took back his breath, before saying, "There! Take that! You... whatever you are!" He then broke the Star Rod a few more times, until it was in seven pieces.

Sweetie Belle approached him slowly. "Are you alright?" she asked.

"Yeah, don't worry for me. Bronto Burts!" he called.

The Bronto Burts advanced. "Yes sir?"

Dedede gave one of the parts of the Star Rod to one of them. "We need to make sure that that thing doesn't come back. You, I want you to give this to Whispy Woods."

"Yes sir," the Bronto Burt said before going.

Dedede gave four other parts to four other Bronto Burts. "This one goes to Paint Roller, I trust him. This one goes to Mr Shine and Mr Bright, their power should keep it safe. This one goes to Kracko, he is my best lieutenant. And this one goes to Heavy Mole, he will hide it under earth. As for the last two... I will keep one. And the last one..." He gave the last part to a sixth Bronto Burt. "It goes to the Knight. You know who I'm talking about. He doesn't like working for others, but I'm sure he will accept once you explain to him what happened."

"Yes sir."

"So that's it?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Seems like it, for now," Dedede answered. "Well, we are going back to the castle. But first, I need a bath." In then started to walk to the fountain.

"You are going to take a bath in the fountain? Isn't it disrespectful?"

"I don't care. Beside, I have heard that the water possesses healing properties."

And so, King Dedede started to take a bath in the fountain... Sweetie now understood better who he was. Dedede was a selfish king with an ego big like the world. But at the same time, he could be a nice guy, ready to risk his life to do his duty, like protecting his kingdom. His loyalty made her remember Rainbow Dash. If they ever meet... Ooh boy, what a duo they would form.

Sweetie Belle saw then something in the sky and looked up. She could see a yellow star moving. "Ooh! A shooting star!"

"Uh?" Dedede heard her and looked up from his spot in the fountain, only for his eyes to grow in shock. "That is not a shooting star! It's Kirby on his Warp Star!" He then started grinding his teeth in anger. "Of course he would come to investigate!"

The Warp Star passed above them, before turning back and leaving from where it had come from. Sweetie hadn't been able to see Kirby.

Dedede got out of the fountain and started pounding the ground with his foot. "Now he will start gathering the parts of the Star Rod! And he will doom all of us! You!" He pointed to the remaining Bronto Burts. "Separate and spread the word to the whole army and the guardians of the Star Rod pieces! It's a Pink Alert! I repeat, a Pink Alert!"

"Yes sir!"

"What about me?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"You are not ready to face Kirby. So I will train you here until he is either defeated, or is able to come here. But frankly, I doubt he will be able to beat Meta Knight. That guy is on another level. But if he comes, then you will be my last line before me, whether you are ready or not."

She gulped.

Chapter 5: Dream

She thought that the training last evening had been hard, but it seemed like Dedede decided to give everything in order to prepare her to fight Kirby. The fact that she could heal any injuries she got thanks to the fountain probably helped him because it meant that he didn't have to hold back.

The whole training consisted of only one thing: fight him. If she was able to fight against Dedede, then she will be able to fight against Kirby, knowing that Kirby had beaten Dedede. It meant that in the space of a few hours, she had to become powerful enough to win against Dedede, and become even more powerful again to win against Kirby. Unless Dedede had been able to get better than Kirby thanks to his training.

She had no chance... At least, when she will be eaten, she will not die, just reappear not too far.

Or she could use what she told Dedede yesterday. Be cute and innocent, approach him, and beat him with a well placed punch.

She will NOT kill him, so no backstabbing or whatever, even if it was probably the best idea. She will just punch him in the face and hope he didn't wake up. If he wakes up, well... at least she will have tried, and she will have an interesting subject of conversation with Waddle Dee about what it was like to be eaten.

As for fighting Dedede, right now, it was more a 'run away and hope to not get crushed', where she was the one running. She tried to punch Dedede, but she couldn't jump high enough to reach his face, and punching him in the belly didn't work because her hoof bounced on it. Dedede actually laughed at that.

If only she knew how to shoot magical lasers from her horn! Was her magic even enough to shoot a laser?

Eventually, she decided to try something. Rather than running, she dodged the hammer, and quickly hurried to Dedede's feet before crushing one with one of her back hooves. She couldn't buck as strongly as an earth pony, but hopefully, it will hurt him.

She was answered by Dedede holding back a scream, air coming out of his nose, before he swung his hammer at her from her side. Next thing she knew, she was propelled right into the water of the fountain. Ooh her back... Dedede quickly picked her up from the water before depositing her on the ground.

"This was a nice try, but you shouldn't let your guard down when you attack."

"Like what you are doing each time you bring down your hammer?" Sweetie Belle replied.

"Mph! Touché. Well, you have the advantage of being smaller and faster, so if you focus, you shouldn't have this problem."

"I will work on it... for my back," Sweetie Belle groaned, making Dedede laugh.

"My king! My king!"

The two turned their head to face a Bronto Burt coming toward them in panic.

"Yes?" the king said.

"Whispy Woods has lost!"

Dedede sighed at hearing this news. "Of course... I should have guessed. Thanks, return fighting Kirby."

"Yes sir!"

Sweetie watched the Bronto Burt go before asking, "You knew that that Whispy Woods would lose?"

"Yes. He is not really the most powerful. He is just a tree that throws apples and puffs at you. Against someone who doesn't know how to fight, he can do his job, but against someone with enough strength to hurt him despite his bark, he is a pushover. That's why I gave him one of the pieces. Who would guess that the weak tree is guarding such an important artefact?"

A living tree? Focus Sweetie! "Well, Kirby did."

"Mph! Probably because he already fought Whispy the previous time. He must have thought that because Whispy helped me the first time, he would still help me the second time."

"That was still a good strategy for you, King Dedede," a voice coming from behind them said. When they turned around, they found a masked blue individual a little taller than a Waddle Dee (but still smaller than Sweetie Belle), half hidden behind a dark blue cape with gold trimmings. They could see that he also possessed shoulder pads of the same color, his left one bearing a symbol that was a blue "M" with a sword of the same color pointing up at the center. Glowing yellow eyes were the only thing visible of his face.

"Meta Knight?!" Dedede shouted at seeing him. "What are you doing here?!"

"Who is this, King Dedede?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Meta Knight ignored her to answer Dedede's question. "I wanted to see what happened for you to give me one of the pieces of the Star Rod."

"An entity named Nightmare was corrupting the Fountain of Dreams, giving nightmares to everyone to gain power. I was forced to break the Star Rod to stop him, and now he is stuck inside the fountain. I have no idea where that Nightmare came from, or how to get rid of him, so this is the only choice we have for now."

"But now this Kirby is gathering the pieces, threatening to unleash that entity to the world. Does he know about Nightmare?" Meta Knight summarized before asking.

"Not at all. He came on his Warp Star, saw the broken fountain and the missing Star Rod, and immediately left, probably assuming that I am the cause." At that, he crossed his arms and pouted. "Really, why would I destroy the Star Rod and deny all Popstar from dreaming? Just for a bath in the fountain? Come on! I'm better than that!"

Meta Knight chuckled. "Well, your little stunt with Dream Land's food probably didn't help your case in his eyes. And yes, I have heard everything about it, including your lost." Dedede facepalmed, groaning. "Now that I know better about the situation, I'm going back to watch Kirby. If Kirby is able to gather the first five pieces, then I will fight him at Orange Ocean. If he has been able to beat you, I'm curious to see how he will fare against my Meta Knights, and against me. I will try to think of a plan to get rid of Nightmare in the meantime. Worst case scenario, Popstar will have to do without the dreams." With these words, he covered himself completely in his cape. Surprisingly, he suddenly got thinner before ascending to the sky in the blink of an eye.

It left Sweetie agape, and full of questions.

"Who... Who was it?" she asked.

Dedede sighed before answering. "That was Meta Knight, a lonely knight leader of his own little army named after him, and probably the most powerful warrior of Popstar, even more than me. I know it because I once tried to make him my general, but he kicked my butt in return. Outside of that, I don't know much about him, this guy is full of mysteries. I don't even know how he looks behind his mask, or where he comes from. It makes him our best chance to stop Kirby."

Sweetie still looked, agape, at where the knight disappeared, before she suddenly heard her stomach rumble, making her blush. It made Dedede raise an eyebrow before he heard his own stomach asking for food.

"Right, we had no breakfast," he said before taking some device with a big button. After pressing it, he placed the device beside his head and started talking after a few seconds. "Yes it's me. I didn't have my breakfast. Make one and get it transported to the Fountain of Dreams pronto. Make another one for Sweetie Belle too." He then pressed the button again and put away the device.

An invention to communicate in long distance? thought Sweetie, yet again agape. This was becoming a habit. Twilight would sooo want one! And maybe Rarity too, to take commands.

---

After breakfast, thankfully for Sweetie not as filling as last night's dinner, training resumed, with the same results as previously. At one moment, Sweetie found herself under the hammer without being able to dodge in time, so instead, she put her forehooves above her head and caught it with them. It didn't stop the hammer from crushing her with Dedede's strength, but at least it lost enough of its momentum to make sure that she was not turned into a pancake. But her poor legs... Owie...

This gave Dedede an idea, so after a quick bath in the fountain for Sweetie, he started it. He told her to take the same position, forehooves above her head, and to not move. He then started to press his hammer against her hooves, and told her to push it back. Little by little, he gave more strength to the hammer, until it started to be too much for Sweetie Belle and she started to buckle under his weight. So he stopped and decreased the pressure, making Sweetie push the hammer back. Then he started to go back and forth between increasing and decreasing the pressure.

Even after they heard that Paint Roller was defeated, they continued the exercise until Sweetie's legs gave up. He then told her to do the same thing, but with her magic, and the training continued, exercise after exercise.

After a heavy lunch, and after taking a break to digest, they continued. After hearing of Mr Shine and Mr Bright's defeat, they continued. At Kracko's defeat, they continued.

Rainbow Dash would love this place. Infinite training thanks to the fountain's water. She would pass days here, Sweetie Belle thought then.

Came Heavy Mole's defeat, and this was when they were interrupted by Meta Knight's sudden arrival.

"Kirby just reached Orange Ocean." he said.

"I know. I got the news," Dedede replied while Sweetie used his belly as a punching bag. "Stronger! I don't feel anything!"

"I can't hit harder!" Sweetie Belle shouted back. "I'm using all I have!"

Dedede sighed. "You weren't a big athlete in your homeworld, right?"

Sweetie rubbed her head before answering. "Not really. I ran a lot, and I did some stuff here or there, but I'm not the sportive type. My friend Scootaloo is the sportive one. And Apple Bloom is the strong one. I'm more... hum... the smart one. Not like my friends are stupid!"

Dedede just shook his head at that. He looked back at Meta Knight. "So you will fight Kirby?"

"Yes, I haven't changed the plan. But I think I have found a way to get rid of Nightmare, but it's risky."

"Better than nothing. What is it?"

"Let Kirby destroy him with the Star Rod."

"What?! Are you crazy?!" Dedede yelled.

"Hear me out. I think that Kirby can use the power of the Star Rod. Its power being the opposite of Nightmare's, making dreams, then he should be able to destroy him."

Dedede crossed his arms. "But you said 'I think', not 'I'm sure'. I will not take this risk. It has been countless years since someone has been able to use the Star Rod." He sighed. "I will think of it as a last resort for the worst case. Until then, I will continue to try to stop Kirby."

Meta Knight only nodded in answer before departing like he did earlier, soon to fight Kirby.

It was in the middle of dinner that they learned that he lost, to everyone's shock.

---

"I still can't believe that he lost. Are you ready?" Dedede asked to Sweetie Belle.

"Not really. But I will try," she answered, scared.

"I will hide behind the fountain. When... I mean, if he defeats you, then I will jump out and fight."

"O-okay..."

Dedede nodded, said, "Good luck," before hiding behind the fountain, which didn't work because the fountain barely hid him. But Sweetie will do as if she didn't see him.

And so she waited. And waited. And waited.

And finally, he fell from the sky.

Here he was, finally, Kirby, hero of Dream Land, supposedly now the most powerful warrior of Popstar. And he was... Oh my gosh! He is adorable! Sweetie barely suppressed a squee. Kirby was like the dummies had described. He was a pink puffball a little smaller than her, she would say about twenty centimeters, a bit smaller than a Waddle Dee, with tubby arms and feet that were a darker pink close to red. He had two small oval blue eyes, and blushing cheeks. And right now, he was watching her!

At seeing her, he tilted his head and let out a "Poyo?"

Squee! I wanna hug him!

Sweetie couldn't stop smiling has if she was Pinkie Pie. It was really him that was able to beat Dedede's army, Dedede himself, and Meta Knight? And Dedede expected her to hurt him? She couldn't!

Breathe, Sweetie, breathe! You have one job! Even if he is adorable, all this training and suffering would be for nothing if you don't at least try. Beside, there is a high risk that if you let him win, he will lead the world to its doom. You must do it! she told herself, trying to regain her calm.

Then she started to talk to him. "Hum... Hello! My name is Sweetie Belle! You are Kirby, right?"

She was answered by Kirby smiling, nodding and waving at her while saying "Hiiii!"

Gosh darn it! Stop being adorable! You are making my job harder! Is this what the adults feel when I do my 'puppy dog eyes'?

Then Kirby did something she hadn't expected: he hugged her.

"H-hey! What are you doing?! Stop! You shouldn't hug me! I'm an enemy! I'm working for Dedede! I have to beat you and... and..." she turned her head toward Dedede. "I can't! I'm sorry! I can't hurt him!"

Dedede facepalmed. Hard.

"Ugh! Just get out of here and let me fight then!"

"O-okay! I'm sorry! I really tried! I swear!" She turned to Kirby. "Sorry Kirby, I have to go so king Dedede can fight you." She then had an idea. "Hum... Can you lose please?" she pleaded, making her famous 'puppy dog eyes'. He shook his head and petted her on the neck. "Aww... Well, I'm going then. Good luck you two."

She quickly ran to get far enough of the future fight between Dedede and Kirby. Once she thought she was at a good distance, she stopped to watch.

Dedede jumped from behind the fountain and fell beside Kirby, who looked at him angrily. She heard him say, "I didn't think that you would be able to beat Sweetie Belle simply by hugging her. I knew she was not ready to face you, she isn't yet hardened to battles." He took his hammer. "But now you have to fight me, and it will not be as easy! I have trained hard for this day! Don't expect me to be sent flying again! I will not let you get the last piece of the Star Rod! Prepare to be clobbered!"

And he started the fight by swinging down the hammer. Kirby dodged, and the hammer hit the floor instead, making appear one of these yellow stars that appeared every time he hit the ground with the hammer or when he jumped. Then Kirby inhaled the star, making him balloon up, and he spat it back to Dedede who was hit.

So that's how, Sweetie Belle thought at seeing that.

The hit seemed to make Dedede angry, because he then charged at Kirby and fell on him at the last second to try to crush him under his weight. But it looked like Kirby already knew this move, because he had no problem avoiding it by inflating before flying away. Dedede immediately followed his attack by jumping, trying to fall right on Kirby. Because he was slower in the air, Kirby wasn't able to dodge this attack and got flattened under Dedede's feet. Sweetie was worried for a moment, until Dedede moved away. Kirby then got back to normal, shaking his head to regain his bearing. He quickly dodged another swing of the hammer and inhaled the star it produced before hitting Dedede with it.

Dedede opened his mouth, about to use the same technique as Kirby, but Kirby got out of the way just before Dedede started to inhale. Seeing that Kirby had dodged, Dedede decided instead to inhale the air to inflate his belly, making him float. Kirby seemed surprised at that, making Dedede smirk.

Yeah, I remember, it's a new move, Sweetie Belle thought. Watching these two fight was really something. Dedede unleashed all the techniques he possessed in hope of hitting Kirby, and Kirby tried to dodge them until a yellow star appeared to use it as a projectile. Was it really all there was? Had he really been able to beat Meta Knight with just that? It would seem that Meta Knight would be hard to hit because of his smaller size. There must be something else.

Kirby had a hard time trying to dodge Dedede while he floated around to crush him under his belly. After some time, he released the air and fell back on the floor and charged again at Kirby. Not hitting Kirby, he jumped again, but this time, Kirby was able to dodge before inhaling one of the stars appearing and spitting it back at Dedede. The king decided to get serious, and started swinging around his hammer, again and again, running after Kirby all the time. Kirby ran toward the fountain, dodged another swing, and jumped on the edge of it before making another jump this time to reach Dedede's head. He then used the back of Dedede's head as a springboard to bounce away, making Dedede fall, his head hitting the edge of the fountain.

Ouch! That must have hurt! Sweetie thought while recoiling at the impact, closing her eyes.

Dedede quickly recovered and started inhaling again. This time, Kirby was not able to dodge, and got sucked toward Dedede's mouth. Before entering it, Dedede closed it and swung his hammer right at Kirby's trajectory, hitting him full force and sending him away. Kirby bounced on the floor a few times before landing on his feet and running back toward Dedede who jumped, starting to fall in Kirby's trajectory. A back jump saved Kirby from being crushed, and he was able to hit Dedede with another star.

Another swing of the hammer, another star in the face. Kirby took the opportunity to jump again to Dedede's head, but rather than falling on it, he punched Dedede in the left eye, making him scream in pain as he covered his eye with his hands, releasing the hammer.

Sweetie's eyes became as big as saucers at seeing what Kirby did next: he ate the hammer! Not just that, but eating the hammer caused something in Kirby. In the blink of an eye, some kind of headband appeared around his head, and a smaller version of the hammer appeared in Kirby's right arm.

Dedede stared at what happened dumbly for a few seconds before he yelled, "Since when can you do that?!"

He was answered by the hammer slamming on his right foot, before bonking him on his head while he screamed again. He was able to slap Kirby away, but the puffball quickly came back for more hammer time.

So he can use weapons? I suppose it's how he won against Meta Knight, Sweetie Belle thought. It was good to know, if she ever ended up really fighting Kirby in the future. Cuteness will not always save him!

Before long, Dedede fell on the floor. Kirby then released his hammer, under the form of a brown star that bounced out of him before the star transformed back into Dedede's hammer, which fell right on his head. The piece of the Star Rod droped from Dedede, at Kirby's feet. Once Kirby took it, the seven pieces started to gravitate around him before forming the completed Star Rod in a big flash of light.

Star Rod in hand, he started to make his way to the fountain.

Oh no! We must stop him! But how?

To her surprise, Dedede woke up and clung himself to Kirby's foot. And yet Kirby continued to walk. How strong was this little guy?

"Stop! Don't put the Star Rod back!" Dedede screamed, only to be thrown away with a swipe of the Star Rod.

Sweetie started running to them, and yelled, "Stop!"

Too late.

Kirby planted the Star Rod right where it belonged, and the fountain started to work again. Everything seemed good, but Sweetie and Dedede knew better. Indeed, not a few seconds later, the fountain stopped working, and something black started to form at its center. Before long, a blue sphere, purple and pink at the bottom with white stars everywhere, got out of the fountain, knocking out the Star Rod, before flying away.

Nightmare was free.

Right as everything seemed lost, Dedede remembered what Meta Knight said. He then said to Kirby, who was panicking, "So, you want to play hero? Then go being a hero!" He then inhaled Kirby and the Star Rod, and spat them toward the sky in the direction where Nightmare flew. "Let's hope you are right, Meta Knight."

---

Turned out the impossible was in fact possible. Kirby could use the Star Rod like he used the hammer earlier. With it, Kirby could shoot yellow stars at Nightmare, and they seemed to hurt him. Sweetie and Dedede could see Kirby battling the sphere in the sky, which was shooting back blue star-shaped projectiles that he dodged. Sometime, the sphere also sent some blue waves to Kirby. They were big, fast, and hard to dodge, so Kirby got hit the first time. But eventually, Kirby was able to force Nightmare to retreat. A Warp Star then appeared and Kirby took it and followed Nightmare, toward the moon, where Sweetie and Dedede couldn't follow the fight to the filly's disappointment.

Soon after, they could see the Warp Star coming back from the moon, followed by an explosion at the surface of the moon like Sweetie had never seen before, leaving a big crater easily visible.

Dedede sighed in relief. "Let's go back to the castle, Sweetie Belle."

She hopped on his shoulders before Dedede inflated to fly back to the castle. As they flew, the Warp Star flew beside them for a moment, and Kirby waved at them. Sweetie waved back. Then the Warp Star went toward the fountain, and Kirby let the Star Rod fall right at its place on it, giving back the indescribable spectacle of the Fountain of Dreams working. After that, the Warp Star flew away, disappearing in the horizon.

Sweetie Belle will never forget this day.

Her first world crisis.

Her first look at Popstar.

Her first encounter with a real bad guy.

Her first encounter with Meta Knight.

Her first encounter with Kirby.

Her first 'fight' against Kirby.

The Fountain of Dreams.

What a day! And it was only her second day!

At the castle, Broom Sunglasses said, "I told you so."

Chapter 6: The Calm After the Nightmare

"What a day it was yesterday," Waddle Dee said.

"You don't say..." Sweetie Belle replied.

It was the day just after the events with Nightmare. Sweetie Belle and Waddle Dee were taking their breakfast, reminiscing the previous day, especially Sweetie.

"Nobody told me that Kirby could spit fire! I was thinking that I would get eaten, but no! I got roasted!" Waddle Dee yelled while pounding the table.

"Wait, he can spit fire? Why didn't he use it against Dedede?" Sweetie Belle asked in surprise.

"What? This doesn't make sense!"

"No more than the fact that he could use ice!" another Waddle Dee beside them said. "You got roasted? I got frozen!"

"And I got cut!" a third Waddle Dee said. "He had a sword! I didn't know he could use weapons!"

"King Dedede too, apparently." Sweetie Belle replied. "Kirby ate his hammer, and a few seconds later, he was being clobbered! The fight didn't even last a minute after that!"

"I know what happened!" a fourth Waddle Dee said. "I saw it! I was behind a Waddle Doo! Then Kirby ate him, and next thing I knew, he was wearing some jester hat and a scepter from which he could shoot the same attack as Waddle Doo!"

"He can copy what he eats?!" many of the ones listening him screamed.

"But I don't understand!" a fifth Waddle Dee said. "I found myself against Kirby the first time, and I saw him eat a Waddle Doo too, and yet, he didn't copy his attack!"

"Maybe he hadn't developed this ability yet," a Waddle Doo answered. "Does that mean he will gain more abilities in the future?"

"I hope not!" the second Waddle Dee said. "If he can copy, then he is already powerful enough!"

"I saw him in a UFO! He passed right above me!"

"He crushed me! He had transformed into a rock!"

"The others and I couldn't approach him! There were sharp needles all over his body!"

And this went on for the rest of breakfast.

---

"Sweetie Belle, you didn't say what happened to you. Did you face Kirby?" Waddle Dee asked after breakfast, as they walked in the hallways of the castle.

"Sort of. I was trained all day by Dedede knowing that I would fight Kirby if he reached the fountain, but when I encountered him, he hugged me!"

"Say again?"

"He hugged me! And because of that, I couldn't resolve myself to hurt him! He was just so cute! That was not fair!" She sighed. "But in the end, it was for the better. He was able to beat Nightmare with the Star Rod."

"Really?! He was able to use the Star Rod?" Waddle Dee said with stars in his eyes.

"Yes. We saw him. He was shooting stars at Nightmare with it like this! Piouh! Piouh! Piouh!" At each "Piouh!", she swung her right hoof like Kirby had swung the rod in his fight against Nightmare.

"Awesome!"

"I know!"

"So, will you continue to train?" Waddle Dee asked then.

"Yes. I still want to get better at magic. And also, who knows when Dedede will want to try his luck at fighting Kirby again? I may end up facing Kirby, and this time, what happened yesterday may not happen."

"I see your point."

---

Having some free time, Waddle Dee decided to show Sweetie Belle more of Dream Land. So he packed a lunch for the both of them, and they exited the castle, going down the main path. Now that it was daytime, Sweetie could better see Dream Land and all its colors. She was amazed by the beauty of this kingdom, and contrary to Equestria, not a single bad place like the Everfree Forest could be seen... outside of Dedede's castle, and some place always covered in clouds that seemed ready to storm that could be seen from the windows toward the North. She could see the vast grasslands, with lakes, rivers and forests scattered a little everywhere, and mountains in some places too. She could see the vast ocean, reflecting the light of the sun, with a few islands here and there. She remembered flying with Dedede above it the previous day to go to the Fountain of Dreams. She could even see cloudy structures! She could feel a calm fresh breeze on her fur, making her want to go sit under a tree and just watch the lands in calm, and maybe sleep. This really was a land of dreams, almost perfect to live in. To think that just the previous day, all of this had been threatened...

"I can see that you will love living here. Everybody does," Waddle Dee said.

"Yeah. It's so beautiful, and peaceful. I wouldn't mind living here forever, if it wasn't for... you know."

"Your family and friends back at your home. Yes. But if you find a way to come back and forth between our two worlds, then I'm sure Dedede won't mind you living at the castle. Unless you will prefer to build a house?"

"Well, it would depend if I am still working for him or not."

"Oh you know, you aren't forced to live in the castle to work for him. Most of us live a little everywhere in Dream Land, or even beyond. The castle is too small for our whole army. Dedede possesses a few more fortresses scattered around the kingdom. Maybe you will see them one day."

"That's impressive! His army must be really big!"

"And yet we got beaten, twice, by a puffball," he laughed. "And the second time, we even had the support of the Meta Knights. I don't know if I must be impressed or scared by Kirby."

"Why not both?"

"Yes. Both. Both are good. Come, I will show you something. Look attentively by where we pass."

---

"And here is where the hero lives!" Waddle Dee whispered, both him and Sweetie Belle hidden in a bush. He pointed at a small white house that was a half sphere, with a door made of wood, a single window beside the door, and a chimney made of bricks. Beside the house was a tree, giving it some shadow. To reach it, Sweetie Belle and Waddle Dee didn't have to go too far, but Waddle Dee had to help Sweetie jumping above some holes and small cliffs. So that was why she needed to learn to jump higher?

"This is Kirby's house? Why are you showing it to me? And why are we hiding and whispering?" Sweetie Belle whispered.

"I am showing it to you so you know where he lives just in case. And we are hiding because I don't want to know what he will do to us if he finds out we are here."

"But he is friendly. At least to me. And he had no problems forgiving Dedede once he discovered why he destroyed the Star Rod. I'm sure he would not attack you as long as you don't give him reasons to."

"Maybe but... just... let's go. We will come back another time. He is probably recuperating after yesterday's events."

"Yes... Probably."

---

"Aah... It was good," Sweetie Belle said.

"Yeah... The cooks are real masters," Waddle Dee replied.

The two of them were sitting under a tree, Sweetie leaning against Waddle Dee. Beside them was the basket in which Waddle Dee had packed their lunch, now empty. Before them was a lake, as blue and clear as the sky. A group of Bronto Burts flying peacefully not far and the fresh breeze ended to make this moment perfect. Almost...

"If only she was here," Sweetie Belle said gloomily.

"Who?"

"My sister, Rarity. She doesn't like being dirty, but sometime, she would take a picnic with her family and friends. And this place..." She waved at the lake before them. "It would be so perfect, having a picnic with her, in the shadow of this tree, with this breeze. We would sleep together, letting time pass, in peace..." She sighed. "I miss her so much, Waddle Dee."

"Don't worry," Waddle Dee said, patting her. "You will see her again, one day. Remember, 'hope'? When that day comes, if you can, you will show her this place, and you will have a picnic under this tree, together. And you will recount to her every wonderful things that have happened to you."

"Yes... You are right. Thank you, Waddle Dee. Thank you..." she replied, before closing her eyes, falling asleep on Waddle Dee.

Seeing that, Waddle Dee put his arm around Sweetie Belle as much as he could to make sure she didn't fall, before falling asleep too.

---

"Yesterday, I learned something," Dedede said. "You love cute things, and you have a hard time to bring yourself to harm one, especially if this cute thing is friendly to you."

"Sorry..." Sweetie Belle said, looking at the floor of the boxing ring.

"Don't be. You are a child, I should have seen it coming. This is why I will train you, from now on, to fight cute things!"

"How?"

At that, Dedede put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. A Waddle Dee came from behind one of the stands and jumped on the ring.

"By punching him!" he exclaimed, pointing at the Waddle Dee. "This Waddle Dee will act all cute, and you will have to attack him despite that! You have the whole hour!"

"I-I don't know if I will be able to do it! They are so adorable!" Her words made the Waddle Dee blush.

"And yet you have to! If you don't punch him at least once by the end of the hour, no dessert at dinner!"

"EH?!"

"And we will start again tomorrow! And if you still don't, then the day after, and the day after, until you finally punch him! Until then, no dessert at dinner!"

"EEEEEH?!"

"Now, start!" And at that, Dedede exited the ring, letting Sweetie Belle with the Waddle Dee.

Sweetie Belle stared at the Waddle Dee, who watched her back... with these eyes... these cheeks...

He tilted his head.

This will be hard.

---

"Breath in. Breath out. Breath in. Breath out."

"Five minutes left!" Dedede suddenly yelled.

"Eep!" Already?! It's too fast!

Seeing her time closing, she finally decided to try something. She passed the whole hour, eyes closed, breathing, trying to resolve herself to hit the Waddle Dee. Now in panic, she closed her eyes, took one last big breath, and started running toward the Waddle Dee. "I'm sorry!" she screamed.

The Waddle Dee then did the worst thing he could have done to her. He stopped her in a hug and said, "It's alright."

"Aah...! Not fair!"

"Sorry."

She stared at the Waddle Dee, then at Dedede in panic, then back at the Waddle Dee. She closed her eyes. "Raaaahhhhh!!!" She raised her right hoof, and brought it down fast right in Waddle Dee's left eye, throwing him on his back.

"Ah! My eye!" he screamed in pain, putting his arm on his eye.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" she yelled in panic at what she did to this poor Waddle Dee.

"It... It's alright! You did what you had to do. I'm not angry," Waddle Dee replied. "But now, I have to go take a bag of ice... Good job. By the way you have one heck of a punch."

The Waddle Dee got out of the ring and exited the room. Dedede clapped at Sweetie Belle.

"Bravo! Bravo! This is a good start!"

"Y-yeah but... he wasn't angry at me. He knew that I had to do it, and knew that he would be punched. But Kirby... I don't want to make him cry."

Dedede sighed at her answer. "Then just tell him that you want to fight him. I'm sure he will understand. But it means goodbye to the surprise effect. So you will have to gain enough skills to surpass Kirby in a real fight."

"Which means more training."

"Exactly. Actually, from now on, you can train as much as you want. You will be both a servant and a soldier. So if you have nothing to do, you can come here. But don't overexert yourself. We don't have the Fountain of Dreams to recover your energy."

"Okay. Thank you, King Dedede."

"And now..." Dedede suddenly exclaimed. "We will take more time to train! I will attack you, you try to dodge me, and you attack me in return. Remember? Like you did yesterday, except you will also try to not be hit this time by my own counterattacks.

"But, isn't it dinnertime?" Sweetie asked.

"Dinner can wait!"

---

"Owie!" Sweetie Belle shouted as she was dropped on a chair at the king's dinner room.

The training went well for a couple dozen minutes, until she finally got hit by the hammer. Now her back hurt like Tartarus! That ended the training, and now, here they were, ready to eat. Before her was a bowl full of pasta, and behind it, a big chocolate cake, among other things. Dedede was really a big eater.

"You did good today. Don't worry for your back, it will heal quickly, trust me. Actually, you will not feel it by the end of this meal."

"How? It will take days before it stops hurting!"

Dedede smirked at her. "You will see."

After a moment, Sweetie started to eat her pasta. Almost immediately, some sort of light surrounded her, to her surprise. She looked around her, only for the light to stop. That was when she felt that her back hurt a little less!

"What?!" she screamed. She then watched the bowl of pasta closer, putting a fork in it. "Is there some healing potion inside the pasta?!"

At her reaction, Dedede guffawed. "Welcome to Dream Land! Where food can heal you! A simple fruit can heal a broken bone!"

Sweetie stared agape at Dedede. "No way!"

"And yet...!" He pointed at Sweetie's back. "Continue to eat and you will see!"

Sweetie continued to stare at Dedede in disbelief. A world where food can heal?! If Twilight learns about it, she will have a meltdown! And Pinkie... Ooh boy...

---

At the bath.

"So, how was training? You took longer today," Waddle Dee said.

"Awful. I had to hit a Waddle Dee. I was feeling so guilty! Then I got hit by Dedede's hammer, my back had hurt so much..." Sweetie Belle answered.

"Yeah, I can imagine that it must hurt," Broom Sunglasses said, on his floating chair.

"But then..." Sweetie continued. "I ate a bowl of pasta, and it didn't hurt anymore! You didn't tell me that food can heal here."

"I thought you knew. You mean food doesn't heal in your world?" Waddle Dee asked.

"Nope. It just makes sure that we aren't hungry anymore."

"Then how do you heal?" Broom Sunglasses asked.

"Healing spells, healing potions, or letting a doctor do their job, like stitch a big cut, put back the broken bone, put a bandage where it hurts, that kind of thing. Sometime, it takes months."

"Ugh. Now I know I will never go to your world. Wouldn't want to spend months stuck on a bed if I get hurt," Broom Sunglasses said.

"Me too!" Waddle Dee said.

"Yeah... My world must seems like Tartarus to you, seen like that."

"What is Tartarus?" Waddle Dee asked.

"Hum... It's an underground prison where the princesses imprison the really bag guys. They spend eternity trapped alone in a cage, without food or water, and yet they somehow can't die."

"Wow. Eternity in loneliness without anything good. Harsh," Broom Sunglasses said. "But if they are 'really bad guys', then wouldn't it be easier to simply kill them like Kirby did to Nightmare? They must deserve it."

It made Sweetie uneasy. "Mmh... Ponies aren't really fond on the whole 'killing' thing... I think we only do it if there is no other alternative."

"So your people are full pacifists? No wonder you suck at fighting," Broom Sunglasses replied.

"Hey! I'm still a filly! Of course I don't know how to fight bad guys like Nightmare or powerful Warriors like Dedede and Kirby!" She crossed her hooves and pouted. "Beside, thanks to Dedede's training, I'm getting better! I hit a Waddle Dee today!"

Broom Sunglasses clapped, slowly. "Woah... You hit a Waddle Dee? An exploit worthy of a god."

Sweetie Belle stared at him angrily for a whole minute without saying anything while blushing at his obvious sarcasm. She ended it by sticking out her tongue at him and immersing herself more in the water until only her muzzle and above were left, her ears pressed against her head.

It made Waddle Dee laugh while Broom Sunglasses started venting himself with a fan, his head all red.

Author's Notes:

So today a more calm chapter after the 'nightmarish' events of the previous day. It ends pretty much the first part of the story, the introduction. Is anybody dead of overcutness here ? If yes, then sorry, but I did warn to prepare the insuline.

Next time, we start the more serious business. The Dark business.

Chapter 7: Evil Sleepwalking Dedede?

In the dark of the night, who knows what is looming in the shadows? A dark form approached Castle Dedede, silently turning around it to spot what it sought. Not a sound was heard, all the inhabitants of the castle sleeping soundly despite some of them being on guard duty. The sleeping Waddle Dees on the walls proved it. But who could blame them? Nobody ever attacked the castle at night. The only time the castle was invaded had been during the day. Anyway, they were not what it sought.

It spotted a window larger than the others, and knew that it may be what it searched. So it approached the window and passed through it without a sound. And here he was, the king. Powerful, yet easily controllable. He will be perfect. Slowly, it approached the sleeping monarch. Soon enough, this world will fall into darkness.

---

Two weeks passed since the event with Nightmare, as peaceful as they should be. Sweetie Belle enjoyed them as much as she could, either working with the other members of Dedede's army, training mainly her magic, or going out to explore Dream Land, often with her friend Waddle Dee, and sometime with Broom Sunglasses when he was off cleaning duty. She had now fully entered her new life, her room now better decorated with more plushies, this time of Rarity's friends, a portrait of Dedede given by Dedede, a lamp, a shelf with some books, and a closet with some clothes including a maid outfit that Broom Sunglasses asked to be made for her to tease her because of how good she was at cleaning. She found it cute, so she decided to keep it, even if she will never wear it!

Well okay, she wore it once to get her revenge on Broom Sunglasses. She finally saw how Broom Sunglasses became all red each time she acted all cute beside him. When wearing this maid outfit, she looked absolutely adorable. Thus, by acting all cute while wearing it around Broom Sunglasses, the poor guy almost died, along with a couple dozens of Waddle Dees, a few Waddle Doos, and a Blade Knight. Dedede told her after that to only use this dreadful weapon against enemies invading the castle, and to make sure that no one else was present if it happened. That was before being sent back to his bed, because he lost consciousness when Sweetie had shouted "Yes sir!" and had saluted while still wearing the outfit. She immediately took it off after that.

At least, she could be proud to say that she was able to knock out King Dedede without even touching him.

Some of Dedede's servants started to name her 'Fatal Cutie' after this event, and now, a wooden plaque with written on it "Chamber of Sweetie Belle, the Fatal Cutie" with a skull at the bottom was studded on the door. Someone placed it here when she had been exploring outside. She couldn't help but roll on the floor laughing when she saw it the first time.

After, the inhabitants of the castle fully started to treat her as one of them, discussing more often with her, helping her, joking with her (jokes often linked to the 'Fatal Cutie Incident'), and pretty much being more friendly to her. Waddle Dee was still her best friend in the castle, but now, the majority of the castle's inhabitants could be considered as Sweetie Belle's friends. However, she still had problem to differentiate them, making it a source of teasing on their part.

And she was hugged, a lot.

Her training was also going well. She could now lift heavier weights, had an easier control on two objects at the same time and started training on three, she could jump high enough to punch Dedede in the face, and could now win a duel against a few of Dedede's soldiers. It started when, a few days ago, Dedede told her to fight a Waddle Dee until one of them was knocked out. She won, to his pleasure. The following days, she tested her skills against a few more Waddle Dees, a Waddle Doo, two Bronto Burts, and a Blade Knight. She won all her fight excepted the last one, where the Blade Knight, wearing a familiar red cape, was able to bonk the guard of his sword on the back of her head to knock her out.

Each day would end with a big dinner at Dedede's table, a hot bath with everyone else, and a good night.

She hadn't seen Kirby since the Nightmare incident.

---

Breakfast.

"And then, we were covered in sap! It took us hours to rid ourselves of it!" Sweetie said.

At the end of her tale, everyone listening to her started laughing. She then ended her drink with a proud smile at making everyone laugh, even if deep down, she was blushing in embarrassment at telling the misadventures of her and her friends to obtain their Cutie Marks. What a good way to start a day.

TUUUUUUUUUUUT!!!!!!!!

.... This day will be a bad one, right?

---

Everyone gathered at the main hall, only to be greeted by an unexpected sight: Dedede sleeping, while being on his feet.

What now? Sweetie Belle thought, worried.

Once everyone was present, they were starting to wait. After a moment, some of them started to wonder if they should wake up the king. That was when Dedede suddenly started to talk... while sleeping!

"Everyone," he started emotionlessly. "I have decided on the next plan to show everyone that I am the king and that I must be respected." He then stopped talking for a few seconds, before continuing. "We will go toward the Rainbow Islands, and destroy the Rainbow Bridges. This way, the inhabitants will be forced to take me seriously, and serve me." At that, the whole army started murmuring about this plan, and Dedede's state. Sweetie could only watch in horror, Waddle Dee told her about the Rainbow Islands, and she knew how the Rainbow Bridges were important for the inhabitants of the archipelago, and all of Popstar. "You are all dismissed. Let's prepare to depart for the islands and join the Dark Castle," he finally said before slowly walking... or sleepwalking toward the exit.

That's weird. Maybe I should wake him up. But wait, isn't waking up someone sleepwalking dangerous? Better take the risk, rather than letting Dedede do something evil in his sleep. Thinking that, Sweetie Belle followed Dedede. "King Dedede! Wait!" she screamed, only for Dedede to ignore her. So she continued running before sitting in front of him. "Dedede! Wake up! You are sleepwalking! I'm sure that in truth, you don't want to destroy those Rainbow Bridges!"

Dedede stopped, looked at her for a few seconds with his closed eyes, and said, still emotionlessly, "Out of my way and go prepare yourself to go to the Rainbow Islands. If you don't, then you will be punished."

Sweetie Belle took a step back. Then she gulped and went to his feet, poking him. "C-come on, Dedede. It's me, Sweetie Belle. Wake up. You are being scary."

But then, Dedede did something she hadn't expected: he kicked her out of the way in the belly. Hard. In the blink of an eye, she hit a wall, totally out of breath, coughing and hurting. He then said, "Last warning. Next time, I will kill you," and continued his way, letting Sweetie behind.

That... That can't be him. Or is it what he is deep down? I must do something, but what? Waddle Dee! Maybe he can help!

After recovering her breath, she ran back to the main hall, hoping that Waddle Dee was still there. "Waddle Dee!" she screamed. At her call, all the Waddle Dees turned toward her, but only one of them waved at her.

"Yes, Sweetie?" he screamed back, understanding that she called him specifically.

Sweetie ran to him. "Can we talk in private? In my room? Please?"

"Uh okay?"

---

"No way!"

"Yes! I swear! He kicked me! And after, he threatened to kill me! Please Waddle Dee, you have to help me stop him! He his not in his normal state!"

"Well I... I don't know... I'm just a Waddle Dee. I can't..." He stopped himself when he saw the filly starting to cry. He then decided to try to find something. After a moment, he talked, not believing what he was about to say. "Maybe... you should go warn Kirby. I don't see any other way."

"Y-yeah... You are right. Well then, I'm going. Thank you, Waddle Dee."

"You are welcome Sweetie. I will spread the word to the others, so they know what to expect. We may be forced to fight Kirby, so the king doesn't suspect us."

"Alright... As for me, I will hide in Kirby's house."

"No. The king will obviously find out that you have betrayed him. He may send one of his lieutenants to attack you, and nobody would be able to save you. I think it may be best if you follow Kirby, so he can protect you, even if it means we will have to attack you too. Consider that as more of your training to become stronger. I will make sure the others do."

Sweetie Belle looked at the floor, ears pressed against her head, before nodding, understanding that it was the best way. She then hugged Waddle Dee, who returned the hug. "Thank you."

"Take care, and good luck."

The two separated, and Sweetie ran outside of the room, leaving Waddle Dee behind.

---

She exited the castle, went down the mountain, and followed the path she and Waddle Dee had taken to join Kirby's house. After many minutes of running and jumping, she eventually reached it. Taking back her breath, she knocked rapidly at the door, shouting, "Kirby! Are you here?! It's me, Sweetie Belle! I need your help!"

Not a few seconds later, the door opened, showing the heroic puffball.

"Poyo?"

Sweetie Belle looked at him, took her breath, and said, "It's Dedede. I don't know what is happening. He is... sleepwalking. And now, he wants to destroy the Rainbow Bridges of the Rainbow Islands!"

Kirby gasped at this news and screamed, "Poyo?!"

"You must stop him! And wake him up! He is not himself!"

Kirby took a determined expression, nodded at her, and started to run toward the castle. But he was stopped by Sweetie Belle. "Wait!" He stopped and looks at her, tilting his head. "Let me come with you! Dedede has probably found out that I betrayed him, and may send someone to kill me!"

Kirby looked at her, smiled, and nodded, meaning she could come.

"Thank you! I will try to be helpful! I have learned how to fight a little!"

And so the two took the way to the castle.

---

They reached the castle, only to find it empty.

"Oh no! They are already gone to the islands! What do we do?!"

Kirby waved at her and exited the castle, followed by her. Outside, she found Kirby on a Warp Star, and he waved at her. Understanding what he wanted, Sweetie gulped, jumped on the Warp Star and clung to Kirby, remembering how fast the Warp Star could go. "Oh boy... Oh boy... Oh boy..."

After a few seconds, the Warp Star flew away above the ocean, with Kirby and Sweetie on it, the filly screaming at full lungs. The Rainbow Islands weren't too far of the main lands, so it didn't take long to reach them.

The Rainbow Islands were an archipelago of seven islands in a zigzag pattern. She could see that the first one had grasslands with what seemed to be a small lake, the second one had a big forest on its whole surface, the third one possessed an immense lake, the fourth one was covered in snow and ice, the fifth one was a canyon, the sixth one was a mountain, judging by the hole at the top, a volcano, surrounded by clouds, and the last one was a big fortress, certainly the Dark Castle.

And no Rainbow Bridges linking them... He already broke them?!

Kirby saw that too and became angry. He then took the Warp Star on a course toward the first island. If she remembered correctly what Waddle Dee told her about the Rainbow Islands, it was simply named Grass Land.

Whoever named the islands had one heck of an imagination...

Author's Notes:

And we start Sweetie's first adventure. Let's see how she will fare.

Chapter 8: Grass Land

They reached Grass Land, the Warp Star disappearing as they hit the ground.

It worried Sweetie Belle. "What happened to the Warp Star? Is it normal?"

Kirby nods.

"Say... Why did we go there, rather than going directly to Dark Castle?"

Kirby made gestures as if he was punching something.

"To beat the bad guys in all the islands?" Sweetie Belle guessed.

Kirby nodded.

"I understand. If it's like the previous times, then Dedede has sent his lieutenants. Actually, maybe he did like with the Star Rod and gave them something important to protect? Like whatever could repair the bridges?"

Kirby nodded again, smiling. "Poyo!"

"Then let's go!" She smiled back.

And so, the two started exploring the island. It wasn't long before they encountered the first of Dedede's minion: a Waddle Dee walking right toward them.

Here we go...

The Waddle Dee was clearly sad to attack Sweetie Belle, but she knew he didn't have a choice. Kirby didn't hesitate though, and ate the Waddle Dee before he could do anything. Thankfully, Sweetie remembered that the Waddle Dee was not dead, he will reappear not too far. Now that she was with Kirby, she will have to get used to that.

They continued their way, Kirby eating the Broom Hatter that followed, making a kerchief appear on his head like Sweetie had around her neck, and a broom.

Oh right. His Copy Ability. He will fight with a broom?

Kirby proved her that yes, he could fight with a broom by sweeping the Waddle Dees that were next, including one that was on a floating yellow block with a star. Sweetie saw these blocks everywhere in Dream Land, and knew that they could be destroyed with a strong enough attack, like a strong punch. They could also serve to pass some obstacles, like right now where the block could help her reach the top of a cliff otherwise too high to reach for her. The broom wasn't really effective at knocking down the Waddle Dees, but at least it opened them for Sweetie to attack them. Kirby decided to give up the Ability seeing that it wasn't effective. He had already tested it the previous time, but he had hoped that he would have gained more power with it since then.

After passing that cliff, which was actually a wall of earth, they started to encounter more enemies, including Waddle Dees, Broom Hatters (Kirby spat them back to not gain their Ability), a Bronto Burt, and Bouncys, pink creatures constituted of a pink head that looked like the top half of Kirby on a spring and wearing a darker pink bow. Sweetie hadn't encountered many of the last ones in the castle, they preferred bouncing in freedom in big spaces, like grasslands. Because of the number of enemies, she had to fight, knocking out one of the Broom Hatters and one of the Bouncys.

They then reached a black door. Those black doors! They were EVERYWHERE and they didn't make any sense! Because they could lead anywhere in the close area! And sometime, you took a door, reached a new area, but couldn't go back to the previous area because there was no door leading back! Because of that, she got lost more than once in her explorations of Dream Land, even inside the castle, which was full of them! They could be fun to explore, but when you just wanted to traverse an area, they could become annoying.

Anyway, they took this door, and... Oh! Surprise! They appeared in a new area, and no door to go back! She facehoofed. Get used to it Sweetie!

They quickly encountered another enemy: a Poppy Bros. Jr. Cute guys, if it wasn't for their love to hop around with bombs in their hands! They possessed a big tan head on a smaller body in a blue clown clothe with two white buttons, with two feet in pointed yellow shoes, and two round hands that were actually floating! This meant no arms to attach them to the body! They also had a blue floppy cap with a white rim, and the cap possessed a white pom pom at its end. Had she said about the bombs? Not the kind of bombs that splash you in water or cover you in paint. The kind that go boom and leave behind a crater. Yeah... The ones that hurt... Sweetie tried to avoid them as much as possible just in case one of those bombs had a default and exploded.

And now, she had to fight them too! Joy!

Luckily for her, Kirby ate the Poppy before he threw his bomb. That was followed by a blue cone hat appearing on Kirby, and a bomb appearing on his hand.

I think I will keep my distances.

After the encounter with the Poppy, they reached a wooden bridge above a small hole, a door at the bottom. Kirby decided to see where the door led and jumped from the bridge while Sweetie took the approaching Waddle Dee in her magic and sent him away before following the puffball. At the other side of the door, they encountered a new enemy that made Sweetie freak out.

It was a green parasol... with an eye! A living parasol that was now hopping toward them without anyone holding it!

"Eep!" She took a step back.

Kirby, not scared by the weird enemy, threw one of his bombs to the green parasol who was sent flying by the explosion. He continued to throw bombs at the blocks behind the parasol, eventually finding an energy drink, and drank it. Because why not?

Yeah, somehow, there was food a little everywhere in Dream Land, from cakes to ice creams. Pinkie would love this world, Sweetie loved it too for that. When you find free ice cream by simply breaking a block, hooves down, that meant best world ever! Even if it meant dealing with those black doors.

They returned in the previous area and Sweetie jumped back on the bridge only to be punched by a Waddle Dee.

"Sorry!" the Waddle Dee said.

Sweetie punched him back, knocking him out. "I'm sorry too!"

Kirby sweated at seeing this scene. She was really friends with those guys. Too bad he drank the bottle, it could have healed her. He then saw a Poppy approaching Sweetie from behind and exploded him with a bomb.

They continued, jumped from a small cliff, and reached a pyramid of blocks inside of which were hidden a couple of Waddle Dees and some sort of yellow chick in an egg. When the egg was destroyed, before Sweetie had even time to "Aww!" the chick started to fly toward them, beak ready to poke them. Kirby didn't let it come close. After a few more Bouncys, Waddle Dees, and another Poppy, they reached another door leading to another part of the island.

In this new area, there were pillars of stone and barriers. They were immediately welcomed by a Flamer. A red, round thing with a single eye at the center and four holes on his sides from which he expelled fire. In the castle, Sweetie hadn't really interacted with them, the creatures preferring minding their business while moving on the walls above everyone else. This one had been turning around a block, ready to great them. When they approached him, he expelled his flames around him and charged at them, like a comet. They dodged him, Kirby getting rid of his Bomb Ability. He then ate the Flamer which caused a crown made of fire to appear on his head with some gold around it and a jewel at the front. The famous Fire Ability that Waddle Dee talked about.

Kirby immediately used it to roast a Waddle Dee and a Poppy. Not far behind the Poppy was one of the yellow chicks that Sweetie knocked out, not wanting it to become fried chicken. A few more enemies later, they reached a big wall with a tunnel blocked by more blocks. With the fire, Kirby charged through them like a comet, destroying them and revealing that the tunnel led to another door.

By passing it, they ended up in a room with no way back. Before them was some black... hedgehog thing with spiky hairs, small round arms, yellow eyes, and red feet. He jumped in the air and then fell toward them like a meteor. They dodged him and Sweetie spotted then a bag hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room, something moving inside it.

"Oh my gosh! There is someone in that bag!"

"Poyo!" Kirby tried to warn her, but too late. She was hit by the hedgehog falling on her, badly burning her. Kirby quickly charged at the creature with his fire, burning him and sending him hitting a wall. He then continued attacking by spitting fire at the creature before he got up, burning him until he moved away.

Despite the hit, Sweetie was able to get up and she looked angrily at the hedgehog. When he landed, then jumped and tried to fall on Kirby, she ran where he hit the ground and punched him three times before sending him flying by bucking him. One last charge from Kirby knocked him out for good.

Their enemy beaten, Kirby flew toward the bag and unhooked it, letting it fall on the floor. The bag opened to reveal a hamster with white fur, brown on the head above the muzzle, on the back, and on his rump, and pink feet, about the size of Sweetie Belle! When out of the bag, he jumped in joy before nuzzling both Kirby and Sweetie Belle in thanks.

Sweetie laughed at being nuzzled by the hamster. "You are welcome! What is your name?"

Obviously, the hamster couldn't talk. Instead, it was Kirby who said something, surprising her. "Rick! Rick!" he said, jumping.

"You can talk?" Sweetie Belle asked in shock.

"Poyo?" Kirby answered, tilting his head. She just shook her head at this.

"So you know this hamster? You have been to these islands before?" Sweetie Belle asked to Kirby who nodded. He then jumped on Rick who was suddenly briefly surrounded by a light. However, when the light disappeared, nothing had changed. "What happened?" Kirby and Rick just shrugged at her, making her sigh.

They exited the room, Kirby riding Rick. Then, at the first Waddle Dee approaching, Rick spat fire at him!

"Wait, what?! Since when can hamsters spit fire?" Rick pointed at Kirby. "You are saying you possess the same Ability that Kirby currently possesses?!" He nodded. "But... How..." He shrugged. This made her throw her hooves in the air. "Alright! Whatever! This world doesn't make sense! Let's just continue! I will just say it's magic!" she yelled, making both Kirby and Rick chuckle.

They then found another bottle on a floating block. Rick destroyed the block by spitting fire at it after jumping, and the bottle fell on the floor. Kirby then hopped off of Rick and drank the bottle.

"Hey! Wait! I need it to heal!" Sweetie yelled.

Kirby finished the bottle, then came before her.

And he kissed her.

Shocked, she didn't have time to say anything before she felt the bottle's liquid enter her mouth, healing her. Once done, Kirby separated their mouths, leaving Sweetie Belle as red as a Waddle Doo. Kirby tilted his head at her reaction. Rick too.

After a moment of processing what just happened, Sweetie Belle suddenly shouted a high pitched scream, forcing both Kirby and Rick to put their arms... hands... paws... whatever on their ears, even if Kirby didn't have ears.

"T-t-t-t-t-th-th-t-thatwasmyfirstkiss!"

"Poyo?"

"K-Kirby! Why did you do that?"

"Poyo poyo! Poyo!"

"I thank you for the heal, but you didn't have to do that! You could have just given me the bottle ! Or let me take it! Or drink a half of it before letting me drink the second half! But-but not giving the drink to me with a mouth to mouth! That's not... That's not okay! You understand?" Sweetie approached Kirby and then screamed at his face, "YOU DON'T KISS OTHERS TO GIVE THEM FOOD!!!" making Kirby fall on his back. She then put her hooves on her face, hiding her eyes. "I wanna die..."

Kirby pat her back and Rick nuzzled her, trying to calm her. A Waddle Dee not far wasn't sure of what to do, having seen the whole scene. He decided to leave them alone, telling his comrades the same thing. He will have to tell what happened to the others once that ordeal ended!

---

After calming down, still a little red, Sweetie, alongside Kirby and Rick, reached a new black door without encountering enemies, thankfully. Before entering it, she stopped and turned toward Kirby. "L-listen, Kirby. I'm not mad at you. You just wanted to do well. But, in the future, when you find food, and I need to be healed, just give it to me. Ok?" Kirby nodded and they passed the door.

In the next area, they avoided the Waddle Dee and the Broom Hatter jumping on them from two wooden bridges above them and eliminated them. Kirby was then surprised by a Waddle Dee punching him from behind, which had for effect to knock out his Ability in the form of a star. Kirby quickly inhaled it back while Sweetie slammed the Waddle Dee on the ground with her magic. She barely avoided a Poppy trying to roll on her on a large apple coming from the top of a slope. Kirby roasted the apple and the Poppy on it before eating the apple.

After some jumps, they reached the small lake with, at the bottom, a tomato with a big M on it. At that, Kirby smiled his biggest happy smile and went in the water to eat it, Sweetie noting that goggles for swimming appeared on his eyes. (Don't question it!) If Kirby loved it to this point, it must be delicious, and now, she would like to try one. Just after the lake, they broke a pile of blocks between two pillars, revealing a door. This led them between two bigger pillars with a wooden bridge above them linking the two pillars. They jumped on it. A little farther were two other pillars, taller and linked by another bridge. A longer bridge was above it, letting them jump on two other pillars even taller, and they reached another taller pillar with a smaller pillar on it. A door was at the top. The bridges and pillars were full of enemies, but Rick was able to spit fire on most of them and Sweetie Belle watched his back by throwing down with her magic the ones approaching from behind. Sweetie threw the chick in front of the door and they passed it.

They did well to pass this door, because it led them inside a room. After jumping down a few steps, they reached a hallway where the ceiling seemed to be able to be destroyed. But the blocks were sturdy, the fire doing nothing to them. They needed a weapon. They were forced to continue their way, jump up a few steps and pass another door. In the other side, they were greeted by a Parasol Waddle Dee falling slowly from the sky, but instead of having a normal parasol, he held one of those green living ones with an eye.

Kirby got an idea and gave up is Fire Ability before inhaling both the Waddle Dee and the parasol, making a parasol appear in Rick's hand.

"Do you think it will work?" Sweetie Belle asked. Kirby just waved at her to follow him and they passed the door again, getting back in the room. They returned to the blocks in the ceiling and Rick used the parasol, destroying them. The new hole in the ceiling led to a secret room where, a few jumps later, they reached a rainbow-colored oval-shaped thing with two stars floating around it. Kirby took it in his arms.

"Do you think this is what will help repairing the Rainbow Bridges?"

Rick was the one who confirmed it by nodding.

"I'm surprised it's not guarded by one of Dedede's lieutenants. I guess he learned from his defeats. Now we have to really search everywhere. I suppose there is one on each islands."

Kirby nodded at her conclusion, then ate the Rainbow Drop, as Sweetie decided to call it.

"Hum... Reassure me, you can spit it back, right?" When Kirby nodded, she sighed in relief.

They left the room and resumed their journey. Outside, they reached another tomato. Kirby was about to gobble it when he saw Sweetie looking at the tomato in curiosity. He teared off the tomato into three parts and gave one to her.

"Really? You don't mind?"

He shook his head.

Sweetie took the part of tomato, said, "Thank you!" and smiled at him before looking at her part of tomato. Even if it was just a part, it was still big! Enough to fill her for a moment! She tasted it, and immediately, stars formed in her eyes. "It... It... It's the best thing I have ever eaten!" she shouted. "No wonder you love it!" She then continued to eat.

Kirby smiled at her comment before giving the second part to Rick and eating his own.

The few enemies around decided to let Sweetie eat in peace.

After the tomato, Dedede's minions became more numerous, but Rick didn't have any problem using his parasol to knock them, Sweetie ending the ones still moving. After a few jumps on pillars, they reached a door. With the presence of all these minions, it wasn't hard to guess that they were getting close to the leader. So Sweetie gulped, not knowing if she was ready to face a lieutenant of Dedede.

They passed it.

---

They appeared just in front of the lieutenant, a big tree with a face, but... there was something wrong with him, despite the fact that he had a face. His eyes were all swirly, no wait, he was wearing swirly glasses, and he had a white mask above his mouth, similar to what the doctors or the really sick ponies... people used.

"Yo-you are here," the tree said, his voice muffled by the mask.

"A living tree... Wait! Are you Whispy Wood? What are you doing here? I thought that you were living in a forest! In the mainlands!"

"It's not because I'm a tree that I'm stuck at the same place. I can move. Ugh... Can you stop moving you... you... six? Nine? I hate grasslands..."

Wait... Sweetie gave a deadpan look at Whispy. "You have allergies? A tree can have allergies from pollen?"

"I'm a living being! I can be sick! And I'm as vulnerable to pollen as anyone else!"

"Sorry! I didn't want to judge! You are the first talking tree that I encounter."

"Anyway," Whispy suddenly said. "I will stop you."

"Even if you are sick? You have already lost to Kirby two times when you weren't! How do you expect to beat him?"

"I have developed a new trick. Don't underestimate me."

Whispy then started the fight making roots poke out of the ground... two meters at their right, then just behind them, then at their left. They didn't even need to move to avoid them. Kirby, still on Rick, decided to spare Whispy more embarrassment and led the hamster to approach him before attacking him with the parasol. Sweetie approached too to punch him only for her hoof to hurt.

"Ow!"

"Did you really expect to be able to punch a tree?" Whispy mocked.

"My friend's big sister and big brother can! I just need to get stronger!"

"Well, to get stronger, you need to eat your fruits. Here are some apples for you."

Giant apples started to fall from Whispy's branches, threatening to hit Sweetie, Kirby, and Rick on their head. Rick approached Sweetie Belle and used the parasol to protect all of them. Sweetie decided to step back to not be as exposed and let Kirby and Rick fight.

The following fight was a joke. Thanks to the Parasol Ability, the apples were doing nothing, and because of Whispy's allergy making him wear swirly eyes for some reason, his roots missed nine times out of ten. Sweetie was able to avoid the rolling apples without problems, trying to think of a way to help Kirby. That was when Whispy made a desperate attempt by making apples raining all around him with nowhere to dodge when they started rolling with how many there were. Kirby and Rick could easily protect themselves by getting their back directly against Whispy's trunk and using the Parasol, but Sweetie had nothing to protect herself. She was washed away by a real wave of apples as big as her! Once the rain stopped, Kirby and Rick ran toward where they last saw her and dug her out, hurt, but alive. But then, a root poked out of the ground just under Rick's feet and sent both him and Kirby flying, knocking the Parasol Ability out of the puffball.

Oh no! They are being hurt because they are forced to help me! And I can't do anything to help them in return! Sweetie Belle thought, looking at them as they landed a little farther. She then turned her eyes to Whispy, anger filling them. Enough is enough! She jumped on the apples littering the ground. I will not let Kirby do all the work! I have been training for the last two weeks for occasions like this! And he his just Whispy Woods! Dedede told me that he is a pushover! One of the weakest! We will NOT lose to him because of me! During her mental rant, magic started to build up in her horn, a green light surrounding it. "Listen you bully! We have an archipelago to save, and a king to wake up! And it's not a tree as WEAK as you that will stop us!"

"Me? Weak?" Whispy mocked. "Is it not you that hurt yourself hitting my bark just a few minutes ago?" He then started laughing.

This angered Sweetie even more, and before she knew it, she shot a beam from her horn, right between Whispy's eyes, making him close them in pain. This destroyed Whispy's glasses and somehow made his mask fall. It revealed that his eyes and his mouth were actually holes in the bark.

He blinked before saying, "Wait, I'm not sick anymore! Your attack somehow knocked the sickness out of me!" He then stared angrily at Sweetie Belle. "But it has REALLY hurt! I will turn you into fertilizer!"

"Oh... Horsefeather..."

More apples started to fall alongside a few giant worms and even a Gordo! Metal eyed blue balls with spikes around its body moving in and out. When reaching the ground, instead of rolling, it jumped directly at Sweetie Belle who was forced to dodge. While dodging the worms and the apples, she was able to shoot another, smaller beam at Whispy, smiling.

I can shoot lasers! I can shoot lasers! If I wasn't busy trying to stay alive, I would SO jump around screaming yes!

She was then hit by puffs of air sent by Whispy Woods with his mouth, blowing her backward. She shook her head and shot a beam in vengeance. That was when Kirby came back, inhaled one of the apples on the ground, and spat it back at Whispy. More apples rained, more puffs of air came close to blow them, and more roots, this time targeting them right, forced them to jump away. Another Gordo fell, jumped, and was able to hit Sweetie from behind before jumping away.

Seeing Sweetie badly hurt, Kirby looked at all the apples and got an idea to end the battle. He opened his mouth and started to inhale as many apples as he could without swallowing them. After inhaling at least a dozen apples, he spat them all back at Whispy. The tree took them full all in the face!

The apples left a crying Whispy who said, "I... I give up."

Kirby sighed in relief before going to Sweetie to see if she was alright. "Poyo?"

"I'm okay," Sweetie reassured as she sat. "I'm alright. I just need some time. That Gordo has really hurt."

Kirby looked at her, then looked at the apples around them. He took one and proposed it to her.

"An apple? Oh right. It's food, it can heal me. Thank you Kirby."

She looked at the apple. It was half her size! She didn't think she will be able to eat the whole thing. She took a bite. "Oh my gosh!" She took more bites, starting to heal her wounds. Sorry Apple Bloom, but your apples are now seconds. These ones are above them!

As she ate, Kirby and Rick started to eat the other apples, Kirby by inhaling them.

---

"Ooh..." Sweetie Belle groaned, back on the ground, apple core beside her, and hooves on her aching swollen belly. She turned her head toward Whispy Woods who had stopped crying but hadn't said anything since, watching them. "That was the best apple ever. I may come back to you in the future."

"N... Nice to hear..." he replied.

Rick was also on his back, patting his belly, while Kirby watched over them, having eaten all the apples. He nudged Sweetie Belle, pointing at the Warp Star waiting not far.

"Y-yes. I'm coming. Just wait a minute." she said. She slowly got on her hooves, Rick already up. Once done, the three of them jumped on the Warp Star, and took flight.

Next step: Big Forest. Seriously, what was up with these names?

Author's Notes:

Yes, I gave Whispy some attacks that he normaly doesn't use in Dreamland 2, but I wanted to make his first fight against Sweetie epic enough. Beside, if he can drop worms and Gordos from his branches, why not do it now?

As for the Broom and Bomb abilities, I know they didn't exist in Dreamland 2, but like for Whispy's Gordos, why can't he use Broom or Bomb now, and yet use them later? That means that when a minion gives an ability, it will always give this ability.
There will be a few exceptions, like the Propellers. They give Ice in Kirby 64, and yet they give nothing in other games. And frankly, I don't see them as Ice enemies. I would more see them give Bomb.

Chapter 9: Big Forest

It took them only a few seconds to reach Big Forest. That was definitely not enough for Sweetie's stomach to stop aching after her earlier meal. When the Warp Star disappeared once on the ground, Sweetie had a hard time following Rick and Kirby. Seeing that, Kirby hopped off of Rick and let the hamster take the poor filly. Riding on his head, Sweetie only had to worry about shooting her recently acquired magical beams at the enemies, making their journey far easier. But she will have to avoid shooting too many beams, in fear of taxing her magic and making her horn ache too.

Her first target didn't wait to appear: a bouncing mushroom. But she knew better. Cappies-that was what they were called-were actually creatures living a little everywhere on Popstar, some of them being in Dedede's army, but they rarely came to the castle. The truth was that the mushroom was just a disguise, the mushroom cap being just a hat hiding their real face. Disguised, they hoped to come close enough of their unexpected victims before attacking them, but once their disguise was revealed, they got scared and either attacked in despair or fled. Their true form looked like the stem of an actual mushroom, but with a round head, two holes for eyes, another for mouth, and two arms, one of them flexing up, the other flexing down. They were also extremely weak, explaining why they preferred using a disguise. To prove it, Sweetie was able to knock it down with just a beam. She also knocked down the Bronto Burt that followed.

Another Cappy came after that, Kirby deciding to face him. When he tried to eat him, he actually inhaled the mushroom cap, revealing the Cappy's true body. Kirby spat back the cap at him, knocking him out. While he had been busy attacking the Cappy, Sweetie Belle attacked another Bronto Burt that had been approaching.

They passed above a log forming a bridge above a river and continued their way, Kirby eating one of these green parasols to gain the Parasol Ability. They eventually reached a door that led to a small room with another moving bag hanging from the ceiling, and...

"Hiiiii! A Scarfy!" Sweetie Belle screamed at seeing the creature that guarded the bag. The Scarfy was a smiling orange floating ball with cat ears and white cheeks, and Sweetie just wanted to hug it. They were like pets that were very common in Dream Land, some of them even living in the castle. The Scarfy just floated here, watching them. It seemed that they will have to attack it to continue, to Sweetie's sorrow.

That was when Kirby signed to Rick to remain where he was with Sweetie Belle, taking a serious face. Why? Scarfys aren't dangerous. But then, Kirby attacked the Scarfy with the parasol, and the creature suddenly transformed. The orange became beige, its mouth got bigger with fangs inside it, and its two eyes became just one big slitted eye.

To resume it, it wasn't cute anymore!

"Eep! What happened to it?"

The now scary Scarfy was now approaching Kirby, trying to bite him. Kirby jumped back and hit it a second time with the parasol from as far as possible, making its body actually liberate an explosion. It didn't kill the Scarfy, but it will not get up anytime soon.

Wait a minute! Scary... Scarfy... Scarify? "Oh come on! You mean these things are meant to jumpscare us?!" she screamed at understanding the purpose of the 'pet'. She will not see those creatures in the same way, and never pet them anymore.

Kirby ignored her, instead opening the bag, freeing a purple owl as big as Rick with a white belly with three stripes, black tipped wings with white underside, and more black around his eyes that looked like eyelashes. On his head were spikes formed by his feathers.

The owl got out of the bag, flying happily around the room while saying, "Coo! Coo!" before settling down on Kirby.

Sweetie Belle laughed at seeing a parasol appear on the owl's head. After Rick, she didn't question it. "It seems like we have a new friend, right? Wait, let me guess, your name is Coo?"

"Coo coo!" The owl agreed as he flapped his wing with joy. Kirby also smiled and raised his arm toward Coo to welcome him.

They passed through the door that somehow appeared after the Scarfy's defeat, and found themselves on a block a little far above the ground. Coo started to fly with Kirby in his claws while Rick jumped to the ground, not bothered by the fall. The hamster immediately punched a Waddle Dee, and Coo spun, forming a small tornado that sent a Bronto Burt flying far away. Sweetie shot another Bronto Burt closer to the ground while Rick continued his way, punching the enemies that crossed him on the floor, and the owl continued to spin, sending away all the enemies that were in the air. What a good team they formed now!

Rick was forced to jump above two holes, forcing Sweetie to protect him from three Bronto Burts, shooting two and punching one that got too close. It was clearly them that got the most work because of all the enemies that were on the ground and the few Bronto Burts that flew too close. Coo didn't have as much problem with the few Bronto Burts that tried to reach him and Kirby in the air.

After a moment, they reached another door hidden behind a few blocks under a log. Before taking it, Kirby spotted another enemy on a block: a Sir Kibble. Sweetie Belle found them scary. They were what seemed to be an empty suit of armor, round, yellow, with red hands and silver feet, and a blade on their helmet. And yet, they were moving, showing that they were alive! They were alright to be around, but they weren't much for conversation. They just did their job in silence, or maybe they couldn't talk? Anyway, Kirby ate it, and Coo's purple feathers suddenly turned green while a yellow cap with eyes, little white wings, and a blade similar to the one of the Sir Kibble appeared on Kirby's head. With the new Ability in his possession, they passed the door.

It led them further in the forest, where the trees were far more numerous. If they didn't watch out where they went, they could get lost. They appeared on a branch with enough leaves to somehow form a platform solid enough for their weight. From there, they could either choose to jump from branch to branch, or continue on the ground, or fly in Coo's case. Of course, there were less enemies on the branches, but they would take the risk to fall with a miss jump.

But that was when Coo flew down toward the ground. When Sweetie and Rick looked to see why, they saw that there was a door below. Coo led Kirby through it, to Sweetie's panic. What if it was a one way door? Should they follow them? She decided to wait a little on the branch just in case, but if Kirby didn't come back after some minutes, then she will follow them with Rick! Thankfully, after about a minute, Kirby and Coo came back out of the door, and Sweetie sighed in relief. But she saw that Kirby seemed annoyed.

When Coo brought back Kirby on the branches, she asked, "Is there a problem?"

Kirby then spat the Rainbow Drop, and pointed at it. "Poyo!"

"You got another Rainbow Drop?!" she yelled in happiness, only for Kirby to shake his head. She thought a moment before saying, "You found one, but you couldn't get it?"

"Poyo!" Kirby confirmed.

"Those blocks again?"

"Poyo!"

"You don't have the right Ability?"

"Poyo!"

"And... do you know which one you need?"

"Poyo!"

"Let me guess. The Parasol like last time?" Kirby shook his head. "Mmh... Bomb?" Nope. "Hammer?" Nope. "Broom?" Nope. "Fire?" Nope. Sweetie started to think back at the list of Abilities that the Waddle Dees and other minions had described after the Nightmare incident. "Ice?" Nope again. "Sword?" Miss. "The rock one?" Fail. "The... Hum... The needle one?" Bingo! "Yay!" exclaimed Sweetie in victory. "But it means we will have to come back."

At that, Coo saluted at her. "Coo!"

"Oh yeah! We found you here! You probably know this forest and how to come back here without using those doors!"

"Coo!"

"Then let's go! We must find the Needle Ability!" she shouted while raising a hoof, followed by the others in answer.

Objectif in mind, the team continued its way jumping from branch to branch. Coo used Kirby's Cutter Ability to send feathers that cut the enemies that tried to stop them. The only real obstacle they encountered were a few Gordos blocking their way. The problem with Gordos was that they were pretty much invincible, so all they could do was avoid them, which meant that Rick had to wait for them to move away before jumping.

After some jumps, there were no branches anymore, and Rick was forced to continue on the ground. But judging by all the Gordos in Coo's way, it was probably for the better. Annoying pests! Rapidly, they reached some other branches that led them to a door on a bigger branch.

It teleported them on a... floating log? Well, after the floating blocks and whatever... Anyway! They were in a less dense area. Farther before them, they encountered a duo of Scarfys. One cut from Coo's feathers was enough to make them explode, they didn't even have time to transform, to Sweetie's relief! After that, they found a bottle trapped on a block between two Gordos that were immobiles. Rick punched the block, destroying it and making the bottle fall. Sweetie took it in her hooves, deciding to keep it for when they were hurt. Well, it didn't take long because Rick was rammed from behind by a Waddle Dee, making Sweetie fall. One throwing of Waddle Dee later, and Sweetie gave the bottle to Rick who drank it.

That was when they encountered... some sort of bipedal hedgehog? It had a small head on a body with two eyes but nothing else. It had two tubby arms and two red feet. And of course, it possessed black spikes on his head all the way to the bottom of his back.

"Do you think it can give you the Needle Ability, Kirby?" Sweetie asked the puffball.

Kirby simply answered her by giving up the Cutter Ability before eating the hedgehog. And indeed, it gave him a pink cap with many sharp needles on it.

"Yay! We found it!" the filly shouted, Kirby slapping her hoof in a... hoofbump ? Fistbump ? Let's go for hoofbump.

Surprisingly, when Coo took again Kirby in his claws, nothing changed. Just in case, they tested the Ability on the Sir Kibble that was just beside them, and it turned out that Coo taking Kirby in his claw led to Kirby growing needles below him. It didn't have much in attack, but it could be good to protect Kirby if an enemy comes from below. But Coo having lost the Cutter Ability, he was now vulnerable.

Anyway, Coo flew with Kirby above the trees, certainly to get the Rainbow Drop from earlier, leaving Sweetie and Rick behind to wait.

Sweetie then hopped down from Rick. "Thank you Rick, I can walk from now. I need the exercise." she said, her stomach not aching anymore. She then punched a Waddle Dee coming from behind Rick.

The Waddle Dee said something before losing consciousness. "Arg! I say it again, you have one heck of a punch, Sweetie Belle..." And he closed his eyes.

"O-oh! Hum... Sorry again."

More enemies tried to attack them while waiting for Kirby and Coo to come back, but the combination of the two of them was more than enough. After many minutes, the pink ball and the purple owl came back, Kirby showing the two Rainbow Drops.

"Yeah! Good job you two!" Sweetie shouted, jumping in joy.

Kirby ate the two drops, and they continued, defeating more enemies, destroying blocks, and avoiding Gordos, until reaching a door between two trees, on a block that couldn't be destroyed.

At the other side, after even more enemies and jumping above vertical logs, they reached a river with blocks forming a bridge. They passed above it, when something unexpected happened. Three Kabus appeared out of nowhere in the air, and one of them was able to fall on Sweetie while Coo was hit by another, making him fall with Kirby. Kabus being living statues of just a head with a round top and a flat base, it hurt quite a lot to take one on the head.

"Arg! Since when do Kabus appear like that?!" Sweetie had always found the Kabus weird and a little scary with their empty eyes and gaping mouth, but they generally minded their business without doing anything!

Rick punched the Kabu that fell on her head, while Kirby used his Needle on the ground to knock down the two others. Coo quickly got up after shaking his head and went on Rick, thinking that it was preferable if he let Kirby continue alone for now.

Kirby was able to use the Needle Ability on the ground to protect him and Sweetie from the enemies that approached them. Soon after, they found a door on a cut trunk, but they first had to jump on two other cut trunks, the first one being smaller and the one with the door being taller. They appeared in an denser area where Coo took Sweetie and immediately started to lift her toward the top of the trees. Kirby followed them by inflating to float while Rick jumped from branch to branch.

"Uh? Is there something up there?" Sweetie asked Coo.

"Coo!" the owl confirmed.

Indeed, after a few enemies that Sweetie shot down with her magic, they reached another door. It led in a room where there was another moving bag hanging from the ceiling and... a giant brown eyed parasol with a foot and sticking out its tongue? What the heck? It also possessed some sort of wooden shoe.

Sweetie stared at the parasol before saying, "I think this one takes the palm of weird and creepy." She then shouted, "Nobody told you it's bad to stick your tongue out?!" That seemed to hit a nerve, because the parasol started to spin around toward them. "Eep!"

Thankfully, Kirby used the needles, repelling the parasol. But then it kicked off its shoe toward Kirby, who was surprised by such an attack. It knocked out his Ability, but instead of taking it back, Kirby inhaled it alongside the shoe only to spit them back at the parasol. Another shoe then appeared under its foot. Sweetie hit the parasol with a beam and used the time where it was disturbed by the hit to run toward it and punch it in its eye. With the parasol blinded, Sweetie then grabbed its foot and slammed it on the ground before jumping on its 'head' three time and then punching it another time, making it bite its tongue. For good measure, she kicked it in the knee.

Now the parasol was rolling on the floor, groaning in pain.

Kirby, Rick and Coo stared at her with round eyes, not moving.

Sweetie saw the parasol on the floor, looked at her hooves, then turned toward her friends. "Have I really done what I have just done?" she asked in disbelief.

They nodded.

"Let's... just save the poor guy in the bag, okay?"

They nodded again. First, Kirby ate the parasol, gaining the Parasol Ability, then he flew to the bag and released whoever was inside it. In the bag was a blue... blob thing with googly eyes and a very long tongue. Without saying anything, he licked Sweetie, the animals and Kirby in thanks before jumping away, now with a parasol in his tongue.

...

"What the heck was that?"

---

Putting the blob out of their mind, the group took the door and ended up on ground floating in the sky above the forest. Sweetie just shook her head at that. They saw that they had to get down. Coo took Sweetie in his claws and started to fly down beside the levels of grounds while Kirby got on Rick and took the path through the holes in them, fighting all the enemies in the way. It was until Rick fell on a hedgehog, getting his butt stung. They had to take the following minutes to remove the needles that were stuck, Sweetie pitying the poor hamster. Once at the bottom, they passed through another door.

They continued their way, only for Sweetie to see a raindrop-shaped grey thing with a propeller, angry eyes and sharp teeth approaching Kirby from above.

"Watch out Kirby!" Sweetie warned him, but too late. The enemy hit Kirby before exploding, hurting both Kirby and Rick. Sweetie quickly beat the enemies around before running toward them. Seeing them getting up, she asked, "Are you alright?"

"Poyo..." Kirby groaned, shaking his head, followed by Rick.

Sweetie sighed in relief at seeing they weren't badly hurt. "Let's hope we find some food quickly."

They nodded, and with that, the four friends resumed their journey, Kirby now without Ability. Before long, they found a Poppy on an apple before a door. Kirby ate the Poppy, getting the Bomb Ability, then took the apple and divides it into four parts, giving three to his friends. Sweetie stared at her quarter of apple, obviously, with how big the fruit was, one of Whispy's. She was still full of the previous apple but felt the bump on her head from the Kabu that fell on her. At least it was just a quarter, it should be alright.

---

Yeah, it was alright. She hurt a little, but she could manage. She still took a mental note of trying not to get hurt anymore so she didn't have to get more stuffed. And to double her training after the end of this journey. Between it and dinners with Dedede, watching her weight will be hard. Whoever created the physical law 'food can heal' was a genius and an idiot.

Yeah! Someone was behind that! You can't say it's natural!

Whatever. Sweetie Belle passed the door with Kirby, Rick, and Coo. At the other side, they ended on a wooden bridge with, above them, another bridge, and the ground below them. They could reach the bridge above and the ground below thanks to holes in the bridges at different places. All of that linked two trees, each tree having three holes at the end of each levels. And in the holes...

There were boars charging right at them, one of them two times bigger than Sweetie while the others were the same size than her.

The big boar had dark brown fur, a white belly, black hooves, and sharp tusks. The small ones looked like the big one, but possessed a lighter brown fur with the addition of white stripes on their back, but no white belly. They also had smaller tusks.

Coo immediately flew out of the way with Kirby in his claws while Rick jumped on the bridge above and knocked off the small boar there. Sweetie ran to the hole before the big boar, going on the ground below and punching the small boar here.

"So this is the leader of this island?" Sweetie asked loudly.

"Coo! Coo!" Coo confirmed, flying above the upper bridge, keeping an eye on the holes in the trees.

"A big boar? I didn't know that Dedede had a boar under his command! Actually, he never told me who or what he had under his command!"

She saw the big boar-she will name it Grouiky-getting out of the hole before her. Wait, hadn't he entered the other tree? How was he able to get there? No time to think, Grouiky was already charging. She quickly jumped back up on the bridge by its hole, then got back down once it passed under her. She started shooting it in the back with her magical beams, hitting it four times before it entered the tree hole. She could see another small boar falling from the upper bridge, likely knocked off by Rick.

Grouiky got out of the same tree but this time at the upper bridge alongside one of the small boar, threatening to knock Rick off the bridge with its tusks, but the hamster jumped above the boar just before. That was when Kirby, still in Coo's claws above the bridge, released a bomb that fell right on Grouiky, hurting it and knocking off the small boar. He released another bomb, but Grouiky was able to jump off the bridge right to the ground just before getting hit again. Instead, the bomb hit the bridge and destroyed a part of it, blowing a second hole. The boards between the two holes fell on the bridge below with Rick jumping right on time to avoid the same fate, which knocked a few boards of that bridge, getting its hole bigger and almost hitting Sweetie Belle on the head. It made Kirby sweat at the destruction he caused.

Grouiky got out of the middle hole of the first tree, and at everyone's surprise, threw a bomb right at Kirby while charging! Coo barely flew away before it exploded, only to be hit by a second bomb thrown by the boar, making him drop Kirby and fall in a bush outside of the battlefield with smock on his tail.

"Coo!" Sweetie screamed at seeing her friend falling. Because of that, she was almost hit by a small boar jumping from the bridge, punching it in time. Rick came at Kirby's side and nudged him to see if he had nothing. Kirby got up, thanked Rick with a wave, then took a bomb and threw it right inside the second tree. It didn't destroy the tree, but they could hear many pained Groiiiink!!! coming from it. It also destroyed the end of the second bridge close to it, collapsing the whole bridge excepted a few boards close to the first tree. Kirby and Rick jumped off the bridge before its collapse.

Grouiky got out of the middle hole of the first tree again, slightly blackened, stopped at the edge of the hole, and started to throw bombs after bombs everywhere at the ground, making Sweetie, Kirby and Rick run in hope to avoid the explosions. Kirby not being able to target Grouiky because of how busy he was at avoiding all the bombs, Sweetie decided to shoot back her beams. One of the beams hit Grouiky's right tusk, breaking it. In pain, Grouiky jumped from the hole and started to charge toward her, making her panic. In a desperate move, she jumped right on its back. With the filly on its back, Grouiky tried to get rid of her by thrashing around, bucking his hooves and jumping. Trying not to fall, Sweetie placed her hooves on its ears and clung to them. The boar didn't seem to like it, because his thrashing were getting more violent.

"Help!" she screamed. Kirby wanted to help, but he didn't dare to throw a bomb at Grouiky with the filly so close. Rick approached to stop it, but was rewarded by a buck in the face, sending him flying into a tree.

Then, a really violent jump almost led Sweetie Belle to fall. Her hooves clinging to Grouiky's ears, it caused her to strongly pull them. It forced the boar to get on his back legs, yelling in pain before getting back on its four hooves with Sweetie Belle still on its back.

Seeing that, Sweetie stared at Grouiky before a smile slowly formed. "Waiiit..." This one word caused Grouiky to become as still as a statue, panic apparent in his eyes. Then, Sweetie pulled a little on its left ear, forcing it to turn a little to the left. She pulled harder, and the boar turned more. She tested the right ear, with the same results. Her smile became bigger, almost as wide as the ones of Pinkie Pie. That was when a few dozen of the small boars came out of the second tree, coming to help their leader, only to be stopped by Sweetie suddenly yelling six words of doom.

"CUTIE MARK CRUSADER, BOAR RIDER! YEAH!!!"

The next instant, half of them were sent flying by Grouiky charging at them, Sweetie forcing it by pulling its ears. The rest of them started to run away, wanting to avoid the same fate. The big boar continued its charge into the forest, the filly laughing on its back, and leaving behind Kirby and the animals, sweating.

Before long, the whole forest was sent into a panic, minions sent flying right and left, into branches and into tree holes. It was a real path of desolation that followed the boar-riding filly who had the time of her life. Dozens of Waddle Dees and other creatures were running before her, hoping to escape Grouiky, some of them without success while others were able to jump away into bushes, holes, or even the river when it was close enough. Many of them climbed the trees to be safe, and soon enough, there were more creatures on the trees than on the ground, watching in horror the carnage below.

Sweetie then shouted, "Too bad Apple Bloom and Scootaloo aren't here! This is so fun!"

---

After a few minutes, they reached the edge of the island, the boar finding itself charging toward the ocean. The two of them panicked and Sweetie pulled on the ear to stop Grouiky, but too late. At the last second, she was able to jump from the boar before he fell from the cliff into the water.

Sweetie got to the edge and looked below, seeing Grouiky getting its head out of the water. "Hey!" Grouiky looked back at her. "Are you alright?!" she shouted.

From Grouiky's point of view: "Are yOU alRiGht?" the white demon said maliciously, promising doom with a sadistic smile full of sharp fangs, flaming hair, and glowing red eyes.

"GROIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINK!!!!!"

Sweetie Belle watched as Grouiky swam away from the island, already just a speck in the horizon. Wow! It must have beat a speed record! Now alone at the edge, Sweetie looked until the boar finally disappeared far away, before turning to the forest. Before long, a giggle escaped her, and soon, she was rolling on the floor from laughter.

---

One minute later, Coo appeared in the sky and spotted the filly still laughing. Looking back somewhere to the ground, he pointed in her direction. Soon enough, Kirby and Rick came out from behind a tree, and Coo landed on the pink ball. Kirby slowly approached Sweetie Belle and touched her to make her know of his presence. She looked at him and started to calm down, rubbing the tears out of her eyes.

"Poyo?"

"I'm alright!" she answered. "I'm just... I... I can't believe what I have just done! I rode a giant boar! Oh my Celestia! Apple Bloom will SOOOO not believe me! That was the most fun I had in a long time! You would have told me just yesterday that I would do that, I would have thought you were crazy! And yet, I did it!" She collapsed back on the floor, her laugh starting again. "I can't wait to talk about it with everyone at the castle!"

Eventually, Rick decided to pick her up and put her on his back. The filly was still laughing and talking about what she did and how other will react. Rick looked at Kirby, only for him to shrug. Still, he must say that the filly did a pretty good job. And... she had been rather scary, with how she had been smiling, then laughing back on the boar. How she got it to obey to her. He didn't know if she was naturally like that, or if Dedede's training was getting to her. But thinking back about it, it had been funny to watch her chase those poor minions.

Kirby started to laugh, followed slowly by Rick, then Coo. They were still laughing as they took off on the Warp Star.

Time to go to Ripple Field, and have more fun!

Chapter 10: Ripple Fields

The Warp Star left them on a palm tree in Ripple Fields, the third island known for its great lake. The ride on the Warp Star gave everyone time to calm their laugh, although Sweetie still giggled a bit now and then. What she did with Grouiky will be a source of laugh for a long time. She still had a hard time believing she did it.

They jumped from the tree, Coo taking the Waddle Dee coming from behind in his claw only to let him fall in the water a little farther. Kirby flew above the water in question while Rick and Sweetie Belle jumped on blocks to traverse it. Back on ground, they quickly got rid of a Bouncy, then reached another tree. When passing under it, Kirby, who was in the lead, suddenly jumped back at seeing a coconut fall. Sweetie was about to ask why, until she saw the coconut exploding when hitting the floor.

And now explosive coconuts? What next?

She then saw on the tree, and the following ones, what she remembered Waddle Dee had described as Glunks, creatures that looked like sea anemones with a green body and pink tentacle-like 'hair'. They also possessed two big round eyes. Waddle Dee has warned her about these creatures for if she ever go in the water. They couldn't move but they shot water projectiles at regular interval, hurting whoever was hit. These Glunks being on the trees, Sweetie, Kirby and the animals didn't pay attention to them, Coo still making sure to fly under the trees while Sweetie shot the following coconuts in the trees. After a moment, Kirby decided to help her by throwing bombs at some of the coconuts, and also at the Glunk on the ground they crossed at the end of the path. They jumped above a small wall, only to almost get hit by a rock falling on the slope above it. Well, it looked like a square rock, but Sweetie saw the closed eyes on it, proving that it wasn't just a rock, but an actual enemy made of stone named Rocky.

There weren't many Rockys, but Sweetie had seen some on the mountains around the castle. Their real appearance was the one of a generally brown stone on yellow feet without any arms and two eyes. They tended to possess a white and blue headband around their head. At seeing him, Kirby decided to give up the Bomb Ability and ate him, giving him a crown of rock with gems around it on his head, and the Ability to transform into a rock, probably that with all the water around, it could be useful. At the other side of the small slope was another, bigger slope going down, with many Glunks in the way. Kirby used his new Ability and turned into a rock at the top of the slope, sliding all the way down and striking all the Glunks, opening the path. After the slope was another Rocky falling from edge to edge, and Sweetie hit him with her beam, but he barely flinched. Yeah, their defense was solid, it will take more than a hit to knock them down. Rick jumped beside the Rocky and punched him, hurting the Rocky before waving his paw in pain. Punching rock was a bad idea. Sweetie finished the Rocky with another beam, letting them continue.

They reached the top of another slope, and this time, Kirby jumped on Rick. The hamster suddenly turned into a round rock, rolling on the slope and crushing all the minions on it before falling in the water at the bottom, crushing a squid. Still on the slope above, Sweetie saw that there was a door in the water.

"So we continue in the water? I hope we will not drown." she said, worried.

Coo winked at her before jumping in the water without even taking his breath. Didn't he fear to miss air? She then took a big breath, blocked her breathing, and jumped in the water too, the group passing the door. At the other side, they were still under water. Luckily, they weren't far under the surface. Sweetie quickly swam to retake her breath, only for a blade from a Sir Kibble to graze her. She immediately shot him with a beam. Meanwhile, Kirby, not getting back to the surface, used some water jets to beat a Glunk that blocked their way. It surprised Sweetie Belle how she was the only one taking back her breath, the others all remaining underwater.

Raising an eyebrow at that, she returned with them and encountered her first living Blipper. First living because she saw some on Dedede's plates. They were round fishes that were red in the back and orange in the belly... and they wore swimming goggles. She facehoofed at that. Why did a fish wear swimming goggles?! Because they swam? They were fish! They didn't need goggles!

Rick punched the fish aside, and Kirby used his water jet to destroy the blocks blocking the way. Sweetie shot the Glunk on the ceiling above the blocks, and Coo used his claws to knock a second Glunk on the floor under these same blocks. Sweetie quickly reached again the surface with the others, taking back her breath, and Coo destroyed a floating block, lettingan energy drink fall right in Kirby's hand before it reached spikes at the bottom. He drank some of it before giving it to the animals to heal the wounds from the battle with Grouiky, Sweetie not needing it, to her relief. Back in the water, they avoided the projectiles of a Glunk under them, got rid of him, and entered a door below.

They entered a tunnel fully immersed in the water, to Sweetie's horror. She tried to quickly swim through it, hoping to reach the end before she drowned. Not an easy task because of all the Glunks in the way, forcing her to use her beams, helped by Kirby's water jet. They were able to reach another door, leading back to the area under the surface. She got her head out of the water and took a big gulp of air before seeing a floating door above the surface. Coo then took her in his claws to help her pass it, while Kirby inflated to fly through it, and Rick was able to jump into it.

They reached the top of a tall cliff. Before them, another cliff. Between the two cliffs, a Scarfy, and a big hole full of enemies. Diagnostic: they had to jump in the hole, making Sweetie gulp. Coo took her again in his claws and started to fly down, Sweetie shooting the enemies in the way with her horn. Kirby started to fly too, following Coo. As for Rick, without fear, he jumped in the hole, falling right on a block before looking down at where to jump next. Two Waddle Dees with green parasols and a Gordo were following below, making his next jump difficult without taking a hit. Kirby decided to transform into a rock and fell right on one of the Waddle Dees, while Sweetie shot the other, and also the Bouncy on another block under the Gordo. With the path open, Rick jumped, fell around the Gordo, but missed the block, falling directly in the water, getting close to be hit by a Glunk. Kirby, still a rock, fell on another Glunk, and Sweetie shot the one that almost hit the hamster. They then took the door under water to the next area.

Another tunnel under water, this time with pipes creating currents leading right into spikes if they weren't fast. Sweetie would like to ask about the presence of these pipes, but trying to avoid drowning, she had to keep her mouth shut to not let air escape. They quickly passed the currents, avoiding the spikes, and entered another door in the way.

It led to a room, thankfully without water. Before them was a big green jellyfish, and above, a moving bag. It was becoming a habit. The jellyfish remained here for a moment, before skidding across the floor toward them. It then jumped before them, before sparks of electricity got out of its body, electrifying everyone in a shocking surprise for a few seconds. It was followed by it jumping high before shooting a star-shaped projectile at Kirby, who was able to get back from his shock and avoid the projectile before inhaling it. Before he could spit it back, the jellyfish fell back on the floor, producing a shockwave toward them. They were all able to jump above it before Kirby spat back the star at the jellyfish, followed by Sweetie shooting him. The jellyfish jumped again, only for Sweetie to shoot him another time on the head, making it fall on it. Kirby then inhaled it, getting the Spark Ability. It gave him a hat made of blue electricity surrounded by a golden circlet with a gem.

The enemy beaten, Coo took the bag, letting Rick open it to reveal a blue sunfish with a big round mouth that was somehow able to breathe despite the absence of water. The fish then happily jumped on place at being free, before jumping on Rick's paws. Sweetie smiled at seeing a new friend.

"Hello!"

"Hiiii!" says Kirby.

"Coo!"

The fish nodded at them in return.

"Will you help us in our journey, too?" Sweetie Belle asked, the fish answering her with another nod. "Thank you! My name is Sweetie Belle! Do you already know Kirby too?"

Kirby answered for him by saying, "Kine!" while happily jumping. The fish replied by jumping too in Rick's paws.

"So it's Kine. And I don't know if you already know Rick and Coo. Welcome to the team!" Sweetie Belle said.

They then got out of the room by the door, getting back where they came from.

Oh no! I forgot to take my breath! Sweetie Belle then thought in panic, only to discover something in her panic. "Wait..." she then said. "I can breathe underwater?! How is that possible?!"

Kirby, Rick, Coo, and Kine stared at her, before laughing, to her embarrassment. Rick then started to take big breath to show that he could too, followed by Coo and Kirby doing the same, to her amazement. She then placed her hooves on her eyes, not believing it.

"So in this world, we can breathe underwater? That's... great! But so confusing! Urg... This is like the food, the doors, and everything else, I will just stop thinking about it. Although..." She turned to Kine. "Can you use Abilities when Kirby is with you too?"

Kine pondered that for a moment, before he suddenly took Kirby in his mouth, to the puffball's surprise. Not long after, Kirby fully entered the mouth, and out of it came a lightbulb, illuminating the tunnel. Kine then spat the lightbulb, hitting an orange frog that had been swimming toward them, before Kirby got his head out of the fish's mouth.

"Poyo..."

"That's neat!" Sweetie Belle shouted, making Kine happy at her compliment.

Kirby decided to remain in Kine's mouth while underwater, even if it wasn't pleasant. They opened the way, using the lightbulbs to beat all the enemies they crossed while the others follow them. Kine being a fish, he also had less problems swimming against the current, which could reveal being useful. After a moment of passing currents, fishes, frogs, and Glunks, they reached the next door, leading to a dark area.

Kine used the lightbulb to light it, so everyone could better see where they went. It turned out that they were in a small pocket of water at the start of a tunnel. So they got out, Kirby remaining in Kine's mouth so he could still use the lightbulb to light the way. Kine could jump on the floor outside of the water, but Rick decided to take him in his paws to help him. They did well, because they saw a door that they wouldn't have been able to see in the dark. However, taking it, they saw that it only led in a small room with some water without any exit. Returning back, they continued their way.

"You know..." Sweetie Belle then said to Kirby. "I wouldn't be surprised if the Rainbow Drop is behind a door like that in the dark. You should try to keep this Ability just in case."

Kirby looked at her from Kine's mouth and nodded.

In the way, they encountered a new enemy, which was a Sparky. A green creature that looked like a tear drop with two yellow orbs of electricity at the top, and two eyes. After him, they found more water, and a door leading outside, under the surface.

Barely escaping the charge of a Flamer and the jump of a frog, they got out of the water back on ground, Sweetie shooting a coconut in a tree just before them. It was followed by more enemies, and more jumps on small pillars of ground outside of the water, until reaching the next door.

They appeared back under water close to the surface, continuing their way. Kine swam underwater with Kirby, shocking all fishes, squids and frogs they crossed, while Coo took Sweetie and started to fly above the surface, just in case, Sweetie shooting the enemies in her sight. For more efficiency, Rick jumped on one of the pillars of ground and jumped from platform to platform, knocking down all the enemies that weren't shot by the filly. At the end, there was another door.

Another Flamer avoided, they encountered some sort of blue eels with light blue underbelly coming out of pipes. Avoiding them, they reached a hole in the way. Jumping in it, they fell in water again. Finding nothing after destroying some blocks, they eventually found a door that only Kine could reach because of the strong currents. However, clinging to Kine, they were all able to reach it, entering a dark room. Illuminating it, they found a secret door, and took it.

They ended up in another room with familiar walls. Jumping on some steps, they reached a few blocks that were different from the normal ones, making Sweetie smile at recognising where they were. They looked to be made of iron. But...

"What? We need another Ability to destroy them?" she whined at seeing they made all this way only to get out empty hooved.

"Poyo..."

Well, nothing to do here for now. They got out and got back on the surface with all the eels, continuing their way, until they encountered a Rocky. Kine looked at him, thought for a moment, and a lightbulb appeared in his mouth before disappearing. He then pointed one of his fins at the Rocky, trying to say something to Kirby. The puffball understood, gave up the Spark Ability, and ate the Rocky to get the Stone. Kine then quickly jumped back with Kirby in the earlier hole, leaving behind Sweetie, Rick and Coo.

"You think it his the right Ability ?" Sweetie Belle asked to the animals. They answered with a shrug.

Before long, Kine and Kirby came back, Kirby's big smile telling everything they needed to know.

"So this makes three?" He nodded. "Yay!" Sweetie and the animals jumped in joy at finding another Rainbow Drop, Sweetie hugging Kine who passed from blue to red.

After this little victory, they resumed their way, reaching a new door. The other side revealed to be a VERY long submerged tunnel full of currents and frogs. Letting themselves carried by the currents, they only had to watch out for the frogs. Sadly, Kirby's Rock Ability was not very effective in this area, because there were some frogs coming from above them. So Sweetie and Rick were the ones leading the group, followed by Coo, then by Kine with Kirby inside his mouth. In the way, they found a bottle of energy drink, and Sweetie took it with her, planning to drink it with the others once there were no more currents. After a time, they finally reached the door, only for Sweetie to wonder how they will be able to drink the bottle underwater.

Kirby then looked at her with an arched eyebrow, and Sweetie understood what he meant. She sighed, seeing no other way, blushing.

"Alright... Take it and... do it."

She gave the bottle to Kirby, who ate it. Then he quickly got out of Kine and did a mouth to mouth with her, giving her some of the drink. He did the same with Rick and Coo, who weren't as embarrassed as Sweetie who hid her red face behind both her hooves and her tail.

---

They arrived in a big submerged tunnel, finding before them a giant angler fish three to four times Kirby's size. It was brown with a glowing yellow lure, darker yellow fins, and many sharp teeth. It could gobble them in one go! There were also yellow one eyed starfishes rolling on the walls of the tunnel, and squids floating around.

The fish then started to fire arrow-shaped lasers from its lure at them, the squids started to swim to reach them, and the starfishes jumped from the walls, floating toward them while spinning on themselves.

"Emergency dispersion!" Sweetie Belle shouted, causing the whole group to separate to not be hit by any of the enemies. Coo, however, still got scratched in his right wing, and Sweetie got a cut on her left cheek. Kine, Kirby still in his mouth, quickly got above the fish and Kirby turned into stone inside him, hitting the big fish right on the head, three starfishes started turning above its head while its eyes got all googly. Kine quickly swam away.

The fish then started to fire sparks and arrows everywhere in the tunnel in a wild attempt to hit them despite its eyes looking in two directions at the same time. Many of them hit nothing or the fish's minions, but one of them managed to hit Rick in the belly and Sweetie Belle was barely able to avoid one by spreading her legs at the last moment, the projectile passing under her belly. Sweetie shot back some beams with her horns at the fish, one of them hitting it in its mouth. Too bad they didn't have bombs!

Coo swam toward the fish, clung himself on its head with his claw, and started to poke it at the left eye, making it trash around violently. The fish then charged in hope of getting rid of the owl, barely missing Kine and Sweetie, before hitting the wall, Coo getting out of the way just before and a starfish getting crushed.

The fish turned back toward them, very angry, its left eye closed. It then charged again at them, mouth wide open, to Sweetie's horror. Coo was the unlucky one being targeted, and the poor owl found himself trying to swim away to not get eaten alive. But birds were not made to swim!

He was saved by Sweetie hitting the fish's right cheek with a beam, getting its attention. The fish charged at her.

"Horseappeeeeeuuuuuule!!!" she screamed as she now tried to not get eaten. The fish was almost at her, until Kine fell on its head with a stone-shaped belly. It didn't stop it, but the sudden weight forced its head to face down, the lure hitting Sweetie, who then clung to it. The fish got rid of Kine with one good swing of its head, unknowingly getting Sweetie to be carried around by the lure getting wild. In panic, she shot the fish in the right eye.

Bad idea...

It caused the fish to heavily swing its head back in pain, carrying the lure and Sweetie still on it. Then with her weight, the lure swung back right in the fish's mouth, getting the filly stuck inside as the fish closed its mouth, accidentally biting its lure. Its eyes opened back because of the sudden pain, and twitched, the fish becoming immobile. With the lure inside its mouth, its inside could be seen being illuminated, some light escaping from the mouth.

With the fish immobilised, the animals swam toward it in hope of saving Sweetie Belle, Kine in head. But then...

A small explosion was suddenly heard from inside the fish, then another, and another. As the fish restarted to move around, more explosions were heard inside. The fish collided with a wall, then charged at another, before finally releasing the lure, and Sweetie Belle with it. She fired another beam in the mouth before getting out of range of the inside. She then screamed, "And don't try to eat me again!" while releasing the lure.

Before the fish could do anything, it took another hit from stone Kirby inside of Kine. It seemed to be the final straw, because the fish's eyes finally closed, and it started to fall toward the bottom of the tunnel, upside down, not moving anymore.

Sweetie looked at it for a few moment with angry eyes. Kirby approached her to see if she was alright, when she suddenly hugged him. Then, he could hear her starting to cry.

"I... I really though that I would get eaten...Sniff I was so scared... I... Sniff I... Sniff I wanna see my mommyyy!"

Kirby hugged her back, patting her on the back, rubbing his head against her. Rick, Coo and Kine joined the hug too, being here for her.

---

While they were flying above the Rainbow Islands on the Warp Star, Kirby looked behind him at Sweetie Belle in worry. The filly, while clinging to the Warp Star to not fall, was currently pressed against Rick, the hamster giving her comfort. Coo was at her other side, his wing wrapped around her. Kine sadly couldn't do much, beside being close. He had forgotten that the filly was just, well, a filly. A child. He was young too, but he always knew how to live by himself, facing danger head on without fear, not being bothered by things like almost getting killed in battle. But Sweetie Belle hadn't. Apparently, she came from another world, living what anyone would consider a normal life, with a family, friends, a home, safety. But now, here she was, by herself, forced into a life-risking adventure, and just lived her real first near death experience.

Thankfully, he, Rick, Coo, and Kine were here for her. Dedede too apparently, taking care of her in his castle. But right now, he was seemingly sleepwalking and scheming evil plans while sleeping. And he was not sure that treating her like a potential living weapon to fight him counted. A part of Dedede's army seemed to truly care for her, too bad they were actually forced to fight her. Why didn't they rebel? He will probably never know the answer. Or maybe it was just blind loyalty, or because Dedede was strong... Whatever. In the absence of Dedede and his army, they will watch over Sweetie Belle and make sure that nothing happened to her. And he had an idea... Hopefully, it will work as he thought.

He took a detour to let the memories of the event pass, but now, they were starting to approach the fourth island: Iceberg.

Author's Notes:

It killed me inside to write about Sweetie crying, but she needs those moments.

Chapter 11: Iceberg

The Warp Star disappeared like the previous times, dropping them on the snowy ground. The animals immediately took a formation around Sweetie Belle, Rick before her, Coo flying above, and Kine behind. Sweetie couldn't help but smile at how protective they became after her earlier... 'episode'. Kirby was at her right, looking at her.

"Poyo...?"

"I... I will be ok." she tried to reassure him. "Thank you all."

Kirby smiled at her before he did something that she didn't expect. He jumped on her back. "Poyo!" He moved a bit to correct his position, being a bit awkward since it was the first time he was riding an equine.

That made Sweetie laugh. "Kirby! You don't need to..." But she was then stopped by another unexpected event. A sudden light appeared around her, and her fur turned into white stone! "Wh... WHAAT?!"

Kirby seemed to know it would happen, or at least, he had guessed it, because he started to jump happily on her back, shouting, "Poyo! Poyo! Poyo!"

However, the animals were clearly surprised with how they were watching her with mouths wide open, or more open in Kine's case.

Sweetie looked at her stoned hooves in wonder, still being able to move, before looking at Kirby. "Since when...?" Kirby pointed at the sky. "On the Warp Star?" He nodded. "You got, just like that, the idea that I may gain the same Ability as Rick, Coo, and Kine if you were riding on my back?"

"Poyo!" He nodded again.

She looked back at herself. "But how... I don't even understand how the animals gain this Ability, but at least they are from this world, so there may be a link! But I'm not! I'm an alien! I have nothing to do with Popstar! So... HOW?!"

A paw pressed on her mouth, silencing her. When she looked, Rick was looking at her before he shook his head, as if to say "Don't question it, just accept it."

Sweetie gave him a deadpan look, then sighed. "You are right. Let's just say 'it's magic' and be done with it. Actually..." She looked at her horn. "Maybe it's magic!" She groaned. "Too bad Twilight isn't here, she would have probably been able to find out... after freaking out about it." She looked at herself again. "Well at least it's neat. I wonder now what I may obtain with your other abilities." She then put a hoof on her mane to feel it, only to hit more stone. "Wow! Even my mane is all rocky, probably my tail too! I wonder if I can eat rock, now."

The animals looked at her with a deadpan expression, clearly thinking, "Seriously?"

Sweetie saw their look. "What?" It made Kirby laugh.

Shaking their head, they turned back toward where they wanted to go, taking back their position around Sweetie Belle. Rick waved for them to move, and the group's journey on Iceberg finally started.

If only her turning into stone could also protect her from the cold. Hopefully, she will not catch something. She will definitely ask for a scarf once Dedede is awake and less evil!

One of these things flying with a propeller was their first encounter. It started to charge at them once they approached too much, and Sweetie shot it before it got too close, being the only one that was actually able to deal with it without taking its explosion. That was followed by one of these hedgehogs that gave the Needle Ability. As soon as they got close, it got on its belly and spread its spikes around to protect itself. Sweetie then thought about testing something, so she passed Rick and stopped before the hedgehog. Raising her right hoof, she then punched it, without even being hurt by the spikes, actually sending the hedgehog flying right into the Bouncy behind it. Sweetie looked at her hoof with a big smile. "Yay!"

Rick whistled and waved a paw, feeling for the poor hedgehog that must have a concussion now.

"S-Sweetie Belle?!" suddenly screamed a voice from above. When they looked up, they saw a Waddle Dee on a bridge, shocked. "Sweetie Belle, is that you?"

Sweetie Belle gasped. "Is that you Waddle Dee? Oh my gosh! I'm so happy to see you again! Are you alright?"

"Y-yeah... But... What..."

"I'm glad! Hey! Look!" She waved at her body. "I'm now made of stone! When Kirby rides on me, I can use his Abilities! Like Rick, Coo, and Kine!"

"That... That's good... Hum... Imustgoitwasnicetoseeyouagain!" He then ran away, screaming, "We are even more doomed! Fly, you fools!" They then saw a Sparky jumping from another bridge above before running away too.

That made Sweetie pout. "Oh come on! What a drama queen! I wasn't going to punch him too hard! He is my best friend, and we were okay that we would fight as if I was training! Mph!"

The others could only sweat. "P-poyo..."

---

They didn't encounter any enemies for several seconds before crossing a lonely Flamer after destroying a few blocks. Before the Flamer could charge at them, Kirby quickly gave up his Rock Ability, giving back to Sweetie Belle her normal appearance, before eating the Flamer for his fire, thinking that it could be useful in this island. With the Fire, not only he gained the hat, but Sweetie's mane and tail caught fire too!

"Wha- WAAAAH!! I'm on fire! Water! Quick! Quick!" She ran around in panic, jumping off the bridge on which they found the Flamer, tapping the fire on her head to try to stop it, without success, Kirby clinging to her neck for dear life. But then, she realized something. The fire didn't hurt! "Oh right! Fire Ability! Kirby is riding me! So I have Fire Ability too!" She gasped. "Does that mean I can spit fire?!"

"Poyo!"

"Wait Kirby, I must see!" She took a big breath, only to spit nothing, to her disappointment. "Aww..." But then, Kirby tapped her head to gain her attention. When she looked at him, he pointed at her horn. "Wait, my horn? Of course!" She then pointed her horn before her and concentrated like she did when she used her beams. Before long, a fireball was shot from her horn! She then screamed, "That's awesome!"

A sudden chill creeped Kirby's and the animals' backs, having the feeling that they unleashed a beast. Did she still need to be protected?

At least she stopped thinking about the giant fish almost eating her.

---

At the same time, far enough, Waddle Dee spied the group with binoculars. He said, "We are SO doomed... Maybe I should go say to everyone to go hide..."

Broom Sunglasses, also with binoculars, and eating popcorns, then said, "No need. Let her have her fun. If what I heard about what she has done in the forest is true, then it should be funny. This filly has great potential! Now just sit down, take some popcorns, and enjoy."

"But..." Waddle Dee started to say, only to be hit by a broom.

"I said enjoy."

Waddle Dee sighed. At least, I warned everyone around. I hope they will spread the word. He then turned to Broom Sunglasses. "What is it about the forest?"

Broom Sunglasses chuckled. "Ooh boy. What a story."

---

Sweetie and the others passed under the earlier bridge, approaching a door, only to have a bad surprise in the form of blocks of snow disappearing under them. Coo quickly caught Kine who almost fell. Now watching on what they walked, they entered the door to a small tunnel leading to some blocks of ice. Sweetie Belle immediately understood what she must do, and shot a fireball, melting the blocks and opening the way. Behind them was a small room with another bag.

Opening it, they discovered the same blue blob that they saved in the forest. Like previously, he licked them one by one, ending with Kirby, before jumping away, now spitting fire.

...

"Wait. Is he copying your Ability by licking you, Kirby?"

"Poyo..."

---

They got out and continued only to encounter nothing for a while, excepted a Propeller that Sweetie beat without problem, and a Shotzo, a living cannon that were numerous in Dedede's castle. Sweetie remembered thinking they were normal cannons, until she saw one of them move alone. Like the Gordos, they were pretty much invincible, so they had no choice but to avoid it. Luckily, the next door was just before it.

Taking it, they reached a new area where they were welcomed by a penguin spitting ice at them. Kirby quickly jumped on Rick so he could spit fire back and cancel the ice until the penguin stopped. He then jumped back on Sweetie Belle while Rick punched the penguin. Too bad, she would have loved to see what it would have been with the Ice Ability. Would her mane and tail become ice and would she be able to shoot ice balls? It would be cool!

The area was full of these penguins, but with Sweetie Belle raining fireballs on them, and avoiding the snow blocks, they had no problem reaching the next door. Guarding it was a Sir Kibble, so Sweetie thought it was the occasion to see how she was with the Cutter Ability, but Kirby refused to eat it, so Sweetie had no choices but to burn it.

The door led to an area guarded by a big, living grey block with a face and two feet. The block then jumped, trying to crush them under it. They avoided it, and Sweetie shot fireballs, nobody wanting to try their luck at punching it. The block then charged at her, but thankfully, it was slow, so she didn't have any problem avoiding it. A few more fireballs, and it stopped moving, falling on the ground. That opened the next door.

They ended up on a platform, below them were slopes. Just above them, on a block, was a Rocky. Everyone understood what had to happen next. So Kirby gave up the Fire and took the Rock before jumping on Rick. Now with the form of a round rock, Rick started to roll down the slopes, crushing all enemies they encountered, followed by Sweetie Belle and Coo, the last one having Kine in his claws. Many slopes later, they reached the bottom where there was another door, which they took after Kirby jumped back on the filly, turning her into her Rock form.

In the next area, a strong wind pushed them forward, the only one able to resist it being Coo. In the way, they had to jump on blocks to avoid the two chicks and the Cappy that were between them. Sweetie destroyed some more blocks, revealing that they were coming close to a hole where they had to jump on a small pillar to pass it. Rick took Kine in his arms, ran toward the hole, and was able to jump on the pillar before jumping again, landing on the other side of the hole, some blocks stopping them from being pushed further by the wind. Seeing her turn quickly coming, Sweetie gulped, regretting not having wings like Coo, before jumping. She quickly saw that she jumped too far, passing above the pillar, but not reaching the other side of the hole.

"Oh no!"

Kirby didn't lose time, clung himself to Sweetie, and inflated. The two of them started to float, with Kirby leading them to join Rick and Kine while Coo placed himself under Sweetie just in case. They landed beside Rick, who took the trembling filly in his arms while Kirby pat her back.

"Thank you, Kirby," Sweetie Belle said. It was the second close call! The journey was really starting to become dangerous. She had to pay a closer attention to everything, or else... She gulped, trying to regain courage, before saying, "L-let's go."

They looked at her for a few seconds and nodded. Rick let her go before turning and destroying the blocks. They then reached a wall of indestructible blocks, forcing them to jump on them. Still pushed by the wind, they barely had time to jump again to avoid the snow blocks and the Broom Hatter that was somehow able to walk on them without destroying them. They landed on other indestructible blocks and jumped again to avoid more snow blocks with a Kabu on them. The process repeated another time, this time with an hedgehog.

After that, they finally reached a place where the wind was not as strong, but still too strong to let them walk back. They were between floating indestructible blocks before and behind them, with doors on them. They now had to choose. The problem was that the wind stopped them from reaching the first door. Coo being the only one able to reach it, he will have to carry everyone one by one.

Not knowing which door to take, and if one of them lead to the Rainbow Drop, they decided to split the group in two. Coo carried Kirby and Kine to the first door, while Sweetie hopped on Rick and the hamster jumped before the second one. After Coo was finished with his task, he came back to Rick and Sweetie Belle. The idea was that the two smaller groups will enter the two doors, and if one of them was a door without a way back, then the group taking it will wait the other. If the two were doors without way back, then... they will just wait about ten minutes, then continue the journey in their separate way.

Sweetie's group entered one of these rooms with a bag and a more powerful enemy. Lucky for her, the enemy here was one that she knew very well: the brown parasol.

The parasol seemed to be a different one than the one they beat because it clearly didn't recognize her. It attacked directly by spinning toward them only for Sweetie to stop its attack with a beam. Rick quickly got behind the parasol and took it in a bear hug, trapping it. Sweetie then charged her horn and released a charged beam, more powerful, that the parasol took right in the face. Rick then slammed the parasol on the ground, jumped, and fell on it with all his weight, crushing the parasol under his belly, defeating him. Their enemy beaten, Coo took the bag, brought it back to the floor, and opened it.

That blue blob, again! How did he get captured so quickly?

---

Well, at least, they saved the blob, again. Now they could join Kirby. Coo carried them one by one to the other door, and once done, they entered it, finding Kirby and Kine waiting for them in the other side.

"Poyo?" the puffball asked.

"Nothing. Just that blue blob that we had to save, again."

That disappointed Kirby, because it meant they still had to search the place where the Rainbow Drop was. He then jumped back on Sweetie, turning her into stone.

The group united, they resumed their journey where Sweetie discovered that they were trapped between two walls of snow. The only way was up, by jumping on ice blocks, snow platforms sticking out of the walls or floating in the air, and ice platforms while avoiding stalactites falling from the ceilings. At the top, they found a door and a tomato that the whole group rushed to eat!

After the door, they found themselves in a small tunnel where the only way was blocked by Star Blocks. Destroying them led to a way down, and more blocks. After much more blocks, they found a door above ice blocks, and yet the tunnel continued. They explored further, only to find the way blocked by more ice blocks. They will need the Fire Ability.

Thankfully, the room behind the door had no less than six enemies that they knocked out, all of them giving a different Ability, among them a Flamer. There was also a Rocky, a hedgehog, a Sir Kibble, a green parasol, and a penguin. At that, Sweetie looked at Kirby with pleading eyes, seeing an opportunity. Kirby understood and sighed, accepting. Beside, he was curious to see too how Sweetie will use his Abilities.

Turned out Sweetie had been thinking right about the Ice Ability. It transformed her mane and tail into ice, and she could shoot ice balls from her horn. She could also skate on the floor, to her joy.

The Needle Ability gave her spiky fur all over her body except where Kirby was to not hurt him. Enemies trying close quarter combat with her will end up turned into cheese.

As for the Parasol, it made a parasol appear out of her horn, serving as a shield, the downside being that when it was open, she couldn't see before her. She was also able to use it to slow her fall, like Kirby and the Waddle Dees.

And finally, the Cutter Ability. With it, she could use her tail to send sharp crescent waves behind her. The waves had a boomerang effect, so after flying behind her for a second, they turned back and passed her to attack whatever was in their path before her. Thankfully, the waves didn't have any effects on her, as she saw after accidentally getting hit by one.

After testing all these Abilities, Kirby finally took the Fire one, and they got back in the tunnel. Sweetie Belle first destroyed the ice blocks under the door, only to end up in dead ends. So they took the remaining way, destroying the ice blocks blocking it, until they reached the end of the tunnel, and the door.

The next area was nothing more than a series of slopes where the Stone Ability and Rick would have done wonder. Instead, they passed it the normal way, punching and burning all the enemies they crossed, watching out for the Rockys and the stalactites. After the door, they ended in a small room with a new enemy and another bag.

"Again?" whined Sweetie Belle. "If it's this blue blob again...!" She then looked at the enemy. "Hum... Hello, mister...?"

"Frosty," the bipedal white walrus-like creature answered. He wore dark blue overalls and light blue shoes. No tusks on him, thankfully. He then turned around and lowered himself to do something, exposing his... naked buttocks...

"I... didn't need to see that..." Sweetie said with round eyes.

Thankfully, Frosty turned around, only to throw an ice block at them. Sweetie quickly got out of her shock and shot a fireball at the block, destroying it, then shot again at the walrus. He didn't like that because he then charged at them, rather slowly. Avoiding him, Coo used his claws to scratch his bald head. Trying to slap the owl, Frosty ended up crashing into the wall, and Sweetie took the occasion to shoot a fireball at his butt, making him jump in pain to the point that his head hit the ceiling. Back on the floor, on his belly, he was vulnerable to Rick, the hamster kicking him in the nose, stunning him even more. He was still able to get up and roar in rage, only to eat a fireball from Sweetie, which finally knocked him out as smoke came out of his mouth.

In the bag was the blue blob...

"Are you sure you don't want to come with us? You wouldn't get captured like that." Sweetie proposed. The blob seemed to understand her, because rather than jumping away, he started to think. After a moment, he finally nodded, accepting her proposition.

He then said something. "Gooey!"

"Is that your name?" Sweetie asked, and Gooey nodded. He seemed to be in many ways like Kirby. Gooey then wrapped his tongue around the unconscious Frosty... and ate him! After that, he started spitting ice!

"So he can really copy Abilities! He is like you Kirby!"

"Poyo?" Kirby raised an eyebrow. He really though that he was the only one with this Ability.

Let's hope that the guys he ate reappeared too...

---

The following area was another tunnel, this time with water. Gooey immediately jumped inside Kine's mouth, the fish almost shocking with how he hadn't expected that. But then he discovered that he could now use ice, surrounding himself with ice crystals. So Gooey could also influence the animals?

Well, anyway, they all jumped in the water (which was freezing!), Kine using the Ice Ability to freeze the fishes and Glunks that attacked them. Back on the ground, it was Sweetie's turn, using her Fire Ability to destroy the blocks in the way and burn the frogs behind them. They reached another water point with more frogs and Glunks, all turned into ice cubes by Kine. The fish also used the ice to destroy more blocks in the way, finding a way up to a room where there was a tomato, to everyone's joy. That was, until Gooey wrapped his tongue around it and ate it whole. Everyone stared at him for a long moment of silence, before tears started to fall from Kirby's eyes at having his favorite food stolen from him under his nose.

"Hum... Gooey... In the future, could you avoid eating the food by yourself unless we tell you you can please? We all wanted a part of that tomato," Sweetie said with sorrow, confirmed by all the animals nodding at him, disappointment in their eyes and Rick patting Kirby on the back.

Gooey sweated before rubbing his tongue against the back of his head, smiling sheepishly. "Googoo..."

---

The second half of the tunnel being similar to the first half, it didn't take long for them to find the door. Back outside, Sweetie quickly used a fireball to eliminate a Propeller before they jumped on a big bridge with a few other smaller bridges above it. They encountered a few Poppys, but Kirby didn't dare to give up the Fire in case there were more ice blocks. Gooey decided to do it instead, giving him the Bomb Ability, which he used immediately to eliminate some of the enemies. Sweetie then looked at him with hesitation, before her curiosity won.

"Gooey? Do you want do get on my back please? I wanna see what the Bomb Ability gives me."

Gooey looked at Kirby, and the two nodded. Kirby hopped off of Sweetie, and Gooey jumped at his place. With him on her back, Sweetie began to test how the Bomb Ability worked with her. She used her horn, and a bomb materialized before her face before she caught it with her hooves. With an "Eep!" she immediately threw it as far as she could before it exploded. She did another test, this time not wanting the bomb to materialize before her, bur farther, and it did! She looked at one of the bridges above and was able to materialize another bomb on it! The main downside was that the bombs were smaller than Kirby's and were less powerful, but still! She could materialize bombs wherever she wanted! And because the bombs dropped, she could hit enemies hidden behind obstacles!

---

"We are so so SO doomed..."

"What? I love fireworks!"

---

They had to watch out when they reached the next door, because it was on a snow block. Sweetie, with Gooey still on her back, was the first to jump and pass it. Rick was the one following, jumping on a snow block a little below before jumping again to pass the door. Coo, with Kine in his claws, and Kirby just flew through it.

In the next area, they were immediately attacked by one of these black hedgehog things like Kirby and Sweetie Belle encountered before freeing Rick. The hedgehog jumped and fell back toward them like a meteor, forcing them to scatter. Kirby quickly jumped on Rick and the hamster started to spit fire at him, while Sweetie Belle materialized bombs after bombs. The poor creature didn't last more than ten seconds against the onslaught, opening the way under some ice platforms.

It became rather calm for a moment, not many traps beside a few snow blocks, and some enemies trying to surprise them from behind. But when they passed the next door after beating a Scarfy, they found themselves on snow blocks, Coo warning them of the danger. A quick jump later, and they saw that they did well because there were spikes under the snow blocks. Not thinking about the barely escaped trap, they started traveling the tunnel in which they ended up. They went up with a few jumps, they beat a few Sir Kibbles ambushing them, jumped above more snow blocks, and jumped again above spikes in the way, Sweetie exploding some Glunks at the same time.

After two rows of spikes, they ended up at an edge with two ways possible. They either went below or they continued before them where they would have to jump above a few more rows of spikes. They decided to go below where they had to destroy a few ice blocks before falling in a water point. Kirby going inside Kine's mouth, they eliminated two frogs and destroyed a few Star Blocks before revealing a door that only Kine could reach, currents stopping the others from swimming toward it.

They all looked at each others, questioning if they should take it or try the other way too. Kirby decided to take the risk and signed to Kine to go. They entered the door, only to get out a second later, Kirby smiling at them. Kine approached them, and Kirby signed them to cling to Kine. With the help of the fish, they all entered the door, into a room with ice blocks in a side, and Star Blocks in the other. They saw the walls and immediately understood where they were.

"It's one of these rooms with a Rainbow Drop!"

"Poyo!"

With Kirby still inside his mouth, Kine jumped on an ice platform and spat fireball after fireball to destroy the ice blocks, revealing a Rainbow Drop! Kirby didn't wait to take it, everyone jumping in joy.

"This makes four!" Sweetie screamed before turning to the Star Blocks. "I wonder what there is behind these blocks."

She answered her question by using bombs on the blocks, revealing a Gordo on a socle similar to the one that had the Rainbow Drop. "Seriously?"

---

They returned where they had had to choose a way and took the remaining one, avoiding spikes and snow blocks until they reached what was seemingly a dead end. Gooey then used his tongue on one of the snow blocks, showing that the rest of the way was hidden below these. After that, it wasn't long before they reached the door... on more snow blocks. And it wasn't hard to guess that these ones didn't hide some secret way or room.

Like before, the others let Sweetie jump first with Gooey, showing to the others that there were spikes under the blocks, followed by Kirby, Coo with Kine in his claws, and finally, Rick took a big risk by jumping directly through the door.

---

They appeared in a cavern with a high ceiling, facing something that reminded Sweetie of what Spike would be if he was obese. The creature was some sort of round bipedal dragon about the size of Dedede. He had light blue scales with a cream belly and teal spikes on his back. The problem? For a dragon, he was adorable! The other problem? He was roaring at them, showing them his fangs.

So, her first adventure, and she ended up fighting a dragon? Hum... Cutie Mark Crusader Dragon Slayer, yay?

Yeah, not sure about that. She already almost got herself eaten by a giant fish, and this oversized lizard had a rather big mouth. Well, if she kept her distance, she wouldn't be eaten, right? Yes! With her bombs, it should be a piece of cake!

That was until the dragon started to run toward them, mouth wide open, and there was not much space in the tunnel to avoid him. Sweetie started to panic, until she got an idea. She materialized a bomb just before the dragon's mouth. The dragon still running, the bomb ended up inside his mouth and Sweetie saw that it was gobbled, the bomb ending in his stomach. One second later, they heard a small boom and the dragon's belly briefly inflated. He then stopped, smoke getting out of his mouth. Kirby took the opportunity, got on Rick, and they attacked the dragon with fire.

The dragon quickly replied by spitting ice on the both of them, freezing them. The Fire Ability got knocked out, but Kirby was fast enough to get it back before it disappeared. They then stepped back.

So it's an ice dragon? It should have been obvious, with all the ice and snow and cold... It also means we have the right Ability, with the Fire.

Sweetie quickly got around the dragon, going at the opposite side of the tunnel. Coo dived toward him to poke him with his beak before having to fly back because of the dragon's ice breath. Kine jumped before his face and slapped him a few times with his tail before retreating too. Having enough, the dragon jumped high before falling back, Kine barely escaping being crushed. But somehow, that made stalactites to form on the ceiling before falling. Coo was hit in surprise by one of them, and Gooey took one too, protecting Sweetie. That got the Bomb knocked out of him, but he quickly used his tongue to take it back.

Before Sweetie could ask if he was alright, the dragon slammed a foot on the floor, making a stalagmite appear before him. With one hit from his tail, he sent it toward the filly who was hit, the attack violently sending her to the back wall which got Gooey a little crushed. Yet again, the Bomb Ability was knocked out. Lucky for them, the dragon was attacked from behind by Rick breathing fire at his back, which got his attention. The hamster retreated as the dragon breathed his ice at him, using his tail as a propeller to move forward, chasing them.

Meanwhile, Gooey yet again got back the Bomb, and Sweetie used one on the dragon's head. Coo, who took Kine in his claws, released the fish above the dragon, Kine headbutting him before jumping away. The dragon roared, then started to jump all around the tunnel, making stalactites rain. Gooey left Sweetie Belle to use his more powerful bombs to destroy a few of them, then attacked the dragon with another. Sweetie found herself having to use her beam, destroying more stalactites to save her friends, even if Kine still got hit.

The dragon then kicked the floor a dozen times, making a circle of stalagmites appear around him before he used his tail to send them all over the tunnel. Coo saved Kine while everyone else was able to jump above the projectiles. In mid-jump, Sweetie counterattacked with a few beams and Gooey threw another bomb before Rick took Kirby and threw him too toward the dragon. Kirby surrounded himself in fire and rammed the dragon on the head like a meteor.

That got the dragon to finally lose consciousness, falling belly first on the floor, almost crushing Kirby who had to run away. Everyone looked at the beast before approaching him slowly. Kirby poked him a few times to see if he wakes up, and confirmed that they beat him by raising his left arm with a big smile. Sweetie sighed in relief.

Wait until she says to Spike that she beat a dragon alongside a hamster, an owl, a fish, a blob, and a puffball. Still, that had been a tough fight.

Fourth island done, three to go. Next one: Red Canyon.

Chapter 12: Red Canyon

By the time they reached Red Canyon, the sun was already starting to set, the sky turning orange. The perfect setting for this island made of red stone, hence the name. It gave also a panoramic view like Sweetie had never seen before, the filly opening her mouth in awe before so much beauty and majesty from the mountainous island. And that was when she finally picked up about the mountains, which they will have to climb...

When all of that is finished, she will probably sleep a whole week.

The Warp Star dropped them just before a Bouncy, followed by another, then two Waddle Dees, one of them charging from behind. And they just arrived! After some jumps above holes, they reached three blocks made of stone with cracks on them. The first and last blocks were above spikes, while the middle one was above a door. It didn't take a genius to guess that these blocks were like the snow ones back in Iceberg. Knowing that, they were able to reach the door while avoiding the spikes and exploding the Rocky on the middle block.

Sweetie will really have to ask Waddle Dee how they could walk on these blocks without destroying them.

They found themselves on a bridge above spikes, facing a green jellyfish like at Ripple Fields. Sweetie immediately dropped a bomb on it, followed by some fireballs from Kine with Kirby in his mouth. The jellyfish hadn't even time to attack before it was knocked out. Gooey then discarded the Bomb and ate the jellyfish, gaining the Spark Ability.

With Gooey being on Sweetie, she got the Spark too, not changing much her appearance outside of making her mane and tail look more like the ones of Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash, even spikier with some arcs of electricity appearing in them sometimes. She tested the Ability and discovered that she now could shoot lightning bolts from her horn!

Back in the previous area, they continued their way, quickly running on the stone blocks that followed before they disappeared. On a pillar farther, they spotted, below, a tomato on a stone block above a deep hole. Not taking any risk, Coo flew to it and took it in his claws. Once he was back, they cut the tomato in six parts for everyone, taking a small break. The door was not far after.

After the door, they were underground, jumping on some more pillars while avoiding two Gordos. They then had to get up, jumping on a block that couldn't be destroyed and avoiding a third Gordo flying horizontally. They passed another Gordo and a Flamer, destroyed some Star Blocks, and had to get up again with the help of another indestructible block. Sweetie used her lightning to shock a Poppy on a giant apple before Gooey ate the apple, and they did the same thing for the two following Poppys.

They reached a dead end with some stone blocks in the ground and understood that they had to continue this way. The next few moments were a chaos where they had to wait for a few rows of blocks to disappear while trying to avoid Gordos in small spaces, and Rick and Sweetie got hit. They finally fell on another row of stone blocks with, before and behind them, Star Blocks. Kirby and Rick quickly destroyed them before moving from the disappearing stone blocks, revealing spikes under them. One of the wall of Star Blocks led to a small dead end, forcing the ones that ran to it to be carried by Coo to the other side.

Passing the other wall of Star Blocks, they got out of the mountain where they had to jump on a few top-pointed pillars before reaching the door which was floating in the air above nothing, meaning they had to jump through it without failing. Because of that, Coo and Kirby were the last ones to take it so they could catch anyone that would miss the door. It led to another underground tunnel where they had yet again to jump from pillar to pillar while avoiding more Gordos. The pillars eventually let place to three small platforms sticking out of the walls with a Star Block between them. Shotzos dropped from holes in the ceiling on the blocks, stopping them. Thankfully, they just had to destroy the blocks to get rid of them, the Shotzos falling into the pit below them.

They then found themselves back on pillars, with more blocks between them, but this time, no Shotzos, but a Waddle Dee, then a Sparky, another Waddle Dee, and a Sir Kibble. They found the door where they had to jump on two more blocks to reach it, Sweetie using lightning on the new knight guarding it.

The knight was different from the Blade Knights and Sword Knights, possessing a cylindrical black body with a purple helmet on his head with an orange spike on top. His hands and feet were purple too and he had no eyes visible through the visor of the helmet.

They just arrived in the new area that they were already attacked by Bronto Burts and a hedgehog followed by a Broom Hatter. Not long behind the Hatter, they were ambushed by three Kabus appearing in the air, one of them falling on Kine. Barely finished with the Kabus, and they were assaulted by four Bouncies. Were they finally starting to send more troops to stop them? Or was this just this area? In one case like in the other, they had to beat many more enemies before reaching the door.

And... They were back in the forest.

What? How are we back in the forest? I thought that these doors didn't teleport that far! And I haven't seen a forest in Red Canyon since the Warp Star! And... IS THIS A NINJA?!

Before them was a bipedal creature in purple ninja garb, with yellow shoes. The biped possessed yellow five fingered hands and two yellow eyes. There was no mistaking him, he was a real ninja.

After living parasols, a dragon, giant animals and whatever, I now fight a ninja?!

She shook her head to focus back on the ninja, only to be hit by some crescent-shaped projectile, cutting her. Rick charged at him, but the ninja suddenly disappeared before flashing around in the air. After about two seconds, he stopped and started to drop toward Kirby who avoided the attack by jumping in Coo's claws. Hitting the floor, a star leading flames appeared from his feet before bouncing on the ground, threatening to burn anyone touching it. He was burned by Kirby and Coo counterattacking by charging him surrounded in fire.

The ninja ran, and at Sweetie's surprise, ran up a tree! He then jumped and kicked Coo in the face before throwing two crescent-shaped projectiles toward Rick and Kine. While they jumped out of the way, Sweetie was able to hit the ninja with lightning. Rick followed by punching the ninja in the face, knocking him out.

I should write down everything I have done since arriving in this world. I can now add 'fighting a ninja.'

---

After the ninja, they were back in an underground tunnel partially submerged. In it, they found a tomato before reaching another door without any problems. It was the next area that caused problem because there were no less than three doors. They decided to follow the same strategy as earlier, this time separating the group into three. Sweetie and Gooey took one, Kirby alone took another, and the three animals took the last.

Sweetie entered the door, coming face to face with a knight similar to the previous one. But he wore a skull mask and used an axe. A single lightning bolt had reason of him, but she gained nothing from this fight. When Sweetie came back, she saw that the others were able to win their fight, and got nothing too. What a loss of time...

They ended up traversing a bridge before reaching an area where they had to jump through many pillars to go to the next door on a tall but narrow pillar. The next area revealed to be a lake where they found a tomato at the bottom, Sweetie starting to get full again. They then separated, Kirby and Kine taking the water way while the others continued on the surface, fighting many enemies including a few ambushing Kabus. After the Kabus, they regrouped, nothing important reported. Fighting some eels, they reached a water pit, having to enter it to continue. At the bottom, pipes released currents leading them right into spikes, forcing them to swim up to not get turned into cheeses. At a moment, they passed under a hole that Kirby and Kine could reach, leading to a door. While they continued to follow the current, Kirby and Kine went into the door, coming back a few moments later with the Cutter Ability and another tomato. Now Sweetie was really getting full. She may have to decline the next one, as sad as it was.

The following area was a succession of rock platforms and bridges where they had to ascend, fighting many Broom Hatters on the way alongside a few other minions. At the end, they had to avoid three Gordos and fight two Scarfys before entering the door. And now they had to cross an area full of platforms on narrow pillars, making it seem as if the platforms would fall if there was too much weight on one edge. The most annoying were all the Bronto Burts bothering their jumps, forcing Kirby to go with Coo so he could use the feathers with the cutter ability to get rid of them.

After another door, they were now in a room with... a giant Gordo that looked angry? And who actually attacked them? Panic appeared in the group.

"How are we gonna fight him? Gordos are invincible, and this one must not be different!"

Before they could think too long to find a solution, the giant Gordo charged at them, forcing them to disperse. The Gordo then hit the wall behind them... and his spikes fell off of him... his body took a pale blue tint... and he lost his angry look...

They all attacked him at the same time. It only took three seconds...

Sweetie gave a deadpan look at his unconscious body. "That's... disappointing."

They all nodded. The smaller Gordos were far more annoying than this one.

After this... 'battle'... they ended up in a place where violent winds pushed them, but there were not much in term of obstacles. All they had to do was to jump above the stone blocks not long after the start, eliminate the few enemies, jump above some spikes at a point, and not jump to avoid three Gordos in a row.

The next area was more interesting. They started in an underwater tunnel where currents pushed them. Sweetie, not wanting to use electricity in the water, let Gooey separate from her so she could use her beams while Gooey could use the same water jet as Kirby. As for Kirby, he entered Kine's mouth and spat from inside sharp waves right before him thanks to the Cutter Ability. With all of them, they had no problem knocking out the Blippers and the Glunks in the way until they reached a place where they could get out of the water even if the tunnel continued in a level above. This second level was a straight line full of pipes expelling air with fishes hoping on the ground and an eel coming out of a pipe at one point. Going on the pipes, the currents propelled them in the air, making them fly, much to Sweetie's joy, the filly starting to laugh.

And now I can add 'using air currents to fly'! This is so fun!

One last pipe led them higher, reaching a third level of the tunnel, with more eels and some Scarfys between blocks. At the end, they could see the door behind two Gordos trapped between blocks. They had to destroy all the blocks so the Gordos could have more space to move, leaving the group more space to pass them.

After the door, they were in another tunnel where they had to go up by using platforms with Sparkys on them. At the top, they had to go forward before going down through some Star Blocks and reach water. They had to pass through Glunks and squids while avoiding two Gordos before getting out of it, landing on more platforms with Sparkies. At the top of the platforms, they reached not one, but two doors side by side. Kirby jumped on Rick, and together with Kine, entered the left door while Sweetie, Gooey, and Coo entered the right door. Turned out that the right door was the right one because they ended up on a floating rock platform with no way back, just a way up in a vertical tunnel. While waiting, Sweetie zapped a few Sir Kibbles above them.

A few seconds later, Kirby, Rick and Kine joined them, Kirby having a tomato in his hands. Sweetie bit her lips, still full. Oh heck! I'm not missing it! And it was with her stomach aching a little that they started to climb the tunnel, using floating platforms, bridges, and even stone blocks to go up. They then had to climb two slopes, then jump on more platforms, before reaching... another tomato!

"Oh come on! What is with all these tomatoes?! I can't eat anymore!" Kirby and the animals looked at her before chuckling. Kirby then took the tomato to divide it, about to divide it into five parts, before she then said, "Urg! Just give me a part! I will eat it later!" which Kirby did, Sweetie placing the tomato part on her back in front of Gooey. "Don't eat it, alright? Just make sure it doesn't fall."

A few more jumps later, another problem arose. There was a door, and up above a few more platforms, there was another door. Yet again, they separated like earlier, same groups. Kirby, Rick and Kine took the first door, and Sweetie, Gooey and Coo took the one at the top.

They appeared in what Sweetie recognized as what she now called a Rainbow Drop Room, making her smile widely. And apparently, they made the right choice, because it turned out that the blocks in this room were vulnerable to the Spark Ability, which Gooey, and by extension she, currently possessed. They destroyed the blocks above them, then they had to take a path between two. They went down a few steps and destroyed more blocks at the other side of a small hole. The ceiling being too low, they couldn't jump above it. While she was about to tell Coo to take her, Sweetie Belle was suddenly lifted from the ground, and yet, it wasn't Coo, the owl being at her left. The feeling of a wet tongue around her barrel answered her question. Looking back, she could see Gooey flying, some ring of small orange orbs having appeared behind him.

"You can fly?"

"Googoo!"

They reached the other side of the hole and Sweetie decided not to question how Gooey could fly without even inflating himself like Kirby or Dedede. She remarked after landing that the orange orbs on Gooey disappeared before he landed too on her back. They went up a few steps and reached the socle with the Rainbow Drop, Sweetie Belle taking it.

"Yay!" she shouted while raising it in her hooves. She then gave it to Coo before taking the way back, Sweetie eating the tomato part as a reward for herself, even if it caused her stomach to hurt a little more. Such gluttony, Rarity would be shocked! She didn't care. These tomatoes were too good. Beside, she at least waited a little before eating it.

---

They joined Kirby and the others behind the first door. To Sweetie's surprise, they were on a cloud! She was actually walking on a cloud, without a cloudwalking spell! How?!

Stop it Sweetie, it's Dream Land! Remember! After all this 'breathing underwater' thing, it shouldn't shock you!

Coo gave the Rainbow Drop to Kirby who ate it with a big smile, congratulating them for finding one. Sweetie didn't pay too much attention to that, looking below the cloud to see where they had to go from here. There were a few more clouds on which they could jump, it was the only way she could see. Coo then took her in his claws, Gooey jumping from her back, and together, the group got down, jumping from cloud to cloud until they reached Star Blocks in the sky. After destroying them, more Star Blocks were further below, and after destroying them, even more below. It was only after that they reached the door on a big cloud, at the top of the tallest mountain of the island.

---

They ended up on some platform arena in the sky above the mountain, finding themselves between... Oh, seriously?

A living tree, a giant boar, a giant fish, a dragon, and now, the sun and the moon, alive?! No, it can't be right. Kirby fought Nightmare on the moon, and it was bigger than that. Are these just some creatures that look like the sun and the moon?

The sun one was nothing more than a ball of fire with two hands and a face. As for the moon, he was actually crescent-shaped with two hands and feet, and a face too, of course, his mouth being in the hole of the crescent. The two of them were about Sweetie's size.

Kirby seemed to already know them, because he started to say many "Poyo!" and instructed them in what to do to fight them. If only they could understand him. At some moments however, he pointed at the sky, so Sweetie at least understood that they had to keep an eye on the sky.

The sun started to talk. "We are happy to see you too, Kirby. And you brought friends! What a BRIGHT idea!"

The moon took his turn. "Too bad they don't look like knights in SHINING armor, you would need one right now!"

Sweetie gave them a deadpan look, although she couldn't stop her lips from going up a bit. "Seriously? We just encounter, and you already starts with bad puns? Wait..." She facehoofed. "Would you be Mr. Bright and Mr. Shine? That Dedede asked for help in the Nightmare incident?"

They bowed. "In person! And thank you for being such a good public!"

"We are present all day..." Bright said.

"And night!" Shine continued.

She gave them a deadpan look again before turning to the rest of the group. "Let's just beat those idiots and go to the next island."

Bright then did a good impression of Rarity about to faint. "Ouch! Such burn!"

"Stop it!" the filly yelled, barely holding a laugh.

"Hey Hey! Don't be grumpy! Or I will be forced to say 'Goodnight' to you!" Shine said with a smirk. Sweetie answered by shooting electricity toward him, only for the moon to jump high in the sky, avoiding the attack. "As you wish!" he then said while he ascended. He suddenly stopped in the sky, looking like a real crescent moon. Somehow, the sunset suddenly turned into night. "Goodnight!"

Shooting stars then fell from the sky toward them, forcing the group to scatter. Kirby turned to Bright and started to pummel him with the blades of his Cutter Ability. The sun, in return, charged at him like a comet, the puffball avoiding him at the last second, only to see that the sun continued his charge toward Sweetie Belle who was too busy looking for the shooting stars to notice the danger.

"Poyo!" Kirby screamed.

"Googoo!" Gooey tried to warn on her back, seeing the sun coming.

At their call, Sweetie turned her head, saying, "What?" before being pushed out of the way by Rick who took the hit at her place. The charge sent the burning hamster further away where he slowly got up, a paw on his burned fur. Sweetie shot a lightning bolt at Bright in revenge, succeeding at hurting him.

Sweetie then heard a thud coming from behind while the sun jumped in the sky. When she looked behind as the night turned to day, Shine was there. Before the moon could do anything, he was attacked by Coo and Kirby until he started to roll around, forcing them to go away.

"Goo!" Gooey suddenly screamed. Sweetie quickly looked at where he pointed his tongue and saw the sun coming right above her. Understanding that being under the sun was a bad idea, she ran away just in time to avoid being fried by a laser coming from the flaming ball. While she ran, she shot another lightning bolt at Shine as he stopped rolling.

Shine jumped back in the sky, but Bright didn't come down. Actually, Bright put himself above the center of the arena, and Shine put himself right under him. The whole area started to illuminate, except a cone of darkness under the moon where the light of the sun didn't reach. Not knowing how to react, the whole group hadn't time to hide as the sun expelled fire everywhere that his light reached, burning everyone. That knocked away Kirby and Gooey's Abilities, but they were thankfully able to take them back.

Bright got back on the floor where he was immediately assaulted by Kirby sending his blades and Sweetie shooting her lightning bolts. He was about to charge at them again when the attacks seemed to get him. He was forced to jump back in the sky where cracks were seen on him, and Shine was forced to take his place. At once, everyone attacked him with everything they had. The assault only lasted two seconds before the sun suddenly went just above the floor and Shine went back to his moon form, this time behind the sun. The area started to flash again and everyone ran toward the cone of darkness created by the moon. But Bright and Shine were smart because the cone was revealed to be too far, nobody reaching it in time. The sun expelled his flames all over the area and everyone was yet again burned by his attack. That was too much for Rick who fell belly first on the floor, unconscious. Kine and Coo were barely in a better stat, and Sweetie Belle could feel herself also starting to close her eyes. Kirby and Gooey were still able to recover their Abilities in time.

Instead of returning in his biped mode, Shine remained in the sky alongside Bright. The sun positioned himself again at the center of the arena, followed by the moon below him. Sweetie understood that they were about to do this attack again and shot a lightning bolt right into the moon. Cracks appeared on him after being hit and he suddenly found himself colliding with the sun in a big explosion. The two celestial bodies then fell beyond the arena, somewhere in Red Canyon, and a last explosion was heard as they hit the ground behind the mountains.

Not celebrating their victory, Sweetie ran to the hamster who was already nudged back to consciousness by Kirby.

"Are you alright Rick?" she asked. "I'm so sorry that you took a hit for me."

Rick placed a paw on her mouth and shook his head with a smile, signifying, "It's alright, no problem. Don't hurt yourself like that." He then hugged Sweetie to reassure her, while Coo landed on his head.

Kirby sighed in relief. This fight had been harder than he had thought it would be. This new move of Mr. Bright and Mr. Shine changed everything. He was glad that everyone was here to help him, or he would have had a hard time battling those two by himself.

They waited a few minutes, the time to take back their breath and to let the pain of the burns disappear, at least a little. They then took the Warp Star, ready to brave the sixth island: Cloudy Park.

Hopefully, they will find a tomato quickly. Sweetie's full stomach could go to Tartarus, they needed to heal.

Chapter 13: Cloudy Park

They were dropped on a cloud, somewhere around the volcano of Cloudy Park. Kirby jumped on Rick so he could better defend himself. Thanks to the Cutter Ability, Rick could throw Kirby around like a boomerang, with the puffball cutting all enemies that touched him. Some meters, enemies, and blocks later, they could already see that this area, and potentially this whole island, will be a pain. The following path was full of Scarfys that they had to eliminate to jump from cloud to cloud. At the edge of a cloud, Sweetie made the mistake of looking below, seeing how high they were. She gulped before quickly taking a big breath to resolve herself. She had to continue, she will not fall, Kirby, Coo and Gooey were here to catch her if she missed her jump.

A Propeller tried to ram Kirby and Rick from below a cloud in front of her, but they were saved by the filly shooting a lightning bolt at it. Well, lucky for them that she stopped because of her curiosity!

They reached a bigger cloud with two Poppy Bros. Jr. running on fruits. The first one was an apple, while the second one was a tomato!

They didn't last five seconds.

The group now healed, they continued. Kirby jumped from Rick to go in Coo's claws, while Sweetie asked Gooey to hop off of her back so she could go on Rick while digesting, not being able to move too much with how stuffed she was now. Gooey decided to go inside Kine's mouth instead, giving him the possibility to spit lightbulbs from his mouth.

From the next cloud, they saw that they now had to jump between two Gordos moving up and down between this cloud and the next one. It repeated two more times until they could reach the door. That forced Rick and Kine to time their jumps while Coo just had to fly above the Gordos, lucky owl.

After the door, they appeared on a tall pillar of stone, the base hidden by clouds. When they looked around, they found that they were in a true field of pillars of stone, going beyond the clouds. They had to jump from pillar to pillar, Coo dealing with the flying enemies again while Sweetie shot beams at the enemies on the pillars. She also had to shoot some Star Blocks to drop a Shotzo.

After the Shotzo, they discovered the cloud equivalent of the snow and stone blocks from the previous islands, forcing them to jump quickly to continue and pass a door that was on one of them. Behind the door, they were back on clouds with a small bridge linking two of them. On the opposite cloud was another of these brown parasols that quickly fell from the assault of Coo's sharp feathers, Kine's lightbulbs, and Sweetie's beams.

This whole thing revealed to be a lost of time because they gained nothing of this fight and the door led them back to the previous area. Thankfully, the cloud blocks had reappeared, so they didn't fall, but they quickly had to jump to not fall anyway after their destruction.

Sweetie dropped a second Shotzo the same way as the previous one before they had to jump on more pillars. They then reached a bridge made of cloud blocks but they could also choose to go below and continue jumping from pillars to pillars. Kine decided to take the pillars while Rick ran on the bridge, Sweetie shooting the Bronto Burts trying to stop them helped by Coo. They then reached another group of cloud blocks with another door, this one floating in the air. Some carefull jumping later, they passed it.

After it, they had to climb. To do it, they could choose between using the clouds, or using air currents to propel themselves. They would gladly take the air currents, but there were Gordos in the way, so they alternated between taking the air currents and jumping on the clouds to avoid the Gordos and some projectiles from Sir Kibbles.

Reaching the top cloud, passing through it, they found another tomato by destroying some blocks on an indestructible one. Stopping resisting, Sweetie just ate her part without saying anything. The door was hidden behind another pair of blocks.

They found themselves on a platform made of indestructible blocks like the one a few seconds ago, the platform being on a big cloud with other similar platforms. Gordos were moving around some of these platforms, forcing the group to watch out. Farther, they found transparent blocks with a penguin on them. It wasn't hard to find the link.

Kirby gave up the Cutter Ability and ate the penguin to obtain the Ice and was able to destroy the blocks thanks to Coo launching three ice projectiles on them only to find nothing under. After that, they ended up fighting a few knights like the ones earlier. Among them were knights that Sweetie hadn't seen yet. They possessed a black body like the others, but also heavy purple armor with a light purple cross in the front, and the head was smaller than the body. They used a big spiked flail as big as Kirby, making Sweetie gulp. Thanks to the Abilities and the filly's beams, they didn't have any problems fighting them. They reached the door which was trapped between indestructible blocks and the transparents blocks. Destroying them with the ice, they were able to go through it with a jump.

They ended up on ground with a pipe propelling a strong current of air at the edge before them. This current helped them reaching a flying platform of similar ground with another pipe releasing a current. They saw before them a platform too far to reach, but they could fall on it from other platforms similar to the actual one above it. To reach them, they just had to use the pipe, then another before letting themselves fall. They reached the platform in a pool of water between two Glunks where there was a door. That was an one way door leading to an underwater area with strong currents, but thanks to Kine, they were able to go against it to reach another door by clinging to him.

They got themselves in a room against a green jellyfish. After avoiding its tentative to shock them, they had no problem beating it. But they then discovered that this whole thing was another lost of time, returning to the area with the pipes. They still returned in the water area to let themselves being pushed by the water current, reaching more doors, only to get the same result. Sweetie's left eye twitched.

They finally passed the platforms with the pipes and passed the door that really led to the next step of their journey, finding themselves in a room with two Shotzos on blocks made of electronics. Understanding that they were vulnerable to the Spark Ability (so the jellyfish was for that?), Gooey went back on Sweetie and she aimed at the blocks, destroying them and dropping the Shotzos into the void below... only for nothing to happen, the door already here since they appeared in the room. That made Sweetie and the animals give deadpan looks at nothing.

The next area, back on clouds, had a strong wind pushing them back, but they could see that they had to go against it to reach what was probably another door behind some indestructible blocks. However, only Coo could fight the wind, so he had to go alone with Kirby. They came back one minute later with the Cutter Ability. With nothing else, they let themselves being pushed by the wind, having to avoid many Gordos in the way until they reached another door that led, to everyone's joy, to a Rainbow Drop Room. And it turned out that the blocks in this room could be destroyed by the Cutter Ability! A few seconds later, they left the room, the sixth Rainbow Drop warm inside Kirby's stomach.

---

After the next door, they just had to walk on more clouds linked by bridges made of cloud blocks. While running, they ended up chased by a group of Waddle Dees with a Bouncy, but some beams from Sweetie stopped them in their momentum. After some time, they had to destroy Star Blocks blocking their way with a Sparky hidden inside before finding themselves having to jump in water. Liquid water in a tunnel made of cloud. Go figure. And there were frogs in it. Frogs in liquid water... on clouds. Yet again, go figure. After everything she saw, that didn't surprise Sweetie anymore.

The next area was the most annoying one as of yet. They were not on clouds anymore, but another air current pushed them until they had to fall in a pit. In their fall, they passed by a few Star Blocks in the walls. Coo was able to fight the air current to destroy them with Kirby, but the others were forced to continue down, then back, then up again beside other blocks before returning where they started, revealing this place to be a loop. Still pushed by the wind, they ended up falling again, this time going through the hole in the wall that Coo was able to create, only to end in another, smaller loop. Coo had already destroyed the blocks of this one and the next ones too.

After a few more loops, they finally reached the door at the center, the animals stopping to take their breath.

"I hope there will not be more areas like this one. This island is one annoying moment after another."

After the door, they appeared on cloud blocks above a Sparky. From here, they had no choice but to walk on more cloud blocks to go down a few levels. After that was a series of falls with Star Blocks and cloud blocks blocking their way. In their fall, they encountered a new enemy that creeped them out: a disembodied floating head of a mummy! And more than one too! They couldn't see the head itself with all the cloth around it, but they still could see an eye through a hole. The mummies remained where they were, and the heroes quickly discovered that they moved only when nobody watched them. Coo eventually decided to deal with them. Sweetie hugged Rick, trying not to think of them.

If it wasn't for the Fountain of Dreams, I would probably have nightmares tonight. Why are there things like that here? I though that Dream Land was a land of dreams. These things are more from a nightmare!

After more falls and eliminating more of these mummy heads, they finally reached the door, putting this awful area behind them. Except these mummy heads came back in the next one where they revealed that they could appear like the Kabus. Speaking of Kabus, they were here too but the group was able to avoid them, as well as the Propeller ambushing them from under a cloud. They entered a room where they fought a big Gordo, as easy to beat as the previous one. After the Gordo, they appeared in a tunnel of cloud going up in diagonal and full of Gordos. Coo got hit by one of them, getting trapped, and Kine ended up jumping on another by accident. The door at the top of the tunnel led to a similar tunnel, this time underwater, with more Gordos. This time they were able to avoid them, even if they got some close calls.

Passing the next door, they were now in the sky, pulled up by a wind, so they didn't fall despite the absence of floor. But the wind made Coo, Kine and Sweetie hit their head against Star Blocks above them. Ouch... There were yet more Gordos in the way, and many more blocks, and by the time they reached the end, Sweetie had some more bumps on her head. Luckily, they found two energy drinks and a tomato in the way, healing said bumps alongside a few other injuries, excepted the pain coming from her stomach. Urg... Destroying one more block hiding the door, they passed it.

They were now... Oh Celestia. Cloud blocks! Cloud blocks everywhere! They were literally in a tunnel made of cloud blocks! With a Gordo blocking the way! Kirby got out of Coo's claws, and Sweetie reluctantly got down of Rick. Everyone immediately started to sprint, avoiding the Gordo in the way even if the animals and Sweetie had to press themselves against the wall. At the end, they had to jump up on a platform where they took their breath before running the other way, avoiding another Gordo. Another jump up on a platform with another small break, and they still had to run, jump, run, jump, run again and again. After a few more jumps on three platforms in a row, they saw that they were in a dead end.

Turned out the cloud blocks of the floor at the end were hiding the rest of the way, leading to more cloud blocks that they had to wait to disappear under their feet. After that was more platforms to jump on, leading to more cloud blocks hiding the way below. It went on another time before they could continue after jumping on a few more platforms. After some more running, they finally reached the door, getting out of this torture! At the other side, Sweetie, Rick and Kine were on the floor, breathing heavily, while they felt a wind against them, not strong enough to push them.

Sweetie Belle turned her head to Kirby. "And it's the third time you do that? How are you doing it?" she asked him. Kirby only shrugged in answer.

Ten minutes later, they decided that it was enough and resumed their journey with Sweetie going back on Rick only to end up having to fight against the wind to go forward, making their jumps more risky. Coo, again, was the one with less problems, so he and Kirby led the way, beating all the enemies. They jumped above pits, then above a few Gordos, and they reached two bridges made of cloud blocks, forcing Rick to run and Kine to jump quickly, Sweetie hitting the enemies on the bridges with her beams so they weren't stopped to fight.

After the bridges, they reached the door, only to be sent in a small room with five other doors. Having already found the Rainbow Drop, they didn't have to take risks, so they decided to test the doors one by one, starting with the one in the center. This door led to another small room full of Scarfys that they didn't have any problem to beat, being able to avoid their explosions. Back in the previous room, they tested this time the door at the right of the first one they took, leading to... nothing. Third time was the charm. They took the door at the left of the first one and they ended up in a room with five energy bottles!

Jackpot!

Sweetie decided to let the others have their pleasure, still full. But that wasn't counting their generosity, Kirby, Gooey and the animals all letting a small part of their bottles for her. How could she refuse after that?

After the door, they were back on rocky floor, having to fight a jellyfish with a small wind from behind. Like the previous one, it didn't last long against all of them. The next room had nothing of interest except a single block vulnerable to Spark, too bad destroying it didn't help. After the room, they were in another tunnel area with wind pushing them. Gooey then gave up his actual Ability and ate one of the Poppys in the way to gain the Bomb. With Gooey having the Bomb, and being inside Kine's mouth, the blob released bombs that were actually round mines that could float and explode underwater.

Pushed by the wind, they had to fall through a few levels of clouds while fighting more Poppys, some of them on apples that Kirby and Gooey ate. They also had to pass a few cloud blocks in the way and a few other enemies including Gordos before reaching a section of the tunnel submerged, finding another bottle that Rick took in his arms before passing the door at the bottom.

After an annoying underwater maze that seemed to take hours, they found the exit door leading to another submerged cloud tunnel with a current pushing them up until they got out of the water where Rick found himself ambushed by two Gordos, taking heavy damages while dropping Kirby. The current still pushing them up, the puffball didn't fall back into the water, instead helping taking out the many flying enemies in the way, mainly Bronto Burts, but also some Propellers and Waddle Dees with the living parasols. Once at the top, they reached a cloud where they could rest where they found another bottle of energy drink and a tomato somehow floating in the air.

Now even the food can float...

Drinking the now two bottles and eating the tomato, the group was ready for what awaited them after the door.

---

They found themselves on a giant cloud arena, and they immediately understood that they reached the lieutenant of the island. The thing was... where was the lieutenant?

They looked around, searching for... well, anything, really. After the living tree and everything else, they could end up fighting anything. Although Kirby had an idea of who they may fight. Cloudy area were HIS playground after all.

Then, in the middle of the group, a bump appeared in the cloud. They took a step back as the bump grew in size until something appeared in it: an eye, looking right at them. Kirby didn't lost time and threw blades after blades at the eye until it got back in the cloud, only to repop beside Kirby, shooting lightning bolts at them. They were all able to jump out of the way before they counterattacked. The eye got back in the cloud and popped out again in another place, but this time the eye flew out of the cloud, floated in the air and surround itself of four smaller orbs that rotated around it.

Yep, it was him.

Kirby immediately pushed everyone out of the way just in time to avoid a charge of the eye before it started to fly around in an unpredictable manner. Despite that, they were still able to hit it many times until they knocked it out of the air. The eye then rolled on the cloud, seemingly already beaten.

"We have already beaten it?" Sweetie Belle asked, only for Kirby to shake his head and signing them to step away from the eye. "You know about this thing?"

Kirby nodded before saying a single word: "Kacko!"

"Kacko? Wait..." Sweetie remembered, back during the day of the Nightmare incident. Dedede had given the pieces of the Star Rod to a few lieutenants and other creatures that he trusted. She remembered him saying their names. One of them was Whispy Wood that they fought this morning. Then there were Mr. Bright and Mr. Shine that they fought just in the previous island. And then, he had said this name: Kracko. Was this that Kracko? The one that Dedede qualified as "his strongest lieutenant"?

The eye then started to float again in the air, but this time, clouds were gathering around it, growing, and growing. Spikes appeared all around the cloud, and it started to take a pink color at the bottom and a blue color at the top. Before long, the cloud was at a side that dwarfed all the other lieutenants excepted Whispy Wood, and the eye opened, looking angrily at them. They could hear the cloud rumble, like during a storm.

This was Kracko.

He charged at them, beams of spark going around him trying to shock them. They barely avoided it as Kirby already sent everything he had against the cloud while being carried by Coo. Smaller Krackos then popped out of him and tried to ram them only for Sweetie to destroy them with her beams. Gooey attacked Kracko, sending bomb after bomb from inside Kine's mouth as the fish hopped around, always facing the cloud. Rick followed his idea and started to run around farther, letting Sweetie on his back shoot at the eye.

Lightning then rained under Kracko as he flew around the arena, electrifying Kine and Gooey while ramming Coo and Kirby. Following that, he shot lightning projectiles from his eyes in Rick's trajectory, the hamster jumping at the last second. Seeing his attacks on the hamster not working, he created a strong wind, pushing both Rick and Sweetie toward the edge of the arena, threatening to make them fall. Rick found himself having to run against the wind to avoid this fate, even able to gain some distance, only to be surprised by the wind suddenly stopping before being charged by Kracko, almost being sent beyond the edge. He saved in extremis Sweetie, who was sent a little further and started to fall, catching her hooves with his paws before pulling her back.

Kracko was suddenly attacked in the eye by Kirby, back in Coo's claws with the Cutter Ability, stopping him from focusing on Rick and Sweetie Belle. He then felt a bomb explode behind him, sign that the blue blob was also back. Rick took Sweetie on his back and benefited of the distraction to run away from the edge back to the center of the arena, Sweetie hugging him. Kracko then shot a lightning bolt directly at Coo, the owl avoiding it by some miracle, still getting some feathers of his left wing burned. He then charged at Kine, hitting the fish who was sent flying before he shot another lightning bolt at him, this time knocking him out for good. Gooey got out of the unconscious fish's mouth, took back the Bomb Ability, and went toward Sweetie and Rick.

Sweetie saw him and understood what he wanted to do. She took a big breath, not thinking anymore about almost falling to her death, before she jumped from Rick's back. Gooey then jumped on her and Sweetie could now materialize bombs again. She immediately attacked Kracko with them while Rick stayed close behind, just in case. Little Krackos popped out again of his cloud and started to approach the filly only for Rick to destroy them with some good punches. Coo came back without Kirby and scratched his claws against Kracko's eye. He only got for reward another lightning bolt before being rammed by the cloud. The owl hit the floor and didn't wake up. Kracko then sent another lightning bolt toward Kirby who dodged before attacking with more blades.

A last bomb finally had reason of him, the cloud disappearing and the eye closing, falling, rolling on the cloud, and finally falling from the arena.

Gooey jumped from Sweetie's back and went toward Kine alongside the filly while Rick joined Kirby at Coo's side. Soon, the two animals were back to consciousness, badly hurt. Helping them, everyone regrouped to recover from the battle at the edge of the arena. They decided to rest for a few hours as they admired the end of the sunset, the stars appearing in the sky with the moon coming from the other side.

As the sun disappeared beyond the horizon, Sweetie turned her eyes toward the last island, their ultimate goal: Dark Castle. Kracko had been a pain, he was not the strongest lieutenant of Dedede for nothing. So... how much harder will be the fight against the king himself?

Kirby sat down beside her, looking at the fortress too with determination, followed by the others. Many hardship probably awaited them, but as long as they were together, they will not fail.

They were ready to end this.

Chapter 14: Dark Castle

After a few hours of rest, they reached Dark Castle. Kirby decided to not get too close of the castle to avoid the cannons, so he let the Warp Star drop them on a bridge leading to the castle, the imposing structure looming before them in the night. Kirby took the lead and posed a foot on a block that was part of the bridge, only for the block to disappear under him half a second later. Surprised, he was able to inflate himself and flew back to his friends, looking back at the blocks. A good amount of the bridge was made of these blocks. If they wanted to continue, they will have to run. Again. They remarked before that that the bridge had a separate section a little further ahead that was above the current one. They will have to jump to reach it. Of course, there were a few enemies in the way.

Coo took Sweetie Belle in his claws, and the filly rained beam after beam on the enemies while the group ran on the disappearing blocks, Rick carrying Kine. They jumped on the second section of the bridge, and ran again until reaching a third section below. More sections followed, some of them having to be reached by jumping on an unique disappearing block floating in the air. Eventually, Sweetie saw something and shouted to the others to stop on one of the part of the bridge that was not made of blocks. She then took in her magic a bottle of energy drink that had been hidden below some of these blocks before giving it to Kirby. Coo dropped Sweetie Belle beside him before the puffball gave the bottle to the owl and Kine, the two of them needing it the most.

After this little break, they restarted to run until reaching the end of the bridge where Sweetie Belle left Coo's claws before passing a door. It led them inside the castle, which well deserved its name, where they had to go up by jumping on many levels of platforms going from wall to wall with spikes at both ends. After the climb, they were in a long hallway where they were ambushed by many enemies coming from before and behind, mainly Waddle Dees and Bouncys. With some teamwork, the group was able to beat all of them without taking any hit before reaching the door and having to fight a black hedgehog. Dodging his flaming charge, they beat him rapidly, unlocking the door.

They appeared in the air, only to fall in water full of Glunks with some Blippers. Because of the unexpected plunge, Sweetie was hit by one of the first Glunks before they were eliminated. Once finished with this underwater section, they got out of it only for Coo to be hit by a stalactite surprise falling from the ceiling. How were there stalactites in a castle? At least, they now knew there were stalactites, so they avoided the following ones without problem and reached the door. One room full of enemies later, they ended in a hallway with some holes full of spikes, and they were forced to destroy Star Blocks to jump above them. After the holes, they were in an intersection with two hallways, one going up, the other down, the two leading to a door. Turned out the bottom door led to a dead end with nothing, annoying the ones taking it. The other door led to a room where a red caped Blade Knight awaited them, his arms crossed.

Sweetie immediately recognized him. "It's you!"

---

Sweetie Belle was on the boxing ring, an unconscious Waddle Dee with a parasol before her. The fight had only lasted a few seconds, all she had had to do had been to charge at him and punch him in the face, and he had fallen out cold.

She was winning fight after fight now, all as easily as this one, and she felt like at the top of the world. Dedede's training was really starting to pay.

Then, a Blade Knight with a familiar red cape got on the ring and faced her, sword ready. Her first Blade Knight. He shouldn't be much harder than the others, she will just have to watch out for his sword.

Piece of cake.

The knight nodded at her, and the fight started. She charged at him, hooves ready to punch, but when she reached him, the knight took a step to the side, avoiding the attack. He then raised his sword, guard down, jumped and violently hit her on the back of her head, knocking her on her belly.

And with that, the fight was already over, but this time, she was the one on the floor.

As she lost consciousness, the knight said something. "This is not because the king considers you as his trump card that you are a trump card right now. You are still weak and vulnerable. Remember that, or you might get yourself killed one day.

---

"You are the Blade Knight that beat me!"

"Hey Rookie, I have been waiting for you. I have heard some crazy stories since you started this journey. Apparently, you have ridden Nruff?" the Blade Knight asked.

"Nruff?"

"The big boar that was guarding Big Forest."

"Oh! That's his name? I was naming him Grouiky."

"Gr... Grouiky?" Blade Knight asked in disbelief, before guffawing. "Oh this is the best! Grouiky! I will so call it that in the future!"

As Sweetie giggled too, Kirby approached the filly before asking, "Poyo?"

"Yeah, I know this guy. And I think I know why he is here. Leave him to me, I have a score to settle with him."

"You guessed it right Rookie," Blade Knight said as he calmed down. "I can already tell that you have been through a lot during your journey. Alongside your new friends, you have been able to beat powerful enemies, including Kracko himself. Now, I want to see how much you have grown since the day I beat you. I, Cape Knight, Captain of the Guard, challenge you, Sweetie Belle!"

"Wait, you are Captain of the Guard? You didn't tell me that the first time!"

Cape Knight chuckled at her surprise. "Yes, I didn't. I wanted to see King Dedede's 'trump card' in action, and if I had told you what I was, you wouldn't have fought me like you fought the others. You were becoming too confident, when all you were doing was throwing your hooves without any strategy. You needed a lesson. So..." He pointed his sword at her. "Have you learned your lesson?"

Sweetie took a few steps toward Cape Knight. "This is what you want to see today, right?"

"Yes. Let's see how you now fare against me."

Sweetie started the fight by shooting a magical beam at Cape Knight, only for him to deflect it with a swing of his sword. He charged at her, crossing the distance between them in one second before swinging his sword at Sweetie Belle. The filly took a step back to dodge it and retaliated by shooting another beam right in Cape Knight's face, but the knight put a hand before his face and the beam hit it instead. Despite this, Sweetie continued attacking by charging at him, and she was able to take him off guard, headbutting him, only for the knight to headbutt her back, sending her a few steps back. She immediately lowered her head, avoiding a swing of the sword, and shot a beam that hit the knight in the belly, forcing him to jump back. Sweetie didn't let him take a breath and charged after him, raising a hoof, ready to punch him. The knight saw her coming and took a step to the side, readying his sword to hit Sweetie in the back of her head. But Sweetie had known this would happen, the same thing happening the first time they fought each other. She lowered her head to avoid the guard of the sword as Cape Knight jumped, turned her back to him, and bucked him in the face, sending him colliding against the wall as he released his weapon. Sweetie took the sword in her magic and placed it against the knight's neck, smiling.

At that, Cape Knight stared at Sweetie Belle in silence, before chuckling. "You have gotten better, I can't deny that. But there is still some problems."

"What problems?"

"You are too naive." In the blink of an eye, he took the sword and threw it at Sweetie Belle. Surprised, Sweetie took a step to the side, dodging it as it passed beside her head, only to be rammed by Cape Knight charging at her, sending her on her back. Cape Knight then quickly turned her on her belly, went on her back, and took her two forelegs before pulling them up, threatening to dislocate them. "The fight doesn't stop until you are sure that your enemy can't move anymore! You thought that putting the sword on my neck would lead me to give up, and you let your guard down, thinking it was finished! That gave me the opportunity to return the fight at my advantage!"

Sweetie ground her teeth under the pressure of her legs being pulled almost to the breaking point. She then lowered her head, face to the ground, and got a determined expression, before saying, "W-well then, why are you talking to me as if you have won, when I can still fight?"

Her horn lit up and Cape Knight was suddenly bonked on the head by the guard of his sword, making him drop the legs. Sweetie quickly got up, the speed causing Cape Knight to be sent flying before hitting the floor. She then sat on him and pummeled his head with a few punches until she stopped, thinking that it was enough. She got up and took a few steps back, staring at Cape Knight, horn ready to shoot a beam.

After a whole minute, Sweetie started to think that Cape Knight was unconscious, only to hear him chuckle.

"You win. You got me."

"Really?"

"Yes. You still have many things to learn, but you learned well from our previous encounter, and your journey." He then took a tomato out of his cape and threw it at Sweetie Belle who caught it. "Take this Maxim Tomato to heal, and you can continue. Let me also tell you that if you want to get the item you seek in the castle, you will need something to light the dark. Good luck."

And he became silent, stopping moving. Sweetie gave the Maxim Tomato to the rest of the group, sharing it between them. Then, Kirby approached Cape Knight and inhaled him, getting a long green hat and a sword similar to the Blade Knight's, and jumped on Sweetie's back, sword raised. This turned Sweetie's coat into brown with still some white the long of her head between her eyes and at her hooves. There was also some black on her muzzle, knees and horn, and her mane and tail also turned white with some black at the start of her tail.

For some reason, she suddenly wanted to get on her hind legs and neigh loudly, but she stopped herself.

She looked at her new appearance, only to be disappointed. "What? Only a change of color? Come on!" She felt Kirby tap the back of her neck, calming her. "Yes sorry. I really hoped for something more than my coat turning brown, like being able to form a blade with my magic. At least, this form looks great."

Finally finished with this room, they passed the door and ended in another intersection, with one long hallway right in front of them, and a smaller hallway in the back getting below toward another door. Gooey took it alone only to come back shaking his head, signaling that there was nothing. So they took the remaining hallway, Kirby and Sweetie at the lead, until Kirby made her stop suddenly, a stalactite falling right in front of her. She saw many holes in the ceiling in all the hallway, and there were also some new blocks in the floor that were suspicious. Toward the end, she could see a Sir Kibble waiting for them, blade ready.

Kirby then shouted, "YAAHH!" and Sweetie charged through the whole hallway at maximum speed, Kirby readying his sword while the stalactites fell and the blocks disappeared behind them. Once they reached the Sir Kibble, Kirby swung his sword at him with another, "YAH!" and cut him. They were joined by Gooey and the animals before they took the door, finding themselves in a room with a green jellyfish.

Kirby started the fight by raising his sword, the weapon flashing, before he swung it down, releasing a sharp beam at the jellyfish, followed by a bomb from Gooey. Sweetie charged, turned around, and bucked the jellyfish in the face, Kirby hitting him with another swing of the sword, before she retreated, the jellyfish sending electricity around him. A last bomb from Gooey ended it, and the blob gave up the Bomb Ability before eating the jellyfish, remembering what Cape Knight said about needing the Spark to find the Rainbow Drop.

Passing the door, they were back outside of the castle where Kirby yet again led the charge with Sweetie, cutting the Kabus that appeared in the way while yelling, "YAH! AAH! YAAAH!" They jumped above the gulfs, avoided the Gordos, eliminated some Bouncys, and reached the next door.

Sweetie didn't know why, but since Kirby got on her back with the sword, she felt like nothing could stop her, gaining enough courage to do all this without stopping despite the risks. She felt like she could trust Kirby with everything, while Kirby trusted her back, and she couldn't disappoint him!

Back inside the castle, they now were in a big hallway with many intersections, some of them leading to the same point, others leading to dead ends. Sweetie had to jump above a few holes with spikes at the bottom, using her magic to destroy the blocks and eliminate the enemies, not forgetting the Maxim Tomato in the way. Yet again, they reached the door in record time, where they took a break to eat the tomato before entering it and fighting a Mr. Frosty.

Frosty threw an ice block at them only for Sweetie to buck it back to his face. Rick charged and headbutted him in the belly, opening him to a double punches in the face from Sweetie followed by Kirby's sword. Gooey ended him by sending a big ball of electricity, finishing the fight and opening the door.

They ended up back on a bridge similar to the first, even to the sections, but with different enemies, including knights, and at the other side of the castle. With another charge, they quickly crossed it and reached the door, Coo finding in the way another Maxim Tomato. They were then in a room inside the castle that was a copy of the first one, where they had to do the same thing, jumping some platforms to go up before crossing a long hallway full of enemies, this time two heads of a mummy, two Scarfys, two Bouncys and a Flammer, with Star Blocks between them.

In another room, they fought this time a ninja, and Kine stopped him from attacking by jumping and trapping his head inside his mouth. Confused, the ninja couldn't dodge the following onslaught, knocking him in less time that it takes to say it. The similarities to the first half of the castle continued after the ninja, the group getting back in a section of water like the first one, this time the room being fully submerged with many more Gordos to avoid but not a single Glunk. After the door came another room full of enemies, and after this one, another hallway with spiked holes and an intersection leading to two doors, this time with Gordos, forcing Sweetie and Kirby to be more cautious, not charging. Just in case, they took the bottom door only for it to lead to a dead end, showing that like last time, the right door was the top one leading to a room similar to the one where Sweetie fought Cape Knight, but this time with just a normal knight.

After the room, they charged through another long hallway like the one after the battle against Cape Knight, with no stalactites but with Scarfys and some other enemies, leading to another room where they fought another of these enemies that looked like big living blocks. Not having anything effective against him, the fight lasted longer, with the block being able to ram Kine before being put down.

They were yet again outside of the castle in a similar section with gulfs and platforms, but this time the wind was blowing, forcing Sweetie to watch her jumps, Coo making sure to be close in case she missed. In the way, they caught a bottle of energy drink before reaching the door with four Gordos floating around. With some careful jumps, they passed it, and following the pattern of the first half of the castle, they ended up in another hallway with all the intersections leading to dead ends or crossing back, exclusively guarded by all three types of knights they encountered in their journey. Following the same way that the first time, they passed the door and fought another giant Gordo. He didn't last long against them.

The door opened by beating the Gordo led FINALLY to something new. They were dropped on a pillar of disappearing blocks above a floor full of spikes, and they had to jump on platforms above them to avoid falling. From here, it was a vertical hallway where they had to jump from platform to platform while avoiding two Gordos and a Shotzo until the hallway shrunk and spikes got out of the walls so it was only wide enough for Sweetie and the others to pass one by one, or two with Kirby being on Sweetie. They still got some scratches in the way, but they were able to reach the door without being hurt too much, and they entered a dark room.

"Gooey! I think it's here!"

"Googoogoo!"

Gooey entered Kine's mouth, and the fish produced a lightbulb that lit the room. They destroyed the blocks and Glunks in it and discovered that the blocks had been hiding icons in the following order: a flame, a stone, spikes, an ice block, and a crescent blade.

"Is that a clue? Do they represent Abilities that we will have to use?"

"Poyo..." Kirby said with an arm under his chin.

"So they represent the Fire Ability, the Stone, the Needle, the Ice, and the Cutter?"

"Mmh... Poyo." Kirby confirmed.

"Goo," Gooey said as he gave up the Spark Ability. They then ended in a Rainbow Drop Room with a few different enemies where they had to get up. Gooey ate the Flamer under the hatch and they passed a trapdoor that closed behind them, meaning they couldn't come back to change Ability. Getting up a few more platforms, they reached some blocks in two walls. In the first wall, they were ice blocks, vulnerable to fire, meaning that it was the way. The following room was similar, but this time Gooey ate a Rocky before destroying the blocks vulnerable to it. Like indicated with the icons, this was followed by the same thing happening with Needle, Ice, and Cutter. After destroying the blocks vulnerable to Cutter, they appeared under the Rainbow Drop, and they took it.

"We did it! We did it! We did it!" Sweetie Belle screamed, jumping in joy with the others. Kirby opened his mouth, and the six other Rainbow Drops got out of him, before they all levitated around him... only for nothing to happen.

"Poyo?"

Coo flew to the Drops, staring at them in hope of finding what was going on. "Coo?"

"Googoo! Googoo!" Gooey suddenly exclaimed.

"Poyo?"

"Googoogoo! Coincoin! BAM!" Somehow, Gooey was able to imitate a... duck...? before punching a wall with his tongue.

Wait...

"Are you saying we must first fight King Dedede before we are able to repair the bridges?"

"Googoo! Googoo!" Gooey confirmed.

"Well, okay then... He must not be far now. By the way, Dedede is a penguin, not a duck."

"Goo?"

"Whatever..." Sweetie said, shaking her head. "Let's continue. Beside, we already knew we would have to fight Dedede to stop him."

"Poyo/Goo/Coo!"

They climbed up the platforms, took the door leading to another vertical hallway with more platforms full of Broom Hatters, and started to climb it too, the Broom Hatters letting them pass. Among them, Broom Sunglasses said, "We are with you. Nice look by the way."

"Thank you Broom Sunglasses!" Sweetie Belle replied as she passed him.

Passing the door, they had to fight another brown parasol. Five seconds later, they passed the opening door.

---

They climbed up again, platform by platform. Nothing blocked them. No enemies, no traps, nothing. They were getting close.

Nobody said anything. They were ready to face the king and anything he will throw at them, and end this.

Here was the door.

---

They appeared on the top of the main tower, in the center of the castle. Dedede was here, still sleeping, and yet looking at them, expressionless. Without saying anything, he charged at them, hammer raised. They charged too.

Sweetie and Kirby were the first to reach Dedede, and the penguin swung down the hammer at them. Kirby stopped it with his sword, the weapons clashing with a loud noise. Rick came at their left and punched Dedede in his right cheek, not even phasing him. Coo was behind Dedede, Gooey in is claws, and threw his sharp feathers at his back, slightly hurting him.

With surprising speed for his size, Dedede jumped back and turned around before he swung his hammer, catching Coo off guard as he was sent toward the edge of the tower, dropping Gooey. The blob then jumped back while throwing his blades, hate in his eyes toward the penguin. King Dedede seemed strangely focused on Gooey, attacking him relentlessly.

Now that Sweetie thought about it, why were Dedede's minions so focused on imprisoning Gooey? Did he have something against him? She thought he was against Kirby!

"You... trai...tor..."

Wait... Was that Dedede? That wasn't his voice! It sounded more... evil... dark...

Gooey then answered. "Gooey! Goo feels!"

"Feel... Feel... Hurts... FEEL HUUUUURTS!!!" Dedede slammed his hammer, Gooey dodging again. Cracks appeared in the floor around the impact while Dedede became red. He continued to slam the hammer around, trying to hit Gooey. "Darkness... not feel! BAM! Darkness... not hurt! BAM! Darkness... every...where... not hurt! BAM!"

He was then headbutted from behind by Kine, the fish thrown by Rick. Dedede turned around only to be rammed in the belly by Sweetie Belle before Kirby hit him in the chin with his head, causing him to step back. Sweetie continued with a charged magical beam, which sent the king on his back, before Coo dove beak first right in his belly.

Sweetie ran toward Gooey and said to him, "I don't know what's going on, but it's clear that this is not Dedede, and you know this. Can you tell us what we are fighting?"

"Goo..." he said sadly.

He didn't have time to say more before Rick was thrown between them, badly hurt. When they looked back at the king, he was back up, Kine under his left foot, and Coo in his right hand. He then slammed the owl on the floor before kicking the fish, and he turned toward them and jumped. Sweetie and Gooey jumped away and avoided Dedede falling back, but then, Dedede turned to Gooey and inhaled him before spitting him back at Sweetie Belle, sending the two of them and Kirby toward the edge.

They got up and Kirby pointed his sword at Dedede, yelling, "YAAH!" Sweetie nodded and charged at the king while shooting a magical beam at his face. Once she reached him, she ran around him, Kirby slashing him without stopping. Dedede tried to hit her with the hammer only for her to either stop or accelerate to avoid it. Eventually, Sweetie Belle bucked his belly, forcing Dedede to bend, and Kirby used the guard of his sword to hit him between his eyes.

Dedede fell on his back.

He didn't get up.

Kirby and Sweetie Belle looked at Dedede. "Is this it?" she asked.

"Poyo!" Kirby confirmed.

Gooey joined them. "Goo!" He looked at Kirby and nodded.

Kirby nodded back, understanding. He jumped from Sweetie's back, turning her back to her normal colors. He then spat the Rainbow Drops, and they started to float around before merging one by one. Once the last one merged, they took the form of a sword with the colors of the rainbow, from the guard to the tip. When Kirby took it, the Sword Ability disappeared, and the Rainbow Sword flashed in every colors as something started to get out of Dedede.

Something dark, with a single eye.

"What is that?!" Sweetie Belle asked, scared of that... thing made of darkness. She remembered Nightmare, who had seemed also made of darkness, and of how powerful he had been. Will she have to fight this thing now?

The thing flew away up far in the sky, with no means to follow it. That was until Kirby jumped on Sweetie's back, and her mane and tail turned into the colors of the rainbow, like Celestia's. Then, the Rainbow Sword somehow led them to the sky, after the black thing.

They quickly caught up to it, seeing the form that the black thing took. It was about her size, and it possessed a grey cloak around its body open at the front, letting appear its black body. The edges of the cloak at this opening were red and yellow in a zigzag pattern. On its shoulders and around its neck was a piece of dark blue armor with shoulder plates rimmed orange. Its head was totally black, with black hairs and a single eye behind a grey visor. It also had a sword.

Sweetie gulped. This thing looked tough. "Who... Who are you?" she asked.

"We... are... Dark Matter," it answered with its voice that seemed to come from the depths of Tartarus. "Die."

As they continued to go up! Up! Up in the sky, Dark Matter charged at them, sword ready to impale them. Sweetie was able to move out of the way, and Kirby slashed at it with the Rainbow Sword. Sweetie 'flew' away from it and shot from her horn a few beams in the colors of the rainbow, hurting it once before it dodged the rest. Dark Matter pointed its sword at them and shot back energy beams, Kirby deflecting the first before Sweetie moved out of the way.

That was when Sweetie looked down, and saw how high they were.

WAAAAHH?!! We are in space?! And wait, is this Popstar?!

Below them, Popstar appeared as a giant star with two rings around it in a cross-like manner. She remembered seeing one of them from Dream Land and wondering what it was, well now she had her answer. Actually, she remarked that they were at the level of the rings, one of them not being far.

"Poyo!"

Kirby's scream brought her back to the fight and she instinctively moved away, dodging Dark Matter trying to ram them. Sweetie remained beside it so Kirby could slash at it as much as possible, Dark Matter parrying some of the attacks. It then slashed at Sweetie Belle, forcing her to go away to dodge while she fired back a beam. Following this, Dark Matter pointed up its sword, forming a sphere of dark energy, before it threw it at them. Sweetie was about to move away again, only for Kirby to swing the Rainbow Sword at the sphere, deflecting it back at their enemy, which seemed to really hurt it.

Sweetie charged back at Dark Matter, and yet again, the two swords clashed for a whole minute, the two sword users not backing up. Dark Matter was suddenly hit from behind by something, opening itself to more slashes from Kirby until it backed away, seeing who attacked him from behind.

The attacker was none other than Gooey, back in his form with all the yellow spheres behind him, and a determined look in his eyes. Seeing him seemed to make Dark Matter angry, because it charged at him and swung its sword, only for Gooey to dodge and headbutt it.

Sweetie didn't let this chance pass and came behind Dark Matter so Kirby could use his sword to attack while she shot her rainbow beams. They moved back again as Dark Matter swung its sword at them, opening itself to Gooey shooting some dark lightning bolts from his mouth. It then turned around itself, shooting many energy beams at all of them. Gooey moved out of the way while Kirby simply deflected them with the sword. Dark Matter continued attacking by sending a dark orb toward Gooey but the blob destroyed it with a dark lightning bolt. Sweetie took the occasion and charged, Kirby readying the sword. As they passed beside it, Kirby slashed it, and dark energy started to get out of its body as it seemed in pain.

Its body exploded in an explosion of dark energy before reappearing in a new form. A dark ball with many little yellow orbs and a single eye at the center.

The resemblance with Gooey's actual form didn't escape Sweetie Belle, which would explain how they knew each other, but she didn't have time to think about it because they suddenly started to fall!

Panic was about to start for Sweetie Belle until Dark Matter came back to continue the fight, charging right at her. Forgetting about the fall, she quickly got out of the way and Kirby slashed again. Gooey approached and fired his lightning bolts, but Dark Matter fired its-or his own lightning bolts even darker than Gooey's all around him, hitting all of them. They backed away, and Dark Matter attacked again by sending his yellow orbs at them. Kirby deflected one back at Dark Matter, only for Sweetie to be hit by two others that exploded on contact, and Gooey was hit by four others. Hurt, Sweetie counterattacked by shooting beams at Dark Matter without stopping while Gooey shot his lightning bolts, but Dark Matter didn't give up and shot countless dark energy beams at them, hurting them even more.

They could see that they were approaching the atmosphere, they must finish this fight quickly! Gooey landed on Kirby's head and restarted shooting his lightning bolts, this time rainbow colored, and Sweetie charged back at Dark Matter with some difficulty. Kirby slashed relentlessly at the dark orb, wanting to end this fight, but he was unseated by a lightning bolt from Dark Matter. Losing Kirby from her back, Sweetie started to fall faster, only to be caught by Gooey going under her.

"Th-thanks, Gooey... You are a savior." she said, hugging the blob, making him go red.

But when Dark Matter looked at them, his eye was suddenly filled with hate and pain, and he charged at them with the full intention to end them. Gooey flew away from Dark Matter, wanting to keep the filly safe. Sweetie shot some beams-back to normal-at the dark orb, but they didn't have any effect on him. They then passed beside Kirby, his sword ready, and as Dark Matter flew beside him, he swung his sword, cutting him deeply.

Dark Matter stopped, and dark energy started to escape him. As he moved in pain, more and more dark energy went out of him, until finally he exploded with a last high pitched screech full of pain.

Sweetie Belle sighed in relief. Finally, it ended. Their enemy was no more, and all should go back to normal. Or... Well... They first had to survive the fall. Now that Dark Matter was no longer distracting her of the problem, she was about to scream in panic when Kirby suddenly caught her right hoof. Looking at him, she saw that he used the Rainbow Sword to fly.

Kirby smiled at her, reassuring her that everything was alright, before pulling her on his back. Gooey then used his tongue to cling to Kirby's feet, and together, they descended back to the surface of Popstar, the yellow of the star letting place to oceans, grasslands, mountains, and other landscapes. Guided by the Rainbow Sword, they returned above the Rainbow Islands just as the sun was starting to appear above the horizon. When they reached the first island, the sword flashed, and a rainbow appeared behind them, the end going toward Grass Land. When they reached Big Forest, the rainbow cut, and the second end went to the island. Another rainbow started to form from Big Forest and went toward Ripple Fields. The same thing happened with all the other islands, giving a show that Sweetie will never forget, seeing the islands with all the rainbows linking them.

Eventually, they reached Dark Castle where the sword dropped them at the top where they fought Dedede. Speaking of the king, he was back to consciousness, admiring the view of the Rainbow Bridges coming back with a big smile. Alongside him were the animals and many Waddle Dees tending to all four of them. Sweetie recognized Broom Sunglasses and Cape Knight among them, and she hoped that Waddle Dee was here too, but she couldn't recognize him with all these Waddle Dees. Oh! Here he was, waving at her!

As they landed, the Rainbow Sword disappeared in a flash of rainbow light, not needed anymore.

With conscious steps, still hurting from her battle against possessed Dedede and Dark Matter, Sweetie slowly approached the king, quickly helped by Waddle Dee.

"Are you alright, King Dedede?" she asked.

"Yes, that thing did nothing to me while it was in possession of my body. I just have to recover from our battle, but a quick meal and I'll be back fully recovered."

Sweetie smiled at him and suddenly jumped around his neck, starting to cry. "I'm so glad! I was so scarred! You became all evil and you threatened to kill me and you were all weird, so I had to ask Kirby for help and we fought you and also Whispy Woods and Mr. Bright and Mr. Shine and Kracko and that big fish who almost ate me and-"

"Hey hey hey! Calm down! Seems like you had quite the adventure."

"Yes! We had to explore all the Rainbow Islands! And..." She yawned, the whole day of adventure catching back to her. "And I even learned how to shoot magical beams... And I beat Cape Knight in duel... I have become stronger..."

"You will tell me that later. It seems like you need to sleep."

Sweetie Belle nodded, her eyes starting to close. "Yes..." She yawned again, then rubbed her head under his chin. "I'm so glad... you are back... Dedede..."

Seeing that Sweetie Belle had stopped talking, Dedede took her in his arms, the smiling filly curling into a ball against his chess.

A warm smile appeared on his face. "I'm proud of you little one. I knew that I could count on you."

Kirby watched all this from farther, smiling. Maybe he does care actually.

Author's Notes:

Yes, that's right, I dared. I turned Sweetie Belle into Epona, with Sword Kirby as her Link.
And then I made her shoot rainbow lasers.
And I am not ashamed to say that I had a great time writing this.

Chapter 15: Choose your Weapon

Consciousness came back to Sweetie Belle, the filly feeling the warmth of wherever she was. She didn't want to open her eyes, she didn't want to move from where she was, it was just so warm, and so calm, especially after all that happened... But her gurgling belly and her full bladder were saying something else.

Urg... Stupid natural body needs.

So she opened her eyes and discovered that she was back in her chamber in Dedede's castle. She could see that it must be rather late in the day, the sun not showing through the window like it did in the morning. She looked down at her bed and smiled at seeing Dedede's red finery covering her above her normal cover. Not so selfish the penguin, when he wanted. She remarked at the same time some bandages on her body, where she had been hurt in her fight against Dark Matter.

It was only then that everything she did caught up in her mind. She had helped saving the world! She went in an adventure with the local hero, passed mortal traps and trials, fought a whole army and powerful beings that would give problems even to her sister and her friends excepted probably Twilight, almost got herself killed many times, and they killed, actually killed a creature of darkness with the help of a powerful artefact! It wasn't in Equestria that something like that would have happened to her! At worst, she had to face Diamond Tiara! And Scootaloo's 'awesome' ideas to obtain their Cutie Marks at the risk of being sent to the hospital... Without forgetting hiding during the occasional disaster that happened in Ponyville, from bunny stampedes to evil beings coming back after millenia of emprisonnement... Yeah, her life in Equestria was full of excitement, but actually risking her life to fight an evil being and save the world, never!

Sweetie took the finery and pus it on her back to cover her whole body, then she took the Rarity plushie and hugged it, trying to think of it as her sister comforting her. Her stomach and bladder could wait.

...

Or not...

She dropped the Rarity plushie and quickly got out of her room, surprising the two Spear Waddle Dees guarding her room.

"Hey! You are awake!" one of the Waddle Dee said.

"No time! Need to go!" And she disappeared behind the door to the toilet, making the two Waddle Dees chuckle.

"Well, I'm gonna warn the king. Wait for her and tell her whatever she wants to know when she gets out," the first Waddle Dee said.

"Alright," the second replied.

...

"Wait, was she wearing the king's finery?" the first asked.

"Yep. And it's definitely too big for her."

---

Sweetie got out, relieved, and was joined by the Waddle Dee.

"Hello," he said.

"Hello. What time is it?" she asked.

"It's almost 5pm. We are still the same day if you want to know."

"Really? I thought that I would have slept at least a whole day after everything that happened."

"Eh! This was just one day of adventure! Nothing too serious!" the recognizable voice of Dedede said from farther, making them turn in his direction as he approached them. "After all these days of training, it wasn't too much!"

"My king," the Waddle Dee said, bowing.

"Thanks thanks. You can go."

"Yes my king!" he shouts before exiting the hallway.

King Dedede then took a Maxim Tomato out from his cloth and gave it to Sweetie Belle. "Here. This will heal you, and fill you until the banquet of tonight."

"A banquet?" Sweetie asked while eating the tomato.

"Of course! To celebrate your victory over this dark thing and saving me! Even if you had Kirby's help, you still proved that you have become quite the fighter and that you possess great potential like I thought! I have heard some stories from my soldiers, I had a hard time believing them. Can you really use Kirby's Abilities when he is on your back? When I fought you, I remember you just had a change of color."

"It's totally true! He had his Stone Ability, and when he jumped on my back, my whole body became stone! And when he took the Fire Ability, I could shoot fireballs from my horn! As for the sword... I think it gave me more courage, because I had less problem taking risks to make sure that Kirby could use his sword and to pass the areas as quickly as possible."

"Mhm!" Dedede nodded with a hand under his chin. "And do you think... you could use them without having Kirby on your back?"

At this, Sweetie rubbed her head, thinking. "Maybe? With my magic, I suppose I could. But at my current level, I'm not sure. Shooting fireballs is more difficult than just shooting beams of raw magic, but I remember how it felt so I could try to reproduce it. But there are some things like covering my body in stone or in needles that will really take a long time to learn, and others where I will need to train with a weapon, like the sword and the parasol."

"As long as you try, it's all I ask."

"Speaking of weapon, King Dedede..." She looked at the floor. "It has already been two times since my arrival that Popstar has been put in danger, and the second time, I have been forced to fight. Who knows if it may happen again in the future?"

"I think I see where you are going. You think that another evil being will pop out and you may end up having to fight again, so you want to train with a real weapon? And not just to copy Kirby?"

Sweetie stared at the floor in silence for a few seconds before she looked at the king and answered, "Yes."

"Alright then, let's go to one of the armories so you can choose. But first, let's take off these bandages, you don't need them anymore. And give me back my finery. As much as it looks good on you, it's too big."

---

"King Dedede?" Sweetie Belle suddenly said on their way. "I have just thought about it, but what happened after I fell asleep?"

"Nothing much. We all got back in the castle, Kirby took his Warp Star and went back to his house to rest, the three animals returned to their islands, and the blue blob... I'm not sure where he went. Of course, they made sure to say goodbye to you, even if you were sleeping. And everything came back to normal," Dedede answered. He then opened a door leading to a room full of weapons. "Here we are. Now choose your weapon. Take anything you want, whatever better fits your style."

Sweetie entered the room and looked at all the weapons around her. There were swords, spears, parasols, hammers, bows, flails, and many others. It will be hard to choose.

She already knew she will not take a hammer of a flail, too heavy. She took instead a bow with an arrow, but quickly dismissed them, she already had her beams. She then took a sword in her magic and started to swing it around, only to knock off an axe of its support, almost slicing Dedede in two.

"Eek! W-watch out what you are doing!"

"Sorry!" She put back the sword and saw another weapon on a table at the corner: a whip. She thought for a moment before taking it in her magic, levitating the weapon before taking it in her hoof by the handle. No, this will not do. She took it back in her magic, the light only around the handle rather than all over the whip. She tried to crack it, but yeah... She needed training, like for all these weapons. But then, she expanded the light of her magic all over the whip, and before long, she manipulated it around her, doing waves in the air as if it was a snake. She got it up, down, then made it do some loops around her body, then wrapped its extremity around the handle of a sword, picking it up briefly before putting it back with a big smile.

"You know it's not how you use a whip, right?"

"I know, but look what I can do with it thanks to my magic! I can feel it, once I have trained to use it, this will be the best! I can already see all the things that I will be able to do to fight my enemies with it! Like, I would crack it, but then I would use my magic to wrap it around them and trap them! Or even steal their weapons from their hands!"

Dedede rubbed his chin with his fingers, smiling. "Yes! I see it! You would become a real little terror with this weapon coupled to your magic! So, you take it?"

"Yes!"

"Then let's test it on the boxing ring! With it, you will become my champion!"

---

Dedede put a Kirby dummy on the boxing ring, in front of Sweetie. "There! First, I want to see your magic in action. Shoot this dummy with one of your beams."

"Okay!" Sweetie shouted back before firing a beam at the dummy, making it fall on its back.

"Good! Good!" Dedede clapped his hands. "I wonder what kind of other attacks you will develop in the future with your magic."

"Well, if I can use my magic to do like when Kirby was on my back, then I could shoot fireballs, ice balls, lightning bolts, blade-like projectiles, turn my fur into needles or into stone, create bombs, or at least something that explode. I don't know about the parasol though, there was one popping out of my horn, but I don't know if I would be able to do the same thing. There is also the Broom Ability but I don't know what I would do with it. Of course, this is just thinking with Kirby's abilities. You should see all that Twilight can do with her magic, like teleporting, transforming objects, animating objects, using shields... She even created butterfly wings so my sister could fly, even if it was temporary. And... erh... There was the 'Smarty Pants incident' where she cursed a doll leading the whole town to try to get it, as if that doll was the most important thing in the world and we had to take it for us and us alone. That day was crazy."

"I see. We will forget this curse and try to teach you the rest, especially this transformation spell. If you could turn your whip into whatever you want, like other weapons, then the possibilities in battles would be almost infinite. I don't think even Kirby would be able to learn all you could do and win thanks to it. And teleport..." He took a big breath. "Teleportation would be a huge addition. Thanks to it, you would become even more unpredictable. And I can't even start to think of all the possibilities that could happen thanks to this animation spell."

"But those are really advanced spells. It would take years of training before I have enough magic and enough control to use them! The only one that I can think of right now is the shield."

"Then we will start with the shield. Having a defensive move would leave you less vulnerable. But first, let's start your training with your weapon. Start to use it on the dummy, I will bring more."

"Okay!" As Dedede exited the ring, Sweetie Belle used her magic to bring the dummy back on its feet. She then looked at her whip. "Mmh... Let's see..."

---

Sweetie Belle and Dedede were in their way to the banquet room, the filly drained and slightly injured.

Sweetie trained for two whole hours, trying to learn to use the whip, and later, the shield spell. In the later case, it consisted of Dedede throwing dummies at her, and she had to make a shield appear to stop them. The injuries were proof that the dummies won this battle, but they will not win this war! But now, it was time to start the banquet, and with having eaten just a Maxim Tomato since she woke up, and after such a workout, she was starving.

Dedede opened the door, leading to a huge room with no less than five tables of banquet full of food of all kind, the Waddle Dees and other members of Dedede's army already around them eating with gusto, talking to each other in a big hubbub of laughter and discussions.

Everything stopped when they entered, everyone looking at them, or more likely, at her. Knowing she hurt a good part of them in her journey, it was no wonder. Despite that, she could still hear someone eating. When she turned toward the origin of the sound, her jaw almost hit the floor.

Here, at one of the tables, was none other than Kirby eating plate after plate of food.

Dedede saw him too, and after a small silence due to shock, he yelled, "Kirby?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!"

"Poyo?" Kirby said at hearing that and turned around to see them. At seeing her, he smiled and waved at her. "Poyo!"

"Hey!" she waved back.

A Waddle Doo came beside Dedede, bowing. "I'm sorry my king, he invited himself and we didn't dare to stop him."

"Grrr... The nerve!"

"Well, he helped save you and fight Dark Matter," Sweetie Belle said. "I think he deserves to be here too."

"Good point..." He took a big breath. "Alright, he can participate in the banquet. But it's only because I owe him one!"

"Thank you King Dedede!"

The penguin looked at Kirby with a 'I'm watching you' stare before going to another table to eat. Sweetie followed him, hopped on a chair beside him, and started to eat too until she was joined by a Waddle Dee.

"Hey Sweetie, good job for yesterday."

"Mmh?" She turned to the Waddle Dee and recognized him. "Oh hey! Thanks!"

"You are welcome. And don't worry about everyone, they have no hard feeling about you beating them up. They actually admire you for what you have done."

"Really? That's a relief. I thought that they were now mad at me, or scared of me. Speaking of, why did you run away?"

"Urm... Sorry, but seeing you having Kirby's Ability, and knowing how things can get out of proportion with you, I thought I would die if I fought you."

"Oh come on! You are exaggerating! I would have just punched you on the head like all the others!"

"Yeah... I didn't want to test it. Remember when we sent you plumbering? You flooded half the castle! And must I remember you the 'Fatal Cutie Incident'?"

Sweetie blushed at being reminded of that and pouted. "But I killed nobody!"

"Yeah, by some miracle. But some of them ended up in a coma." He laughed. "Between you, Kirby, and the friends that joined your group, half our beds were full."

"At least it was fun to watch." Broom Sunglasses said from her other side, eating a plate of fruits.

"Good to know..." Sweetie said, giving him a deadpan look while eating an apple pie made from Whispy's apples.

"Continue this way, and you will live more and more to the name 'Fatal Cutie'." He then looked directly at her and chuckled. "Though, if you continue to eat like that, we will have to call you 'Fatal Gut-" Splat! He was interrupted by a cream pie hitting his face, making him crash on the floor. This made Waddle Dee laugh, arms on his belly.

"Sometime, I wonder if he has a death wish," Cape Knight said, coming from behind.

"I wonder too," Sweetie Belle said, staring at the Hatter on the floor with anger while blushing. After a few seconds, she turned to Cape Knight. "How are you?"

"Fine. Fine. Kirby eating me has done nothing, don't worry."

Sweetie nodded and then said, "Thank you, for helping me."

"I just did the right thing. You are the king's best hope, and I want to do everything I can to help you reach his expectations, even if I have to be hard with you. At least, I think I can stop calling you 'Rookie'. You don't get out of an adventure like this one alive and still being called like that. You have gained much experience."

"Yeah... All these traps, and these battles against Dedede's lieutenants. And Dark Matter. I almost died, more than once. I now understand better what my sister has lived through. And now, I'm not even scared anymore of using a weapon. I'm actually starting training with one."

"Really?" Waddle Dee shouted.

"Yes. A whip."

"A whip, mmh?" Cape Knight said, rubbing his chin. "We don't have any whip user in our army, but I could give you some advice in how to use it, if you want."

"I would love it. I have trained a moment with it, but I still have a hard time hitting the dummies."

"Yes, the whip is not an easy weapon, but it can be really useful, as well in a battle than outside. If you end up in another adventure, it will become your best friend. Just watch out the enemies using close quarter combat. I think you should learn some martial art or something, so you cover every possibilities."

"I'm learning to use magical shields if it can help."

"It can. But relying in your magic too much is a bad idea. It's not for nothing that the king trains you to use your hooves alongside your magic."

"I understand. But I still want to get better in magic, it's the reason I ended up here after all."

"I never said not to learn your magic, but to not focus on it."

"King Dedede!" a Waddle Dee suddenly yelled, coming beside the king. "I have a bad news!"

"What is it? I hope it's not another evil being trying to conquer Dream Land!"

"No! Worse!" The Waddle Dee then pointed at Kirby. "You are about to lose your title of King Eater!"

"WHAAT!!!" Dedede screamed, his head becoming red. He started to run toward the puffball, rolling up his sleeves. "I will not let it pass! KIRBY!!!"

At his shout, Kirby stopped eating and turned toward him. "Poyo?"

Dedede put his face before Kirby's. "So you think you can beat me at being the best eater of Popstar?"

"P-poyo?"

"Then you ask for it! Kirby!" He pointed a finger toward the puffball. "I challenge you in a Gourmet Race!"

Silence...

Then Sweetie said, "Wh-what?"

Chapter 16: Gourmet Race

"Come on... Come on... Come... ON...!"

"You can do it Twilight! Please!"

Twilight's horn glowed brighter, and brighter, the purple alicorn pouring all the magic she possessed in it. Before her was a mirror, just a simple mirror big enough for her reflection to appear entirely. A swirling purple vortex appeared in it, first as small as her hoof, but growing with each seconds.

Behind her was a white unicorn with well groomed purple mane and tail, a smile forming in her muzzle. "Yes! Yes! It works!"

"Continue Twilight!" a small purple dragon with a green belly said beside her.

But as everything seemed to be working, the vortex suddenly started to lose in size. Twilight tried to stabilise it, but she couldn't stand on her hooves anymore, and before long, she fell on her belly, and the vortex disappeared.

Taking her breath, she said, "S-sorry... Rarity. I thought I had it."

Rarity sighed in sorrow behind her, a tear falling from her left eye, before she took a big breath to regain herself as the dragon pat her leg. "It's alright darling, you have done all you could. At least, this time, you were able to open a vortex, even if only for a few seconds."

"Yes. This shows that I am in the right track. Before long, I will bring back Sweetie Belle. I may take a few more days, or weeks, but I will bring her back."

"I know Twilight. I trust you. And thank you Spike, I'm alright."

"Sorry to say this, but you are wrong about being in the right track. The train you took doesn't lead to where you want, but right into a pit." a voice said behind them. A voice they recognized without problem.

The two ponies and the dragon turned around to find a yellow pegasus with a pink mane beside a tall creature that was none other than a draconequus, having the head of a pony with the antler of a deer and the blue horn of a goat on it. His eyes were yellow with different sized red pupils, and he also had a goat beard and a long fang. His right arm was the one of a lion, his left one was a bird claw, his right leg was from a lizard, and the left was from a goat. He also possessed a pegasus wing, a bat wing, and the tail of a dragon with a white tuff at the end. He seemed... nervous.

Rarity said, "Oh Fluttershy, thank Celestia, you finally found Discord!"

"Sorry Rarity," the pegasus said in a small voice. "He didn't want to come, and I had to use the Stare to convince him."

Rarity raised an eyebrow at Discord. "And can I ask... 'why'?"

"Oh, you know, because I had my reasons," Discord answered.

"Wait," Twilight interrupted. "What did you mean? I'm not in the right track?"

"That's exactly what I said. You should know by now that mirrors only lead to alternate versions of the same dimension, like where your friend mini Sunbutt lives."

"But it's the only way that we know how to open portals to other dimensions! Does that mean that Sweetie Belle is not in another Equestria?"

A green flashing O appeared above her head with the sound of a bell.

"Exactly! And you know what that means? You lost all this time... for nothing!"

Twilight's eye twitched. "I don't understand, I was trying to use the mirror portal to create a teleportation spell that could teleport me directly in Canterlot High School! How could she end up in a dimension that is not even an alternate Equestria?!"

"Because your spell has gone BOOM!" Discord answered, making his head explode at the 'BOOM'. "And you know how spells that explode can cause mind blowing results, when it's not just blowing results. It's one of those cases."

Twilight took a few deep breaths, like her foalsitter, Cadance, taught her. "Alright. Yes. I understand. But now you are here. You can use your magic to open a portal and-" She was suddenly interrupted by her mouth zipping shut.

"This is where I must stop you. Because, yes, I can bring her back. But the thing is..." He looked at Fluttershy, gulping. "I will not."

A white hoof then pulled him down by the beard, and he found himself facing a really angry Rarity.

"And why, do tell, you will not bring my sister back if you can?"

"You will not like the answer."

"I already don't like your answer."

"Please Discord," Fluttershy pleaded. "Tell us at least why."

Discord teleported away from Rarity with a snap of his lion paw, then sighed.

"First, I must tell you something. Have you remarked how everything, or almost, seems linked?"

"How so?" Twiligh askedt, her mouth not zipped anymore thanks to Spike.

"Easy." He raised his lion paw toward the ceiling and unrolled a big blank paper from it. On the paper, an image of Discord on a throne with Celestia and Luna shooting a rainbow at him appeared. "I was the ruler of Equestria, and Celestia and Luna used the elements to stop me. At the same time, I planted my Plunder Seeds, hoping that they would free me. Of course, because of the Tree of Harmony, it didn't work." Then the image passed to him getting out of stone. "One thousand and whatever years later, I'm free, imprisoned again, and released in the hope of making me one of your friends."

The image changed again, this time to Twilight, wings appearing on her. "Not long after, you become an alicorn..." The image now showed the Plunder Vines attacking Ponyville. "Only for my Plunder Vine to finally go on their rampage, a few hundred years too late. And you are forced to give up the Elements of Harmony to save the Tree of Harmony, and stop my vines. In exchange..." The image showed a familiar box. "it gave you that box. Box that..." The image showed Twilight and her friends blasting Tirek with the Rainbow power. "coincidentally contained the power to stop the rampage of the next villain: Tirek. And to open the box..." The image now showed Discord giving Twilight Tirek's pendentif. "Well, you know what I have done. After that, you gained your palace with that map that gives you your Friendship Missions, making sure that you can do your princess job by spreading friendship everywhere. Now you see what I mean? This is what we call 'Fate'. And I didn't even include Nightmare Moon leading to you getting the Elements, Sombra and the Crystal Empire that proved to Celestia that you were ready to become a princess, or the Changelings that will probably have a role in the future."

"I... I didn't even think about this, but you are right! This is like an event leads to another, and..." Her mouth was zipped back, making her give a deadpan look at him.

"But what does that have to do with Sweetie Belle, and why you will not bring her back?" Spike asked impatiently, getting Rarity's words out of her mouth.

"Well, let's take a step back in this Fate story." The image changed again, showing Twilight entering the mirror portal. "The Element of Magic was stolen by Sunset Shimmer, and Twilight discovered the mirror portal. After Tirek, Twilight got her castle, and she brought the mirror in it. Note how it links to everything I have said until now. Then Twilight started to study it, and TADAA ! In the middle of an experiment, Sweetie Belle comes, causes Twilight's magic to go BOOM, and she ends up in another dimension."

"Alright." Twilight said, her mouth unzipped again. "So that was destined to happen. So why do you refuse to intervene?"

"Because destiny has led her to that dimension, and I'm not sure that bringing her back now is a good idea. I can't see the future, so I don't know if I have a role to play. All I know is that this may be important for her. I have seen a little of what she has gone through, and let me tell you, this may be big."

"Why? What happened to her?!" Rarity asked with fear.

"The exact same thing that happened to you actually! In a more epic proportion! She is your sister alright."

"Which is...?"

"She has gone on an adventure and helped save the world from a being of darkness!"

"SAY WHAT?!"

"Wait! Let me show you!"

With a snap of his paw, a blank canvas appeared before him, and Discord was now with a brush in his lion paw, a palette of paint on his claw, and a multicolored beret on his head. He soaked the brush in the paints and started to paint on the canvas. A few brush swings later, and he showed his creation to the ponies and dragon.

It was a painting cut into eight sections, one big round at the center with the seven others around it. In a clockwise direction, starting at the top, they could see a bottom view of Sweetie Belle beside some sort of giant hamster ridden by some pink ball and holding a parasol. The hamster used the parasol to protect them from giant apples falling from a living tree looking angrily at them.

The second section showed Sweetie Belle on a giant boar, the filly pulling its hears while clinging to it as the boar was on its hind legs. The pink ball, wearing some cone hat and with a bomb, and the hamster, now without parasol, were in the foreground looking at the filly and the boar in worry. A big purple owl was flying above the boar in the background, and many smaller boars were around the big one.

In the third section, Sweetie was now clinging to the lure of a giant brown fish while shooting a magical beam at its mouth. The hamster and the owl were swimming after it, but the pink ball was nowhere to be seen. However, there was a blue fish the same size as them whose square shaped belly seemed to hit strongly the giant one on the head, like a weight.

In the fourth, they were against some obese bipedal blue dragon with a cream colored belly that was breathing ice at the hamster and the pink ball that were running away, the pink ball on the hamster and wearing some crown made of fire. The owl was using his claws to scratch the dragon's head, and the fish was slapping his tail at him. In the background, they could see Sweetie Belle with some blue blob on her back, horn facing the back of the dragon as a bomb fell on him.

In the fifth, this was again from a bottom view, where the whole group faced what seemed to be a living sun and a living crescent shaped moon. The sun was charging at them while the moon was jumping in the night sky, shooting stars falling toward them. Sweetie still had the blue blob on her back and her mane and tail looked like Rainbow and Scootaloo's, with some electricity visible in them, and she shot an actual lightning bolt at the charging sun. For some reason, the pink ball was now wearing a yellow cap with a blade on it.

The sixth depicted them fighting this time a giant spiked cloud with a big eye at the center and raining lightning. Sweetie was at the foreground, on the hamster's back, shooting magical beams at the eye. The pink ball was in the owl's claws, still with the yellow hat, and for some reason, the owl was now green and threw sharp feathers at the cloud's left, the fish under them. The blue blob was in the background, behind the cloud, throwing bombs at it.

The seventh one was even crazier, somehow... They were fighting a giant penguin in royal garments armed with a big hammer. Sweetie's fur was now brown with some white and black, and her mane and tail were white with some black at the start of the tail. She was directly in front of the penguin on her hind legs, and the pink ball, now wearing a green hat and a sword, was riding her, the sword clashing with the penguin's hammer. The blue blob, the hamster, the owl, and the fish were all around the penguin, attacking him, the blue blob somehow throwing blades.

And finally, the last section at the center. The animals were nowhere to be seen. Sweetie, the pink ball, and the blue blob being the only ones present. They were flying in the night sky, facing some kind of one eyed dark being wearing a cloak and using a sword. Sweetie's mane and tail were in the colors of the rainbow, looking like Celestia's, and the pink ball was riding again on her back, this time wearing nothing but holding a sword that seemed to be made of rainbow. As for the blue blob, it was farther, at the right of the dark being, with orange orbs behind it. Sweetie was shooting rainbow beams and the pink ball had the rainbow sword ready to slash the dark being who was charging at them, sword ready to impale, and the blue blob shot some dark lightning at it, seemingly having not much effects.

"Do you really expect us to believe that Sweetie Belle fought all those things? I mean, the living sun and moon, really?! And since when can she shoot lightning? And why is she brown in this fight against that penguin? And-" And Twilight's mouth was zipped, again. Her eye twitched.

Discord then did something she hadn't expected. "I Pinkie Promise, everything I have painted here happened. Cross my heart and hope to fly, put a cupcake in my eye. I was in the first row."

Everyone's jaws dropped at that. They had to believe him after that.

"See? Now your sister is a hero!" Discord said to Rarity, a white shirt with 'I love Sweetie' written on it appearing on everyone, alongside a flag with Sweetie's head drawn on it on his claw. "You should be proud!"

And... she fainted... And was splashed on the head by a bucket of chocolate milk. "EEEEK!!!"

"No time to sleep! Don't you want to party for your sister's success?"

Pinkie Pie suddenly popped from behind the mirror. "Did someone say 'party'?!"

---

"So, can someone explain to me what just happened?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"The king challenged Kirby into a Gourmet Race to prove that he is still the best at eating," Waddle Dee answered.

"Okay... But what is a Gourmet Race?"

"Oh! It's awesome!" Waddle Dee shouted, raising his arms. "This is, like, the most exciting event of the castle!"

"This is some sort of championship in three races, with the winner determined by points," Broom Sunglasses then said. "To put it simply, here are the rules: the racers must try to reach the goal first in each races. In the way, they must eat as much food as possible. One plate of food eaten gives one point. A Maxim Tomato gives three points. And the racer reaching the goal first gains thirty points. At the end of the three races, the points are counted and the one that has the most points win. Easypeasy. Of course, to make it more challenging, there will be traps and obstacles in the way, and in some races, there will be more than one way to reach the goal."

"And King Dedede is the unbeaten champion!" Waddle Dee shouted again.

"But don't they risk to get sick? I mean, when I run after eating, it makes me sick."

"Really?" Broom Sunglasses asked. "This never happened for any of us, and definitely not to the king."

Sweetie Belle remained silent at this. This was clearly not the kind of thing that could happen in Equestria, unless more ponies were like Pinkie Pie. The pink pony would love this.

She laughed. "This world is weirder and weirder."

In the end, the banquet lasted a few more hours, with Kirby and Dedede doing some sort of eating contest. By the time Sweetie reached her bed, she was stuffed like she never was before. Curse this world and its delicious food. These apple pies shouldn't exist.

---

"So, do you still want me to do it?" Discord asked.

"I must see that Sweetie is alright, especially after what you told us yesterday! So yes, show me!" Rarity shouted.

It was the middle of the morning in Equestria. Rarity and all her friends were in Twilight's castle, in an empty room, facing Discord. The draconequus had his arms crossed, a blank wall behind his back.

"Alright then. But remember, this will be an one way window. We will only watch her. She will not be able to see or hear us. That means that if she is in danger, you can't do anything for her. We must let her live her adventures, and I will only intervene if there is no other way. Understood?"

"Whatever! I just want to see her!"

"Good! Then..." He snapped his fingers, and everypony found themselves on a chair facing the wall with a bag of popcorn at their side. Another snap, and a portal started to form on the wall.

"Ah don't like this, watching whatever'll happen without being able ta do anything," Applejack said, the orange earth pony mare crossing her hooves.

"You are not the only one," Rainbow Dash said, the rainbow maned cyan pegasus at her right. "Letting Sweetie having all the fun? I would much prefer being at her side kicking flanks!"

"Hopefully, she is not fighting," Fluttershy said. "I... I don't want to see a fight..."

"It's not because she is now a hero that she is fighting h24, you know?" Discord said. "You are all heroes, and yet, are you fighting all the time?"

"Nope!" Pinkie Pie answered. "We also party, and go to picnics, and help other ponies, and sell whatever we sell. Twilight reads, I bake, Applejack bucks her trees, Dashy does her awesome stuffs, Fluttershy-"

She was interrupted by Rarity putting a hoof on her mouth. "We understand, dear, you are right. Fighting is only a small part of our life. And this must be the same thing for Sweetie Belle. Villains don't pop up everydays."

"Hush! Hush! It's starting!" Discord suddenly said, putting 3D glasses on his eyes.

---

On the boxing ring, Cape Knight put a Kirby dummy in front of Sweetie Belle.

"Now, show me how you use your whip," he said.

"Ok," Sweetie Belle answered. She took the whip in her magic by the handle and attacked the dummy with it. But the whip just seemed to bounce on the dummy without doing much to it. "I just can't find how to do the crack."

"Yes. I can see. I know what you have to do. I know there is a few methods to make your whip crack, but it should be easier to start with the following. First, make sure that the whip is untangled and go straight back behind you, make sure that it does not touch your hooves."

"Like that?" Sweetie asked as she did so, making the whip look like a snake raising its head at her right.

"Yes. Now bring the whip straight up in the air. Imagine as if you were pointing your hoof to the sky, but this time, with your magic holding the whip. If you do it right, then you should be able to create a loop with it. If you are able to create a loop, then the whip will crack. Now try."

And she did. For the following minutes, she attacked the dummy, trying to do as Cape Knight said. Until...

Crack!

A cut appeared in the pink fabric of the dummy.

"Yay! I did it!" the filly shouted before she started hopping around in joy, repeating "I did it! I did it! I did it!"

Cape Knight chuckled at that. "You sure did it. Good job. Now that you know how to use the whip, you can try other ways to make it crack, like from the side. Just remember the loop. You must always make sure that there is a part of the whip going in one direction, and the other part going in the opposite direction. Continue to practice with this dummy, I will bring more."

"Alright!"

When Cape Knight came back on the ring with a big bag full of dummies, it was under the sounds of many Crack! Crack! Crack! and the dummy had now many more cuts in its fabric.

With the new dummies, Sweetie tried some different things with the whip, sometime with the help of her magic. Thus, she was able to wrap the whip around a dummy to send it flying around her like a flail before sending it crashing on another dummy. Then she wrapped it around another dummy and sent it flying in the air where she shot a beam at it. Before long, all the dummies were in pieces on the floor, and Sweetie took her breath under the clapping of Cape Knight.

"I think you did well in choosing the whip," he said. "With your magic, it is an impressive weapon. Once you master it, you will be formidable."

"Thank you," Sweetie said, rubbing the back of her head.

"Now, let's try something else. You said you wanted to use magical shield, right?"

"Yes. So I can better protect myself, and others aren't forced to take the hit for me. Dedede tried to help me by throwing dummies at me, but it didn't work..."

"I see. Then start to light your horn like you do when you shoot your beams."

"Ok." A green light appeared around her horn. "What now?"

"Now..." He readied his sword. "block this!" He charged at her, about to swing his sword toward her neck.

Sweetie could only gasp in surprise before she closed her eyes, and somehow, was able to create a green shield around her. When the sword hit, the shield was destroyed, and she found herself on the floor, her horn aching.

"Y-you could have killed me!"

"I would have stopped the sword just before touching your neck." He chuckled. "At least, it worked, right? You created a shield."

"Y-yes. I did... But why didn't it work with the dummies?"

"Because dummies aren't as life threatening as a sword about to behead you. When nobody is here to teach you how something work, sometime it's best to let your instinct do the work. And a life threatening situation is the best way to make it happen. You thought you would be killed, and you let your instinct move your body." He raised his left arm toward Sweetie Belle. "What do you think?"

Sweetie smiled at him before taking his arm to get up. "I think that it was a cunning move, and that you are crazy." She then hugged him. "But thanks anyway. You really helped me." Cape Knight just laughed and rubbed Sweetie's mane. After a few seconds, she stepped back. "What about the close quarter combat, or whatever?"

"Err... For that, you will have to ask a Knuckle Joe for help."

"Eh... Of course."

"Now let's continue, with a fight. There is no better way to train than a fight. Until we are called for the Gourmet Race."

"Alright!" She took the whip in her magic. "I'm ready!"

"Then here I come!"

---

"And... here they go," Applejack said.

"I just can't believe what I'm seeing. My sister training and fighting! I thought it would be more for Scootaloo, not Sweetie Belle! And a whip, really?! That... That's just..."

"Barbaric?" Rainbow proposed. This made Rarity sigh. "I think it is cool. I mean, have you seen how she sent those dummies flying around? Whatever bad guy she may face next, he will so have a bad time."

"So true!" Spike continued. "Look! She is trying to take his weapon!" Sweetie indeed wrapped the whip around the sword of the knight, trying to pull it out of his hand. But then, the knight pulled on the whip, successfully getting it out of Sweetie's magical grasp. With Sweetie disarmed, Cape Knight used the occasion to charge at Sweetie to attack her only to be stopped by a shield. She then fired a beam at him before punching him in the face. After that, she got her whip back. "Woo! Go Sweetie Belle!"

"Yeah! Go Sweetie Belle!" Pinkie Pie repeated, waving a flag with Sweetie's head drawn in it. Rarity shook her head.

"I'm sorry Rarity," Twilight said. "It must be hard for you to see Sweetie Belle fighting like that."

"Don't be Twilight. If it's Sweetie's calling, then I will just have to get used to it, especially if it's to save the world where she is from villains like the one Discord showed us. And don't guilt yourself about it being your fault, it was an accident."

"I know... But I should have taken more precautions to make sure it doesn't happen."

"Hey! Look! Something is coming!" Pinkie suddenly shouted, pointing at the window portal.

---

"Sweetie Belle! Cape Knight!" Waddle Dee screamed as he ran toward them. The filly and the knight stopped their fight and turned in his direction.

"Waddle Dee! The race is ready?"

"Yes! They are getting at the start! Come quick!"

"We are coming!" She turned to Cape Knight. "Let's go!"

They followed Waddle Dee in the hallways of the castle until they reached a room that Sweetie had never been in before. It was full of stalls with boars that looked like a fusion of Nruff and the small ones that she fought in Big Forest. Sweetie had a big smile when she understood what they were about to do. Soon enough, they passed a big door leading outside of the castle, each of them riding a boar, the filly laughing in fun. Thanks to their mounts, they quickly went down the mountain and reached the grasslands, and before long, they were at the start of the first race.

Dedede and Kirby were at the starting line, a Waddle Dee with a flag raised beside them. At the sides of the track were countless creatures from Dedede's army, counting Waddle Dees, Waddle Doos, Blade and Sword Knights, some sort of living snowmen, Sparkys, Bronto Burts, and many many more! Before the starting line in the sky, supported by a couple dozens of Bronto Burts, was a giant screen showing the two racers. Around the public were four loudspeakers on wood towers.

A Waddle Dee and a Waddle Doo riding two Bronto Burts and holding microphones then came above the track.

The Waddle Dee spoke. "Welcome everyone, to today's big event..."

"The Gourmet Race!" the Waddle Doo finished. "Today's challenger is none other than Dream Land's hero: Kiiiiirby!"

"But he will have a hard time, because he is facing the invincible Gourmet Champion himself, the king of Dream Land, Dededeeeee!"

The public yelled as loudly as possible at his name, and Dedede waved his arms at them.

"Now we must remind the rules." Waddle Dee said. "This is a three races championship! No fighting between the racers! Each food eaten is one point, and the Maxim Tomatoes are three points! The first racer reaching the goal gains thirty points! The racer with the most points at the end of the three races wins! This will challenge both your speed and your gluttony!"

---

"I WANT!!!" Pinkie Pie screamed.

---

"Are the racers ready?" Waddle Doo said. "Good!" Waddle Dee took a horn and readied himself to blow inside it. "3! 2! 1!"

BROOOOOOOOOOOOO

The Waddle Dee beside the racers swung down the flag, the speakers started to blast a catchy song, and the race began. Kirby was already in the lead, and before long, the two racers were gone, forcing the public to follow them with the screen.

Kirby was in the head and ate everything in the way, letting nothing for Dedede until they reached a wall of Star Blocks that they had to destroy. All Kirby had to do was inhaling one and spitting it at the block behind it to open the way for him while Dedede was forced to use his hammer to destroy far more blocks to open the way. Turned out there was food hidden inside the blocks, and Dedede got his first points. The same thing happened with a second wall, giving Kirby a big lead. The puffball was able to reach the goal with a big advance, eating two tomatoes in the way, much to the penguin's frustration.

"You haven't won yet!" he said. "There are still two races!"

"Kirby won the first race easily! His small size helped him passing the walls of blocks and left the king in the dust! But King Dedede hasn't said the last word!" Waddle Dee said.

Five minutes later, they were at the starting line of the second race, the Waddle Dee with the flag beside them.

"Let's start the second race. This gets tough!" Waddle Dee said. "3! 2! 1!"

BROOOOOOOOOOOOO

Flag down, the two racers started the second race, Kirby yet again in the lead. But there were many bumps in the tracks, forcing him to jump. Dedede's jumps going farther, he took the lead and left Kirby behind. The puffball was quickly able to catch him thanks to his speed, and between the jumps of Dedede and Kirby's speed, none of them was able to stay long in the lead. They eventually reached a ladder that Dedede climbed in record time while Kirby continued forward, passing a small wall of blocks. But when he reached the goal, Dedede suddenly fell before him thanks to one last jump and passed the goal first.

Dedede did with his fingers the same sign as his symbol in victory, while Kirby looked at the ground in sorrow.

"And this round goes to the king!" the Waddle Dee yelled.

"This one was pretty intense! We didn't know who would reach the goal first until the very last second! This is why I love this sport!" Waddle Doo said.

"But the king must watch out. So far, Kirby has still eaten far more food than him. Everything will be decided with the last race!" the Waddle Dee continued.

"Oh my gosh! I didn't know it would be so fun!" Sweetie Belle shouted excitedly. "Oh... I don't know who to cheer!"

"See?!" Waddle Dee shouted beside her. "I told you! This is the best event!"

Five minutes later, and place to the third race! Somewhere rather weird, with colored bells inside bubbles, and the ground seemingly made of colored kid blocks.

"This is it guys!" Waddle Doo yelled. "The decisive race! In this one, the racers will have to give everything! They will have to watch out for the traps, and the obstacles will be many! Ready everyone? 3! 2! 1!"

BROOOOOOOOOOOOO

And Kirby yet again started the race in the lead, but trying to take a Maxim Tomato out of the way, he gave the occasion for Dedede to take the lead. But the penguin reached a row made of Star Blocks that he had to destroy to continue. Kirby was able to pass by a small opening above the blocks and left the king in the dust, only to reach a wall of spikes and, being too fast to stop, got hurt. To continue, he had to fly up, then jump above small ponds that could slow him if he fell in. It was when he took another Maxim Tomato that Dedede passed him, jumping right in the hole beside the tomato, only to be stopped by a few row of blocks that disappeared only by walking on them, and the two had to wait together that all the blocks disappeared.

They found themselves having to choose between two paths, and Kirby chose the one above while Dedede chose the one below. Dedede had to destroy a wall of Star Blocks before joining Kirby who just passed another wall, taking the lead again. Kirby had to fly up again, avoiding a block of spikes in the way, before jumping in another hole and falling in a pond where there was another tomato. Bad idea, because Dedede yet again took the occasion to be in the lead, and the two of them reached a water section with, somehow, some parts without water. Once out of the water, they eventually reached another intersection, one path after another where they had to fly up, Kirby in the lead. The puffball took the second path, and the king took the first two seconds later. When Kirby reached the top, he saw that he had taken the bad path because Dedede was slightly before him, and he quickly ran to catch him. They were elbow to elbow, but then the king tripped and fell, head right on the goal line just before Kirby passed it.

"And this round is again for King Dedede! This makes two races won for him!" Waddle Doo yelled.

"I really thought that Kirby would pass the goal first for a moment here. But the king tripping stopped that!"

"But this doesn't mean victory! Remember everyone, we still must count the points!"

A few minutes later, the two racers were back at the start of the first track.

"Kirby winning a race, he starts with thirty! King Dedede winning two races, he starts with sixty! Now let's see," the Waddle Dee said.

The screen turned black, and a white line separated it in two vertically. Dedede's face with the number 60 appeared in one, and Kirby's face with the number 30 appeared in the other. And then, the numbers started to go up. A few seconds later, they finally stopped.

Kirby : 164
King Dedede : 155

Silence...

"And..." Waddle Dee said, shocked. "And... the winner is... Kirby..."

"Kirby is the new Gourmet Champion," Waddle Doo said.

"NOOO!!! I can't believe it! I won two races! How could I lose?!" Dedede screamed, making a tantrum. He then felt someone hugging him. When he looked down, he saw that it was Sweetie Belle.

"I'm sorry that you lost Dedede," she said. "But look at the score! You lost only by nine points ! That was a close call!"

"Yeah... I still would have preferred winning."

"I know. But what counts is that we had fun, right? Don't tell me you didn't have fun."

Dedede smiled at her, before chuckling. "I still would have preferred winning."

Sweetie laughed. "I know. But hey! That means that you will have to take back your title! And we will have more fun!"

"You are right!" Dedede turned to Kirby. "You hear that? I will train hard! And we will race again! And this time, I will win!"

"Poyo!" Kirby said, determined.

"Mph! Let's go everyone! I need to train!"

The king departed, followed by his whole army yelling his name in repetition. The only ones staying behind with Kirby were Sweetie Belle and Waddle Dee. Once they were far away, the filly hugged the puffball.

"That was awesome Kirby. Congratulation for winning," she said.

"Yeah..." Waddle Dee said. "I still can't believe that the king lost, but... good game. But you will see! Next time, this will not be the same thing!"

"Poyo!"

"By the way Kirby..." Waddle Dee continued. "Thank you for watching Sweetie Belle while the king was... you know... possessed. I... I owe you. We all owe you."

Kirby smiled. "Poyo!" he shouted, raising an arm.

Waddle Dee nodded at him. "Let's go, Sweetie Belle." He started to follow the others.

"I'm coming!" She turned to Kirby. "Listen Kirby. I'm starting to train how to use a weapon and to use more spells with my magic. Like that, if another villain appears, I will better be able to help you without you or others having to risk your life to protect me. But this is also so I can fight you one day for real, not like last time at the Fountain of Dreams." She laughed at remembering what happened. "Just know this, Kirby. Whether we are fighting together, or each other, I consider you a friend." She raised her right hoof toward Kirby.

The puffball understood what she wanted and he bumped her hoof, smiling. "Poyo."

Sweetie nodded, smiling too, before she joined Waddle Dee, leaving Kirby going back to his home. She then bumped Waddle Dee on the arm. "Told you he is friendly."

---

"Well, I propose we end this session here," Discord said, closing the window portal.

"Wait, I don't understand. They are friends, and yet they will fight each other?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"This is what we call 'friendship in rivalry', like you and AJ when you race each other, but there, it's in battle," Pinkie said. "Now excuse me, but I have to go prepare a Gourmet Race!"

"What?! Pinkie! Outside of you, nopony will be able to go in a race like that! They would end up too stuffed, or too sick to reach the goal!" Twilight pointed out.

"Oh, I'm sure I can find ponies that could participate! And I can always replace the full plates of food by something else, like... like candies! Yes! Candies will work! And this will be the best race ever!" And she was gone.

"I wouldn't mind participating in one. What do you think, AJ?" Rainbow Dash said.

"Ah think that ya'd lose," the earth pony answered.

"Oh yeah?! You are on!"

The two exited the room, leaving Rarity, Twilight, Fluttershy, Spike and Discord behind. The pegasus hugged Rarity. "She is alright. She seems to be with good friends, they will watch her."

"Yes, I saw. But she is my sister, I'm still worried for her even if she is not alone. This is worse, knowing that she will fight, but at least, she will not fight alone. And I can see she trusts this Kirby, so I'm trusting him."

"They did fight together an abomination of darkness," Discord said. "It would be hard not to trust each other after something like that." He then went beside Rarity's ear and whispered to her. "I ship them."

"This is my sister, you ruffian! As much as they are adorable together, Kirby must be too old for her!"

"Actually, he is younger than her."

"What?!"

Meanwhile, Twilight was reading some notes she had written during the race, hairs popping out of her mane and eye twitching. "How did this penguin inflate his belly to the point of flying? How can this pink ball eat food as big as him like that? How could he actually eat dozens of time what must be his weight, and not get bigger? How could this water float? How could those things talk without a mouth? How...? How...?! HOW...?!!"

Chapter 17: I'll Make a Man Out of You... Even if You Are a Filly

"Sweep sweep sweep let's go sweep the dust
Make this room clean is the must
Side to side until there is none
Make this room clean is so fun."

Sweetie Belle sang joyfully as she swept her broom on the floor in rhythm to her song alongside the two Broom Hatters in the chamber. It was certainly less boring to clean a room this way!

BLAM!

Everyone in the room jumped at the suddenness of the door being kicked open, a silhouette standing at its place.

"So... I have heard that you search someone to help you learn how to use your body to break skulls?" the silhouette said, arms crossed.

Sweetie understood that the silhouette was speaking to her. "Mmh... Breaking skulls, maybe not, but at least to better fight enemies that get too close. And no need to be so dramatic Knuckle Joe."

"Aww... You are no fun," the silhouette said, revealed to be a Knuckle Joe, a small bipedal creature with a tan head with big cheeks, small eyes like Kirby, pointy ears, spiky yellow hair separated in two by a white headband with a red jewel, a blue jumpsuit on his body, red shoulder pads, white gloves on his hands, and blue shoes.

"Watch out what you do, you idiot!" one of the Broom Hatters screamed. "You could have broken the door!"

"Sorry," Knuckle Joe said, bowing to the Broom Hatter.

Sweetie Belle giggled at this. Knuckle Joes were such hotheads. Always punching first, thinking later. But they were formidable fighters, their punches powerful enough to destroy rocks. They could even throw energy balls with their hands!

"I would love to start training with you Knuckle Joe, but can I first finish cleaning this room with the Broom Hatters? I'm almost done."

"I don't mind. I can even help!" he shouted. Without warning, he jumped beside one of the Broom Hatters and took his broom.

"Wha-? Wait!"

"Hiya!" Knuckle Joe violently brought down the broom on the floor to sweep it. Crack! Too violently, the broom breaking in two at the impact. "Haa!"

"My broom!" the Broom Hatter yelled in rage before he jumped on Knuckle Joe and started pulling his hair. "You didn't have to be so violent, you knucklehead!"

"Argargarg! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Stop it please!"

Sweetie sighed, then giggled again, shaking her head. Such hotheads... They reminded her of Scootaloo.

---

On the boxing ring, Knuckle Joe took a wooden plank, a hand on each ends, and showed it vertically in front of the filly.

"Break it! I'm sure you can with your hooves! I just need to see!"

"Uh... Alright. But I never tried before, so I'm not sure. Unicorns aren't known for their strength. An earth pony however, like my friend Apple Bloom, could break it without problems, I'm sure of it."

"Still try!"

Sweetie nodded, took a breath, and with a big "AYAH!", she punched the wooden plank, effectively breaking it in two.

"See? Hooves are hard! They can already do some powerful punches! All you need now, is to learn how to use these hooves to win a fight without needing a weapon! You can already knock out the majority of the king's army this way, with just a punch, but against a more experienced opponent, you will need more!"

"Yeah... Cape Knight made sure to make me know that that was not enough."

"Of course he did! He is not the Captain for nothing! But next time, you will be able to win a fight against him just by doing this!" He then did a series of small jabs in rapid succession releasing small shockwaves, his famous Vulcan Jab, followed by an uppercut with his fist engulfed in energy, the Rising Break. He ended his combo by putting his hands at his right side, and formed an energy ball that he shot in the air, the Force Blast, destroying one of the spotlights above the ring. "Oops..."

Sweetie giggled. "That was so cool!"

"Thank you!" He bowed. "I will also help you learn how to grab an enemy to throw them! Or to trap them in a powerful grip from which they will not be able to escape so you can finish them like you desire! By the end, you will be as swift as a coursing river, as forceful as a great typhoon, and as strong as a raging fire!" He raised his fist right above his head. "You will be invincible! Or almost. Nothing is truly invincible."

Sweetie Belle sweated. "Yeeeeah... Thank you Knuckle Joe." Oh boy...

---

"Come on! Stronger the jabs! Imagine that this sandbag is your worst nemesis! Faster!"

"I’ll try!"

"Don't try! Do it! Just! DO IT!"

---

"Continue! More push ups! Don't stop until I say so!"

I'm gonna die...

---

"And now you will do some laps around the room."

"O-okay..."

"With this weight on your back!" he said, taking a big, heavy weight from behind the stand.

Celestia... Help...

---

"Urg..." Sweetie groaned from the floor.

"That was some good training! You have done well! In no time, you will become as good as me! But now, it's dinner time, so it's time for me to say goodbye to you! Until next time we train!" He bowed. "Have a good night!"

"Ugh... Thank you..."

"Is there a problem?"

"Can't... move..."

"Oh... Have I gone too far?"

"M-maybe a little..."

"Sorry!" He bowed again. "Let me help you!"

"You don't need to... Just give me a minute... or two... or three..."

"I insist!" he shouted. He suddenly took Sweetie Belle from the floor and put her on his back awkwardly because of how big she was compared to him. "You have dinner with the king, right?"

"Eep! Uh yes. But, wait..."

"Then let's go! Tayooooo!!!" He started to run like a rocket, exiting the boxing room in two seconds and leaving behind him a trail of dust. Sweetie Belle clung to him for dear life, screaming so loudly that she thought that everyone in the castle could hear her. The two of them were a blur when they traversed the hallways, Knuckle Joe sending flying all the servants that had the misfortune of being in his way, screaming, "Sorry!" each time. If he could bow, he would!

Before long, they reached the king's dinner room. "My king! I'm bringing Sweetie Belle to you!" he yelled at the entrance of the room. On his back, Sweetie Belle tilted right, then left, then right again, before falling, her eyed looking at two directions at the same time. Knuckle Joe then bowed at the king.

Dedede looked at them, mouth open with a raised eyebrow. "What?"

"After our training, she was too tired to walk for dinner, so I ran with her on my back so she could come!"

"I... I see... You are dismissed."

"Yes! My king!" He bowed again. He then bowed at Sweetie Belle still on the floor. "Until next time!" And he was gone.

Dedede looked at the filly, and after a few seconds, chuckled. "Seems you found quite the teacher."

"You... don't... say..."

---

The following weeks, nothing much happened. Sweetie did her tasks, she trained with the help of Dedede, Cape Knight, or Knuckle Joe, and sometime went out to walk around Dream Land, spending time with her friends, including Kirby, taking a good time. She would sometime observe a butterfly with red rimmed orange wings fly around, reminding her how peaceful this land was when nothing was trying to turn it into darkness land. She also learned more about the various creatures living in the kingdom, and beyond, making sure she knew what she could face in the future.

Sometime, she would punch Broom Sunglasses in the face, because he asked for it.

Right now, she was in the boxing room again, about to start her training with Knuckle Joe.

Gulp "What are we gonna do today?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Something that can seem easy, but that is actually really hard."

"And... What is it?"

"Meditation."

"....What?"

"I know it may not sound as great as throwing jabs at a sandbag or running around with a weight, but it is important if you want to do some of my more powerful techniques like my Force Blast."

"Uh?"

"How do you think I have been able to find the inner energy that I use to boost my punches or to create those balls? I had to do countless hours of meditation! And no, this energy has nothing to do with your magic! This is a different kind of energy!"

"Okay... So what do I do?"

"Nothing. You just sit down, empty your mind from all thoughts, and search inside you this energy! This is also a great way to learn how to better control your feelings, so you can better focus in a fight! Or doing other things!"

"Are you sure? Because you don't seem to control your feelings so well, seeing how you are always excited to the point of being clumsy."

This caused Knuckle Joe to fall backward as if he had been punched in the face. "Ouch! So true!"

Sweetie giggled. "Well then, I'll try."

Knuckle Joe got up. "Remember, it took me many hours ! You may not accomplish it first try!"

"Right..."

Sweetie sat on her bottom, crossed her legs, closed her eyes, and took a big breath. It was not so different from when she tried to use magic the first time, but it was still harder. With magic, at least, she didn't have to focus so much. She already had a little knowledge of how to use it. But this energy... It was more profound, she could tell. Already, emptying her mind was so hard. There was always something that came in her mind, excitement for when she will unlock this energy, curiosity like what will there be for dinner tonight, or thoughts of her home, her family, her friends...

She took another breath. Maybe she should start with something else. Her magic! She will start focusing on her magic, and from there, she will go deeper!

So, magic. Magic was near her heart, going all the way from there to her horn passing by her brain. Focusing on that point, it wasn't long before she felt her magic in her horn. She kept her focus on that point, not thinking of anything else. Not breathing, she let her body do the job. Not the beating of her heart. Not the sweat on her forehead. Just her magic. The magic became a green star in a vast blackness, with nothing else in sight. She could see some of this star going out, toward what she knew was her horn, but she didn't focus on that. She focused on the magic. Just, the magic.

And then, she started to move her focus elsewhere, deeper, while keeping the star as a beacon. She started to search the energy, whatever and wherever it was. For what felt like hours, she searched. She searched. She searched.

Nothing.

She kept her frustration in check, this will not help her. She returned to the star, thinking to try again. But as she returned to the star, she saw something. In the star. Deep, in the very center of the green, she could see something. Something... She was not sure of the form, or the color. Was this the core of the star? The very origin of her magic? It was... It was...

Her?

She reached to it... or to her...

---

Knuckles Joe looked at Sweetie Belle, the filly not moving at all. He had been worried when he saw her horn light up, thinking that she had been doing something wrong. But almost after that, she had totally stopped moving, only her breathing showing that she was alive. Not even her ears moved. Seemed like her magic had been the key to enter her meditation state, which was impressive. It took her only a few minutes, while it took him about an hour the first time. There were some people that were just better gifted...

It had been many hours now, and Knuckle Joe may have to stop the exercise soon.

But then, he started to see something, barely visible. Some white-green-blue energy was starting to envelop the filly. He gasped. She did it!

In an instant, Sweetie opened her eyes and put her fore hooves to her right where an energy ball of the same color was forming.

But when she threw it, and the ball disappeared...

...

"Oh come on! I had it!"

Knuckle Joe shook his head in disbelief. This filly was something. He then said, "At least you found it. I must congratulate you. But how have you been able to find it so fast?"

Sweetie took a big breath before answering. "Well, first, I put my focus on my magic so I could use it as a beacon to search deeper in me for this energy. And... turns out it was deeper, but deeper in my magic. I barely saw it, it was almost invisible, impossible to feel, but it was there, in the center. It..." She looked at Knuckle Joe right in the eyes. "It was my soul, right?"

He nodded. "A part of it, at least. This energy is an energy coming right from your soul, representing your spirit. Seems like your magic is from the same origin." At this, he laughed and clapped. "Nature sure spoiled you! And your people!"

She looked at her hooves, annoyed. "But I wasn't able to form an energy ball. Mph!"

"Of course you weren't! It's one thing to find the energy, it's another to learn how to use it! But I think we can stop for now, it's almost dinner."

"Really?! Already?!"

"Time goes fast when you are in meditation! You can go! I will ask the cooks to prepare for you a Maxim Tomato pie as a reward! You deserve it!"

Oh Celestia... An apple pie made from Whispy's apples was already too good, what will it be with the Maxim Tomatoes?

---

Sweetie walked in the hallways, not knowing what to do while waiting for dinner. She was not sure she could start any task and finish them in time.

But then, she heard a Waddle Dee start a discussion with a few other servants.

"Have you heard? A few days ago, Kirby has fought that giant bird, Dyna Blade, who terrorized a part of Dream Land."

"It's only now that you heard about it?" another Waddle Dee answered. "Were you living under a rock?"

"Hey, I was sick! I just learned about it, like, five minutes ago!" the first replied.

Oh yeah, Dyna Blade. Too bad I wasn't there, Sweetie thought. She had been annoyed to miss helping Kirby in fighting another threat, but at the same time, she couldn't be at his side every time, so she couldn't know when he went on another adventure.

"I have heard something else," a Sword Knight suddenly said. "The Bronto Burts have seen some heavy activities from the Meta Knights, at their not-so-secret base on the coast of Orange Ocean, in the south. They must be preparing something."

"Meta Knight? Preparing something?" the second Waddle Dee said. "All he does is walk around Popstar challenging whoever he finds powerful enough. What would he prepare?"

"I don't know..." a third Waddle Dee said. "Why would he have an army of mercenaries under his orders if he just wanted to become stronger?"

"Good point," the others said.

She heard enough. Dinner could wait. If there was even the chance that the Meta Knights may prepare something bad, she must go see what it was. Their base in the south, on the coast of Orange Ocean, right? All she will have to do is follow it.

The Meta Knights were not to be underestimated. She only met their leader, Meta Knight himself, but she heard many things about them. They were less numerous but far more well trained than Dedede's army. And Meta Knight was the most powerful warrior in the world outside of Kirby.

Hopefully it was a false alert, because she was not sure she will be able to fight Meta Knight, but someone must at least stand against them. Kirby may not have heard about this rumor. Maybe she should go speak to Dedede, together they may have a chance. But he may not take seriously what were just speculations on a rumor.

She entered the room with all the boars, hopped on one, and exited the castle, under the sunset.

Many minutes later, she could see the trident-like towers of their base, and a giant dome. A dome that was opening, letting out... something. It was long, black, with many cannons, and what seemed to be a bridge like on a ship, but far bigger. At the front, she could barely see it from where she was, there was a reproduction of Meta Knight's mask.

Then, big metal tubes at the back spat fire.

And it started to fly, long purple bat wings deploying at the sides.

A giant, technologically advanced flying battleship.

"Oh boy..."

Author's Notes:

You are ready for some epicness ? The next chapter is already written, and it's a BIG one !

Chapter 18: The Halberd

"Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh boy!" Discord repeated excitedly as he entered the same empty room as last time. He then snapped his fingers, making Twilight, her friends, Spike, and the Crusaders appear on chairs, much to their confusion. "Everyone!" he shouted. "Who wants to see an epic action movie?"

"Discord? What?" Twilight asked in confusion.

"Ah was about to eat with mah family!" Applejack shouted.

"Yeah! I wouldn't be against some action, but here, my stomach is asking for food!" Rainbow Dash shouted too.

"Oh?" Discord snapped his fingers, and bags of popcorn appeared beside them. "Well, here is some food!"

"Discord, what is going on?" Fluttershy asked.

"Oh okay, let me repeat myself. Who wants to see an epic action movie featuring a certain white unicorn filly?" At this, he snapped again his fingers, making a screen appear on the wall. The screen showed an image in black and white of Sweetie Belle's head with written before it "Today, Sweetie Belle in a new adventure!"

Everyone gasped. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo then ran at Discord's feet. "We're going ta see Sweetie Belle?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Please, tell us it isn't a joke," Scootaloo said.

"For once, no jokes!" Discord said, retiring a mask of a clown from his face. "Except this one."

"Oh please! Show us! You said that she is going on an adventure?" Rarity asked.

"Exactly! And we are all gonna watch it live!"

"Then stop losing time and turn on the screen, or we are gonna miss it!" Pinkie Pie yelled, starting eating the popcorn.

"That's what I was gonna do!" He snapped his fingers and the window portal reappeared on the wall in the place of the screen before he sat. The portal showed Sweetie Belle riding a boar beside an ocean not far of a forest and a mountain. "There is our hero." Then the portal showed, a little farther ahead, something flying above the ocean. "And there is her target!"

"What is that!" Twilight shouted.

"It looks awesome!" Rainbow and Scootaloo shouted.

"Well, it is no less than a battleship!" Discord said.

"A BATTLESHIP?!" Rarity yelled. "That thing is a battleship?! And Sweetie is going to attack it?! ALONE?!! Discord! Bring her back! She will get herself killed! Fate can go to Tartarus!"

"Wait!" Apple Bloom shouted. "Something's happening!"

"Eeyup. It's shooting at something in the sky," Applejack said.

---

She could see him, on his Warp Star, approaching the ship. "Kirby! Oh thank Celestia you are here!" But then, the Warp Star was shot down by one of the many cannons of the ship. "Oh no!" She could only watch in horror as the Warp Star crashed in the forest. "Quick Grouiky Junior! To the forest!"

"Groink!"

Passing a few doors and jumping above a few holes, searching in and around the forest, she was able to find Kirby just as he got out of a big black door, between the forest and a mountain, thankfully not hurt. She saw that Kirby was wearing a purple cap, and he had a yo-yo. She let the boar charge at an enemy that looked like a microphone on feet not far of him and got down. She then hugged the surprised puffball.

"Kirby! Thank Celestia! I thought that you had been killed in that crash!"

"Poyo. Poyo," Kirby said, patting her on the back of her neck, where he could reach.

She stepped back and looked at the battleship in the distance. "So, it's bad news?"

"Poyo!" Kirby confirmed.

"We must stop it?"

"Poyo!"

"Then, how are we going to reach that thing?"

At this, Kirby took a determined expression, shouted, "Poyo!" and started to run.

"Wait!" Sweetie Belle yelled. "Maybe we should go search reinforcements! Like Dedede! Or Gooey! Do you know where is Gooey?"

Their run was interrupted by the apparition of two big enemies. Sweetie recognized them as Bonkers by their gorilla-like appearance with dark blue pants, purple clothes, and purple hair with a pompadour haircut. They used for weapon a hammer as big as the one that Dedede used. One of the Bonkers appeared before them, and the other behind them, using his hammer to send the boar blasting off.

"Grouiky Junior!" she shouted. She then looked at the Bonkers in anger. "You will pay! I take this one Kirby!"

"Poyo!" Kirby shouted back, readying his yo-yo while facing the other Bonkers.

Not looking back, Sweetie took her whip and cracked it in the face of the Bonkers. He counterattacked by bringing down his hammer on her, but she jumped to her left, avoiding it. She then jumped on the Bonkers' back and bucked it behind the head, making him eat the ground. She hopped down from him and shot a charged magical beam at his butt, causing the Bonkers to jump in pain and to drop his hammer. With the help of her magic, she wrapped her whip around the handle of the hammer and made it fly around her before bringing it down on the head of the Bonkers.

That was not enough to knock him out and he took back his hammer before taking an explosive coconut from his pocket and throwing it at her. She passed under the coconut before it exploded, avoided the hammer again, then bucked the Bonkers on his right knee. Jumping back to avoid the hammer, she made her whip crack at him multiple times and sent a last charged beam, making the Bonkers finally fall unconscious.

When she looked toward Kirby to see if he dealt with his enemy, she saw the puffball, with his yo-yo wrapped around all four of the Bonkers' limbs, waving at her. She giggled before bucking the wrapped Bonkers right in the head, knocking him out. Kirby then gave up his yo-yo and ate the Bonkers, giving him the Hammer Ability.

"So, what now?" Sweetie asked.

Kirby answered by pointing his hammer toward the flying ship getting away.

"So we are chasing it? Even if we have nothing to board it?"

Kirby nodded.

She sighed.

Kirby then started to run and destroyed a Bomb Block that caused the destruction of a whole wall of seemingly indestructible blocks around it. Sweetie had no choice but to follow him, maybe they will find something. A few more Bomb Blocks later, Sweetie was forced to awkwardly jump on Kirby so he could lift her up because it was too high to jump. Kirby took the floating hot dog and orange juice, then used his hammer to stick a small wooden stake in the floor, causing the destruction of more blocks that revealed a Maxim Tomato that Kirby divided in two, giving one half to her.

"Thanks. I haven't eaten because of this."

"Poyo!"

After eating, they destroyed another Bomb Block, and Sweetie jumped down the way it opened to punch a Kabu before shooting a beam at another Bomb Block, revealing two Scarfys. Kirby took them down with his hammer without letting them mutate, and Sweetie had to yet again jump on his back to be lifted up. She used her horn to destroy another Bomb Block in the way and took the floating candy that it revealed, letting Kirby eat the hot dog, before entering a door.

"Yay! I love free candy!"

---

"Not fair!" Pinkie shouted. "Why can't I find free candies in the wild too?!"

"The real question is: why is there food in the wild?!" Twilight shouted back.

---

In the other side of the door, they were almost rolled on by an enemy that looked like a rubber wheel with its eyes in the center of both sides of the wheel. A Wheelie. Seeing the long straight path that awaited them, Kirby gave up the Hammer and ate the Wheelie, gaining a red cap backward. He was then about to do something when he looked at Sweetie Belle in curiosity, putting a hand under his mouth.

"Poyo..."

"What?"

Then, Kirby jumped on her, and her hooves suddenly turned into wheels! Before she could say anything, she lost control of her hooves, the wheels almost making her faceplant. Trying to regain balance, she found herself doing like when she had first gone skating, trying to put her hooves under her only for them to go wild. Skating! It must not be different! If she could keep her balance while skating, then she could keep her balance with wheeled hooves! So, remembering her skating, she was able to place her four hooves under her and keep her balance.

Accomplishing this, she smiled. "Yay!"

"Poyo!" Kirby congratulated her.

She tested the wheels, somehow making them roll a little. "Now..." She then looked at the long way before her, eyes half closed, and at all the enemies that were on it. "I'm gonna roll..." Her smile became sadistic. "And they are gonna hate it."

"Po-yo!" Kirby shouted, raising his right arm.

And she rolled, right forward, jumping above holes, above spikes, and sending flying all the enemies that were in the way. She didn't care about the Scarfys flying above, as long as they were not in the way. At the end, she fell on springs, bouncing her on a level above where there was another long path, this time with Bomb Blocks. She destroyed the first one, making something explode, but she was not sure what. Same thing with the second one. At the end, she had to jump on a bridge above and turn around, rolling above holes with a plate of pancakes and a normal tomato that she took in her magic. Once they reached the door at the end, she stopped, and Kirby jumped from her back.

"Poyo! Poyo!" he shouted, jumping on place and smiling at Sweetie Belle.

"It was awesome! Here is some food for you in thanks!" she said, giving the pancakes and the tomato. She still took one of the pancakes to eat it.

Once Kirby had inhaled his food, they passed the door and found themselves in front of a pink round enemy with black feet and fire for hair with a headband. A Burning Leo. Kirby gave up the Wheel and ate him, gaining the Fire. They then jumped on the spring behind them and were bounced up beside a big cannon pointed up where they could see its wick poking out of the ground not far. Another similar cannon was alongside it, pointing up too.

Sweetie wondered what they had to do only to see Kirby light the first wick before jumping in the first cannon. He then signed to Sweetie Belle to hop in.

"Are you sure?" she asked, scared.

"Poyo!" Kirby confirmed.

"Alright..." And so, she jumped in the cannon just before the fire reached it only for the cannon to explode, expelling them in a ball of fire. As they hit the ground, Sweetie coughed some black smoke. "You... You were saying?"

"Poyoooo..." Kirby groaned beside her. He then got up, helped the filly, and went to light the other cannon.

"You still want to try?" she asked.

Kirby shrugged from inside the cannon.

Sweetie sighed. "Well... There is no other way, unless we go back down the mountain..." She jumped in the cannon.

When the fire reached the cannon, it made a few turns, surprising its occupants, before pointing down. Next thing they knew, the cannon was launched into the sky like a rocket with the two of them screaming. A few seconds of flying later, the cannon fell back on the top of the mountain, bouncing a few time before rolling, then stopping. Sweetie Belle and Kirby took this to get out of it, their eyes rolling around.

Kirby was the first to regain his senses and was then startled by something he saw. When Sweetie shook her head to stop the world from spinning around, she saw what startled Kirby, and her jaw almost hit the ground.

Before them was a giant bird made of red and white metal and rainbow wings, a blue jewel on its chest, and yellow feathers on its head like a crest. The bird looked at them with its big eyes.

"Is... Is that Dyna Blade?!" Sweetie Belle shouted, taking a step back. Kirby placed himself before her and took a fighting stance. But to their surprise, Dyna Blade lowered its wings, inviting them on its back. "It wants to help us?"

Kirby smiled at this and waved at Dyna Blade in thanks before getting on its back. Soon after, Sweetie Belle followed him, insure. Once the two of them were on its back, the giant bird flapped its rainbow wings, ascending, before flying in the direction of the battleship.

It didn't take them long to reach it, but once they got too close, its many cannons started shooting at them. Dyna Blade was able to avoid them and approached the ship only for a big cannon on the deck to charge before shooting a giant laser, hitting fully the bird. The hit ejected Sweetie and Kirby from its back, but they fell on the deck at the head of the ship beside some giant cannon, successfully boarding it.

Sweetie barely had the time to look with sadness at Dyna Blade diving to the ground in pain, about to crash, smoke trailing behind it, before they were attacked by the crew on the deck, starting with a Sir Kibble that Kirby ate, giving up the Fire for the Cutter. They then heard someone speaking from a speaker.

"Dyna Blade has been shot down!"

"But...! But...! Kirby is on the deck! And he is with the king's lackey!"

"Hey!" Sweetie shouted at this.

"Relax," a voice that Sweetie recognized then said. Meta Knight. "We must handle this calmly."

"Lister, you lubbers!" someone else then shouted. "I want you all after those two!" Seemed like a commander.

Fighting the crew, they ran on the deck of the ship until entering a hallway with Gordos in the way. But some sort of platform on the floor that charged forward once they walked on it was able to get them pass them. Continuing advancing, they reached their first door of the ship. In the other side, they were ambushed by what seemed to be some elite members of the Meta Knights consisting of knights using a flail (a big one), a trident, and an axe (this one wearing a skull mask).

"That's far enough, Kirby!" Meta Knight then said.

"Now you will know the power of Meta Knight!" the commander shouted.

"Fight!" a smaller voice shouted.

At once, the knights jumped on the two of them. Sweetie wrapped her whip around the knight with the axe and sent him toward the one using a trident while Kirby used his blades to cut the big knight using a flail. That was enough to beat them. But further, they were yet again ambushed by more knights, this time one of them using a javelin, but no axe-using one. Sweetie avoided the swing of the javelin and took it in her magic. The knight not wanting to let it go, he was sent flying toward the flail of the big one, sending him flying over the edge of the ship. The javelin knight flying into it caused the flail to lose its momentum, making it fall on its user's head. Meanwhile, Kirby took one of his blades in his hand and used it to slash a few times at the trident-using knight, defeating him.

After this ambush, they passed another door leading them inside the ship.

"Looks like Kirby and the pony are trying to get on deck."

"Well then," the commander said. "let's guide them in front of one of the cannons."

"I don't like this Kirby, they will trap us," Sweetie Belle said.

"Poyo!" Kirby reassured. Seeing a Poppy approach them, he gave up the Cutter and ate him, only to discover that this Poppy had been using boomerangs, giving back the Cutter Ability. He sweated at this. "Poyo..."

"No Bomb this time, sorry Kirby."

After that, they took an elevator to go up, Sweetie putting a shield around them at seeing a Shotzo shooting at them from the side. On the top, Sweetie shot a Bomber, a literal walking bomb with a skull drawn at its sides, while Kirby cut a Plasma Wisp, a living, floating mass of blue plasma with two gloved hands and two eyes. They took another elevator, then a third, leading them before three Shotzos. Just before they shot, Kirby saw a Bomb Block above him and destroyed it, which caused the destruction of the floor under the Shotzos, making them fall.

"I would like to know what was the point of putting these three Shotzos above a floor that could be destroyed with a Bomb Block."

Kirby only shrugged in response.

"She has a point, Captain Vul," the small voice said.

"Shut up!" the commander shouted, his name and rank revealed, making Sweetie giggle.

They passed the door that the Shotzos had been guarding and ended in a big hangar full of smaller ships and weapons. Sweetie was awed at such a military power. Just in this room, they had enough to take over Dream Land, and they could even take over Equestria! The princesses would probably put a fight, but against all these ships and their armament, would they last long?

She shivered. "We must stop them!"

"Poyo!"

Continuing, Kirby gave up his Ability seeing the next enemy: a Bio Spark. A round being wearing purple clothes all over his body except before his eyes, with a golden headgear and a headband with a star. He had red hands and feet, and a red tassel on the back of the head. He used a katana as a weapon. To put it simply, it was a ninja! And Kirby ate him, obtaining the Ninja Ability! He now wore a skullcap with a headband similar to the ninja, and now possessed a katana.

Kirby looked at himself, turning around, before he put his hands before him, raise a foot, and shouted, "Yooooo!!!"

This caused Sweetie to roll on the floor laughing. "This... This is... Oh my Celestia! My sides!" Kirby laughed too before pointing at Sweetie Belle. At this, she gasped. "Oh my gosh! Yes! Please! Yes!" She quickly went back on her hooves and Kirby jumped on her back. A light engulfed her, and when it disappeared, she found herself entirely covered in a black cloak leaving only her eyes, horn, and tail visible. She then threw a shuriken into a wall, and seeing it hit, she shouted, "Cutie Mark Crusader, Ninja! Yay!"

---

"Nooo! I want to be a ninja too!" Scootaloo whined.

"Sorry, squirt..." Rainbow Dash said.

Twilight's eye twitched.

---

Not long after, they were ambushed by two new enemies: some pink fighter with yellow hair wearing a white gi with a black belt and having floating blue gloved hands, and a Poppy Bros. Sr, pretty much like the juniors, but bigger. The fighter launched his hand at them, only for Sweetie to throw a smoke bomb at her hooves, disappearing from the enemies' sight. She then fell on the fighter, kicking him on the back-head, and Kirby threw a dozen kunais at rapid succession toward the Poppy, beating him. Sweetie ended the fighter by taking his head in her hooves, and slamming it on the floor.

The battle finished, they continued, beating another Bio Spark followed by a Gip, some sort of pig-like round creature without any limbs excepted two white wings, on a bridge of Star Blocks. While beating the Gip, Sweetie accidentally destroyed a block by sending a shuriken at it, showing that there was a Bomb Block under them. Kirby destroyed the remaining blocks and discovered that there were actually two Bomb Blocks, including one that seemed to destroy a wall. Kirby then jumped down from Sweetie's back, making her lose the ninja outfit, and let her go on is back before inflating and flying down. Sweetie destroyed with her horn the first block which, strangely, actually created platforms to jump back up. Destroying the second block revealed a secret door, which they took.

"Have we be found...?" Captain Vul then said with sadness.

"What is this place?" someone else asked.

Seemed like they found some secret room of the captain, and this room had food in it! A flan, which Sweetie immediately ate, a normal tomato, a Maxim Tomato that they shared, and some sort of glowing candy with a small star.

"What is this?" Sweetie asked.

"Poyo! Poyo!" Kirby said excitedly before eating the candy. He then started flashing!

"Wh-" Sweetie was about to ask what was going on, only to be stopped by Kirby doing a mouth to mouth to her, making her flash too! And turning her head all red...

---

"Eep!"

"What the..."

"Oh my gosh! Sweetie has a coltfriend!"

"Told you," Discord said to Rarity, the mare having red cheeks.

"Oh my..."

---

Sweetie sputtered as Kirby ended the mouth to mouth. "Wh-wha-" But again, she didn't have time to say anything because Kirby took her by the hoof and started to run, forcing her to follow. They took the door, jumped on the platforms, and eliminated the next enemy, some sort of robot with a single eye in the left, a blue cap backward, red shoes, and a yo-yo, just by touching it! Taking the door behind it, they quickly crossed the next room without even taking the Maxim Tomato.

"They are now approaching Main Cannon number two."

"They'll be burnt to a crisp," Vul said before laughing alongside the small voice.

After the room, they were now just in front of the very cannon that had shot the giant laser at Dyna Blade, and it was now pointed right at them! The cannon was actually two cannons, a smaller round one on top of a bigger squared one, the big one being the one that shot lasers. Alongside the cannons was a mechanical arm, the hand menacingly turned toward them. The big cannon then shot its laser at them and Sweetie could only cover her eyes, thinking her end coming.

The laser passed around them, but to her surprise, they weren't getting vaporised! After the laser, she looked at herself and saw her body stopping flashing, like Kirby.

"Did... Did that candy gave us invincibility?" she asked in disbelief.

"Poyo!" Kirby confirmed.

"Impossible! How did they survive?!" Vul screamed.

"They took an Invincibility Candy in the secret room," Meta Knight answered.

"Grrrr... No matter! The cannon will destroy them!"

At that, the cannon on the top fired a explosive cannonball at them, forcing the two to separate. Sweetie went to the left and Kirby went to the right where he started to throw kunais at the big cannon at the bottom. He was forced to take his katana to parry the charge of the mechanical arm trying to ram him. While Kirby was busy with the arm, the top cannon turned toward Sweetie and fired another cannonball at her only for her to step back from the impact area before shooting a charged magical beam at it. The arm changed its target and gripped Sweetie Belle by her barrel, lifting her in the air. The big laser cannon then pointed at her and started to charge.

"Help, Kirby!"

To save Sweetie Belle, Kirby took his katana and jumped at the arm, cutting right through it, sectioning the hand and releasing the filly just in time before the laser fired. After Sweetie Belle thanked him, they avoided another cannonball from the top cannon and Sweetie attacked it multiple times with her whip while Kirby threw his kunais. Sweetie jumped away from another bullet and Kirby avoided another laser only to be rammed by the arm, still attacking despite not having its hand anymore. Sweetie shot a charged beam at the base of the arm, destroying it completely.

But the cannons still had a long way to go. Sweetie then decided to try something. Avoiding a laser, she got on her hind legs, put her fore legs to her right, and started to focus her energy. Before long, an energy ball formed between her hooves, and she threw it, only for it to disappear.

How hard is it to create an energy ball with this energy? I can shoot beams with my magic, this shouldn't be that different!

She didn't have much time to get annoyed at her failure because she saw yet another cannonball coming at her. Having enough, Sweetie took her whip and wrapped it around the bullet, mad it do a loop around her, and sent it back at the cannons where the explosion of the cannonball damaged the two. "Yay!"

Jumping above another laser, Kirby then fell on the top cannon and started to cut it. The top cannon had time to fire another cannonball that Sweetie dodged before suddenly stopping, electricity racing around it. Kirby jumped away while Sweetie wrapped the last cannonball it fired in her whip and sent it at the bottom cannon, hitting right where it shot the lasers just as it had been charging. This caused the cannons to explode in a big explosion, revealing that the cannons were probably linked to something important because, following that, the whole top of the ship from the cannons to the head started to explode.

Just before that, the Warp Star appeared and took both Kirby and Sweetie, escaping the destruction of the deck. As the top of the ship finally disappeared in an explosion of giant proportion, destroying a good part of its armament, the Warp Star led them toward the base of the left bat wing of the ship where it dropped them beside a turret with two small cannons.

As they started approaching the wing, beating everyone in their way with Sweetie shouting how awesome and unbelievable what they just did was, they could hear the crew speaking again.

"Ahh! Main Cannon number two was destroyed!"

"The cannon's a wreck! We can't use it!"

"What?! How could this be?" Vul shouted.

"They are now heading for the left wing!"

"You don't think they'd..." spoke the small voice in worry.

"Everyone!" Vul shouted again, angry. "We need to keep Kirby and that pony away from the left wing!"

"That pony has a name!" Sweetie Belle shouted. "And it's Sweetie Belle! Remember it!"

"Don't play tough with us, you little pest!" Vul shouted back.

Thanks to another small ride from the Warp Star, Kirby and Sweetie reached the side of the ship where violent winds were pushing them from behind because of the speed of the flying ship. On the way, they encountered Laser Balls, big floating orange balls with eyes who could shoot small lasers.

They found themselves reaching a wall, forcing them to go down by destroying the floor thank to a few Bomb Blocks and using rope ladders. A few rope ladders later, they were now at the bottom of the side of the ship where they had bigger risks to fall because of all the holes. Big holes.

Sweetie then looked at Kirby ninja and got an idea. "Hey, Kirby, get on my back! I think I know how we may be able to cross this section easily!"

"Poyo?" Kirby said in wonder before he jumped on Sweetie's back, giving her the Ninja Ability. The filly then approached the wall of the ship in their left with a big smile.

"Ninpo! Walk-on-the-wall-no-jutsu?" she asked.

Kirby gasped and smiled. "Poyo!"

And so, with the Ninja Ability, Sweetie ran toward the wall before starting to run ON the wall, running above the holes and the platforms full of enemies looking at them in wonder, shooting the Laser Balls and a Bomb Block that destroyed a wall in the way.

"That's cheating!" Vul screamed.

"No!" Sweetie Belle replied. "That's ninja!" she said as she grabbed a Maxim Tomato that was in the way in her magic, giving it to Kirby. With the katana, Kirby cut the tomato in two, and the two halves fell right in their mouths.

They were however stopped by a Mr. Frosty throwing an ice block in their may, forcing them to land on the floor before him. He then turned his back on them to get another ice block, showing his naked butt. Bad idea for him because Sweetie wrapped her whip around his right foot, and with the help of Kirby, sent him flying. After slamming him on the wall a few time, they gave a big tug, and the Frosty passed right THROUGH the wall. This apparently destroyed something important because the whole section started exploding alongside the left wing, forcing Sweetie and Kirby to enter the hole. The wing was destroyed just as they entered, leading the ship to tilt on its left.

"The left wing is destroyed! Damage to 74% of the wing!"

"Arggh!" Vul yelled in both surprise and rage.

"We're starting to lose stability because of it!"

"Retract the sails! Give more lift to the left wing!" Meta Knight ordered.

They then found themselves in a small section, with the only way through a small conduit in the ceiling above some electric floor.

"Hey! Where are Kirby and Sweetie Belle now?" Vul asked.

"It looks like they're inside the cabin now..."

"We got them on radar! They're in the ducts!"

So that was where they were. Anyway, Kirby on her back, they wall jumped to the conduit and moved slowly inside it. Sweetie had to crawl.

"What're they doing there?!" they heard Vul wonder as they climbed some ladders, reaching a small room with blocks spitting fire in the floor.

"They're moving through the ducts now!" they heard as Kirby helped Sweetie fly above the fire, reaching an elevator.

"Are they lost or something?" the small voice asked.

"Good question. Where are we going Kirby?" Sweetie asked, only to be answered by a shrug. Leaving the elevator, they reached a small room with a switch guarded by a Sir Kibble. Dealing with him, they found that the switch opened the door, but when they stopped hitting it, the door started to close back. So they went beside the door and Kirby used his kunais on the switch, opening the door, and they quickly passed it before it closed, entering another elevator.

"Wait... I thought of something. Heeheehee," Vul suddenly said, worrying Sweetie.

"What does he have prepared now?" Sweetie asked to herself.

They had to deal with a Knuckle Joe guarding a door once they left the elevator. He was able to punch Sweetie a few times before she wrapped her whip around him, trapping him, and Kirby finished him by cutting him with the katana. They only found a Maxim Tomato behind the door, healing the injuries that Sweetie just took.

Getting out, they had to go up. Some wall jumps later, they entered another small conduit leading to another Knuckle Joe that Kirby beat with a few kunais. Jumping on two platforms, they reached another door, this one leading in a big room full of weapons of all kinds.

"Have they made it into the armory?" Vul then said.

"They have their pick of the lot now."

Well then, jackpot. Seeing a hammer, Kirby decided, with regret, to take it, giving up the Ninja. Feeling like Vul was preparing something bad, Sweetie also took a sword to use alongside her whip, it may help her. And, heck! Now that she had a better control of her magic, why not take more? So she took a trident, and for good measure, a javelin. They ate the Maxim Tomato in the room and passed the door.

They appeared in a big hallway full of crates half plunged in the dark, not a sound was heard.

"Are we all ready?" Vul shouted.

"Are we really doing this?"

"Hmph. I know we'll regret this."

"Shut it! Now is our only chance to finish them!" the captain yelled in anger. "This time, we will succeed! Heavy Lobster, away!"

At hearing this name, Kirby gulped and urged Sweetie to move. That was when they destroyed a few Star Blocks in their way that they started hearing heavy metallic footsteps coming from behind, approaching. Looking back, Sweetie could see in the dark two glowing blue eyes coming closer and closer at each footsteps. Whatever it was, it was big!

"What is that Kirby?"

"Poyo!" Kirby answered, urging her to run.

They found themselves having to pass around, above, and below many crates and to destroy more blocks in the way. They eventually started hearing the crates being destroyed behind them. A group of crates suddenly exploded in a fiery explosion, damaging the structure and urging them to go faster.

Vul then started to laugh like a maniac. "Crush them! CRUSH THEM!!"

"He is crazy!" Sweetie Belle shouted as Kirby helped her fly above a big wall of crates, hearing more explosions behind.

"Ahh..." they heard someone sigh. "Looks like our ship is falling apart..."

"Don't worry about it! Just press on!" Vul said.

They reached the end of the hallway, and they now had to jump up from platform to platform just as the last crates were destroyed, Sweetie seeing the silhouette of the Heavy Lobster through the smoke. But they were able to escape it by climbing until reaching a big room with a few more wooden crates.

But then, the floor under the crates exploded before them, the Heavy Lobster passing right through it in a deafening racket of exploding wood and metal hitting metal. This caused a wall at their right to collapse, revealing a room full of big cylindrical metal things that seemed explosive.

And here it was, four times Sweetie's size, two glowing, now red flashing eyes looking right at them. Like its name said, the Heavy Lobster was a giant mechanized bipedal lobster made of golden metal, with two powerful golden claws that could snap them in two. It also possessed two small wings for some reason...

The Heavy Lobster raised its right claw and brought it down right at them, Sweetie and Kirby barely escaping it. Kirby jumped toward its head and used his hammer to hit it, making it slightly tilt, only for the Lobster to move its head back at Kirby, sending him to a wall. Sweetie ran as far away from it as possible and sent the three weapons she had taken toward it. The javelin broke in two upon hitting it, and the trident got the same fate. The sword, however, only bounced, barely scratching it. The lobster turned toward her and shot from its left claw what seemed to be some sort of mini-lobster that flew in her direction. She created a shield, and the mini-lobster exploded on it, destroying it.

Kirby came back with his hammer only for the Lobster to jump and fall on him, trapping him under its foot and making him lose the Hammer. It was hit on the head by a charged beam from Sweetie Belle, succeeding in making it step back, freeing Kirby. But before the puffball could get up, the Lobster kicked him right at Sweetie Belle, sending the two of them toward a wall. The Lobster then opened its two claws and sent fire from them. Seeing that, Sweetie took Kirby in her magic and ran away from the flames, the streams following her behind. When the Lobster stopped, it shot some slime made of paint, followed by another mini-lobster at her, and she barely jumped away from it before she shot the slime. Leaving Kirby, the puffball starting to run around, she approached the Lobster and cracked her whip a dozen times against its head, but this barely fazed it, and it charged at her with the help of some rocket behind it. She was not able to dodge, and the Lobster dragged her on its head for a few meters before sending her flying in the big room with the cylindrical things.

She slowly got up, heavily hurt, and watched as Kirby was able to inhale a mini-lobster and to spit it back at the Heavy Lobster, damaging it, only for it to charge at him too, and Kirby barely jumped out of the way only to be rammed by a claw. Sweetie then got on her back hooves, put her front hooves to her right, and charged her energy into a ball only to fail again. Kirby jumped above the Lobster's fire. She sat on her bottom and closed her eyes, grinding her teeth, shaking.

Darn it! We will die if this continues! I don't want to die! She opened her eyes and saw Kirby almost getting crushed by the Lobster falling on him, but he then got caught in its claw and was violently thrown at a wall. She tried another energy ball and failed. Tears started to flow from her eyes. Come on! There is nothing else I can do! Focus Sweetie! It's like magic! It comes from deeper, and it's harder to keep it flowing, but it's the energy coming directly from my own spirit! I can do it! She then heard a scream, and Kirby was flying right at her. She was able to catch him, and she remarked that now he was somehow wearing a grey cap backward. But the Lobster quickly followed, jumping and falling just before them. It then opened its claws.

Closing her eyes, she lost all focus and prepared another energy ball.

Sometime it's best to let your instinct do the work. And a life threatening situation is the best way to make it happen.

"YAAAAAAHHHHH!!!"

She threw it, a ball as big as her, right between the Lobster's eyes, making it fall on its back.

"What was that?" Vul shouted.

"A Giga Force Blast!" the small voice answered. "It's, like, the most powerful technique that a Knuckle Joe can use, but it's really hard to use! It's the first time that I see one!"

"Must be a beginner's luck," someone else said. "She was clearly failing the previous attempts."

Kirby then got up, saw the Lobster starting to get back on its feet, and jumped in the air. He then took a bucket full of paint and splashed it all over the Lobster's head, including the eyes, covering them.

"Captain Vul! Heavy Lobster's eyes have been destroyed!"

"What?! Paint Ability, you say?!" Vul shouted.

"Oh no! He can't tell his left from his right anymore!"

"Rassa frassa blassa! Arrrgh!" the captain screamed in blind rage.

The Lobster charged right in front of itself, Kirby taking Sweetie Belle before dodging, now without any hat on his head anymore. The Lobster continued its charge until hitting one of the cylindrical things, making it stop.

"Oh no..." Vul said in horror.

The Lobster turned to its left and fired a mini-lobster at nothing, hitting a wall, before jumping and falling on nothing.

"Good job Kirby! It's now vulnerable! We can destroy it!"

"Poyo..." Kirby said, stepping back. He then took Sweetie's hoof before a Warp Star appeared and he jumped on it with her.

"Why are we running away?" she asked.

The Lobster then opened its claws, about to send fire.

They got out by a window just as Vul screamed, "Heavy Lobster! STOOOOP!!!"

BOOOUUUUUM!!!

A big part of the right side of the ship was blown up in a deafening explosion, including the right wing, to Sweetie's awe. Rapidly, the Warp Star dropped them on the back of the ship, at the edge behind the bridge.

"The Heavy Lobster caused the right wing and the surrounding area to be destroyed!"

They then heard Vul taking big breaths before saying, "Alright... Having both wings destroyed may be just what we needed..."

After a small silence, someone else talked. "They are climbing around the outside of the ship, heading for the helm."

"Where do we go from here?" Sweetie asked.

Kirby looked around, then down beyond the edge. "Poyo!" he said, pointing down.

"We have to jump?!"

Kirby nodded, and signed for her to go on his back. Slowly, Sweetie climbed, and Kirby inflated before letting himself falling down. The filly used her magic to shoot at all the enemies trying to attack them in the air while Kirby fell around the floating white cannons pointing up, not wanting to go up. At the bottom, they reached a door with a glass of fruit juice that Kirby gave to Sweetie.

"Are you sure? You need healing too."

"Poyo," Kirby confirmed with a smile.

Sweetie looked at the juice, then drank some of it before giving the rest to Kirby, smiling. "Like this, everyone is happy."

Kirby couldn't refuse it, and so, he drank it before they passed the door. They ended up at the left side of the ship, at the bottom, the wind back, and before a wall with a Bomb Block.

"They are moving along the base of the ship," someone in the speakers said as Sweetie destroyed the wall with a beam.

"Not much we can do to him there... But the wind is strong," Vul said. Sweetie jumped on Kirby's back so he could fly her above the big hole that followed.

"And it's cold," the small voice said.

"And it's high."

"And it's scary."

"...All right, you lot," Vul said.

They reached a series of yellow platforms moving rapidly up and down. Sweetie took her time to calculate her jumps and not fall, because like she heard from the speaker, it was high and it was scary. Thankfully, Kirby remained beside her to make sure she didn't fall while eating a Plasma Wisp to gain the Spark Ability. At the end of the platforms, Sweetie destroyed another wall while Kirby dealt with a Broom Hatter. Another wall later, and they entered a door.

In the other side, they had to pass a door with a switch only to enter another room with two switches, each switch opening a door during a certain amount of time. To enter the next room, they had to make sure to pass the two doors without the second one closing before they reached it.

The next room was harder because there were three switches, including one behind a door. It meant they first had to open this door, reach the switch behind it, get out, and hit the last switch to continue. Thanks to Sweetie's beam, they were able to gain a few seconds, and they passed the doors.

They now reached an elevator, but when they tried to use it, the way was blocked, so they had to take another one, destroying some cannons on wheels in the way. This led to some food and a switch that destroyed something. Taking again the first elevator, this time, they were able to get all the way down.

As Kirby sent a big ball of electricity on a chicken-like enemy, the ball hit a wall not far behind it, destroying it and revealing a door that they went through.

"Nooo!" someone suddenly shouted. "My secret stash of food!"

And... eeyup! Pancakes, flan, tomato, and a Maxim Tomato! Just what they needed after the Lobster! Enjoy!

"So you were the one hoarding them!" Vul shouted. "You scallywag!"

This made Sweetie giggle as she ate the pancakes with Kirby.

---

Stomach stuffed (for Sweetie) and now fully healed, they restarted their exploration of the inside of the ship and passed another door.

"Kirby and Sweetie Belle are headed for the reactor!"

"If we lose the reactor, this is all over for sure!"

Reeeally?

"Never fear," Vul reassured. "I don't think they can do anything to the reactor."

"So long as a reflected laser doesn't hit the reactor, it will be invincible," the small voice said.

Seriously? Sweetie Belle thought with a deadpan look.

"Eeeyah!" Vul scramed. "Don't even say things like that!"

Too late. Sweetie and Kirby looked at each other smugly.

"Stop with that look, you two!" Vul shouted.

Sweetie answered by sticking out her tongue.

"You...! You...!" They could hear that Vul was about to explode, making Sweetie giggle again. That guy was so fun to mess with, even if he tried to kill them.

They passed the door and ended up just in front of the reactor, in a room full of tubes where they could see Wheelies rolling inside.

Wait, is this reactor being powered by Wheelies? That's slavery! We must save them!

The reactor itself was constituted of a square bipyramidal crystal floating between two big machines coming out of the floor and the ceiling, with electricity racing through blue prods around the crystal. The bottom machine possessed a cannon, and they could see another smaller machine going down from the ceiling above them, targeting them. The small machine then shot a laser at them, which they dodged, the laser bouncing on the floor.

"Ah!" the filly shouted. "We can use this laser to destroy this crystal! Kirby, try to make sure that this machine's lasers reach it!"

"Poyo!" Kirby saluted, only for the two of them to be burned by flames coming from under the floor. When they looked down, they could see some burners moving under the grates of the floor. Then the cannon started to charge and they quickly got out of the way as it fired.

The small laser gun came back and targeted Kirby. The puffball quickly flew beside the core and dodged the laser shot at him. The laser hit the crystal, making it crack.

"Yes! That's it!"

They avoided more flames and another shot from the cannon, and this time, the laser gun targeted Sweetie. Because she couldn't fly, she had no choice but to make sure that the laser bounced from the floor right into the crystal. So she placed herself between the laser gun and the cannon and dodged the laser, which bounced on the floor and hit the crystal, creating more cracks. Another laser, and it was finally destroyed, making the whole room starting to explode. The Wheelies escaped from their chambers and rolled everywhere before escaping the room alongside Sweetie and Kirby.

"The reactor has been destroyed!"

"All of our Wheelie power sources are escaping!"

"Ahhh!" Vul screamed. "What are you idiots doing?!"

Finally, the Warp Star appeared and took them out of here, and it wasn't long before the belly of the ship exploded and the whole structure started to lose altitude.

"We did it! I don't believe it! We destroyed that battleship!"

"Poyo!" Kirby shouted happily, only to become serious again when he looked toward the bridge of the ship. He then pointed at it. "Poyo!"

"Uh? Wait, you want to return on it to go fight Meta Knight?"

"Poyo!"

She sighed. "A-alright. I suppose he deserves some punishment for trying to take over Dream Land. Let's go."

And so, they flew toward the bridge.

---

"All systems failing! N°3 and N°5 engines are gone!"

"We're junked! Nothing left to do but crash!"

"Attention to all crew!" Meta Knight then shouted. "Evacuate ship immediately!"

Wow! He cares for his men! Sweetie thought upon hearing this.

"Ahhh!" Vul then screamed. "This ship is done for! I gotta get out of here!"

So much for the captain...

They ran inside a hallway as the whole ship was shaking, hearing some explosions here and there and fighting some sort of flying casino wheels that flashed in various colors.

"I'm escaping now!" Vul talked again. "Don't think badly of me!"

"So... Now it's time for the rest of you to escape as well," Meta Knight said as Sweetie Belle and Kirby found a glass of fruit juice and a strawberry shortcake, healing the burns from the reactor.

"I will stay until the bitter end."

"We should finish off Kirby and Sweetie Belle and then all escape together!"

Wow... They are very loyal... Are they that bad?

"...You are all about to perish. Do as you please," Metal Knight said with a touch of sadness.

We will not kill them, we will just beat them. What does he think? she thought as they passed a door to an elevator, eating rapidly a Maxim Tomato on the way. They went up, up, up, and finally reached the bridge, where many knights like they fought at the start awaited them.

"Wait Kirby!!" one of the axe-using knights shouted.

"I cannot let you go any farther!" one of the flail-using ones shouted.

Sweetie took her whip and cracked it on the floor. "Come!"

The big knights then sent their flails at them, forcing them to jump. Back on the floor, Sweetie quickly wrapped her whip around one of the axe knights and made him fly around, hitting many knights in the way. Kirby started to run around, charging electricity around him, and dodged a trident before he sent a big ball of electricity, shocking some of the knights. The knights surrounded Kirby and readied their weapons but Sweetie used her magic to create a shield around him, protecting him. The shield was destroyed but the knights were electrified by Kirby surrounding himself in electricity. Sweetie wrapped her whip around him and made him fly around her, electrifying even more knights. She was slashed by an axe, making her bleed, but she punches its bearer despite that, then hurled him on a group of knights, knocking them like quills. They weren't giving up, and a big one sent a flail at her, but she crouched, letting the flail pass above her, before she shot a few beams at him. Kirby sent another ball of electricity and was able to defeat the remaining knights, or he thought. A last axe knight tried to attack Sweetie from behind only for the filly to punch him in the face from above her shoulder without even turning around.

The axe knight, on the floor, started to talk. "Lord Meta Knight, please take care!"

One of the knights with a flail got up. "We'll go on ahead then!"

"Yes, hurry up before the ship sinks into the ocean," Sweetie Belle said. She turned to Kirby. "Let's go."

He nodded, and the two took another elevator, going up to a door leading to a last small room with a Maxim Tomato, healing the few cuts they got in the fight.

They passed the door.

---

They entered a room, and here he was, on a platform above them, back turned to them.

Sweetie then talked. "Meta Knight, why? When I met you at the Fountain of Dreams, it didn't seem like you wanted to take over Dream Land. You helped us protect it, and the world."

Meta Knight stayed silent for a few seconds, before speaking. "Three times... It has been three times now that Dream Land has been threatened. First, a self-centered self-proclaimed king took all the food for his own person. Then, a being threatened to cover the world in an eternal nightmare. And last month, that was an incarnation of darkness. With Dyna Blade, we can count it to four. And all those times, the inhabitants of Dream Land, of this world, have done nothing to help. They wait in their homes, hoping for someone to do the job for them. And Kirby has always been the one answering the call, always risking his life to help, without taking anything in return. And then, you came too, Sweetie Belle, joining Kirby in becoming Popstar's shield."

Meta Knight then turned around, facing them. "But there are only the two of you. If you were to fail, then who could defend Popstar behind you? Me? Dedede? And then who? That makes only four!" He swung his sword. "That's why I did that. I want the inhabitants of Dream Land to become more active in defending their lives, even if I have to force them. All of them would become like you two, their own hero, and together, they would be able to help defend this world against the likes of Nightmare. This is why I built this ship, the Halberd. To defend. To attack. To show power. But now.... I failed."

"At least, you wanted to do something to help everyone," Sweetie Belle said. "But your method is wrong. What you are telling is that you want to form a dictature and force everyone into one big army. But you can't force people to become warriors, to risk their life, even if that would be for the better. You would not be better than the ones you want to protect Dream Land from. This is why there are people like us, willing to fight to protect them, so they can live in peace. And if failing means the end of Dream Land, then that means that we will do everything in our power to not fail. And even if we fail, as long as we can still fight, we will continue to fight, like your troops have done."

She sighed. "It's not long ago that I was one of those inhabitants waiting in my home for someone to save the day, back in my world. And that someone was my sister and her friends. They protected Ponyville, Equestria, or even the world more than once, doing everything they could. Just a few weeks before I ended in Dream Land, they fought a giant centaure that had absorbed the magic of everyone in the kingdom, and they lost. And yet they came back, and this time, they won. This is what it truly means to protect everyone. Not force them to take a weapon, but be here to take the weapon for them and do all you can to bring back peace."

Kirby nodded, looking at Meta Knight.

Meta Knight closed his eyes and stayed silent for a few seconds. He then said, "Your belief is strong, but so is mine. Sometime, to do what is right, you must take hard decisions. I have seen wars where the leaders were forced to recruit simple civils to have an army big enough to defend what counted for them. I strongly believe that this is what Dream Land needs, but you strongly believe that you will be enough... So..." He threw a sword at Kirby's feet. "Let's see which of us puts the more strength in our belief. Survive this fight and show me your strength!"

They nodded, and Kirby took the sword, gaining the green hat of the Sword Ability. Sweetie took her whip in her magic and lit her horn. Seeing they were ready, Meta Knight jumped from the platform and landed in front of them, his golden spiked sword ready. "Let me warn you, Kirby. You defeated me in Orange Ocean, however..." Some sort of energy started to build up in his sword. "I was going easy on you!" He then planted his sword, and out of it came a tornado, taking Sweetie and Kirby off guard. The tornado sent them flying into ceiling before they crashed back on the floor, shaken.

Meta Knight didn't let them breathe and charged at them, his cape becoming bat wings that propelled him, revealing his round body and his armored feet. Kirby quickly got up and parried his sword before jumping above the knight and cutting him on the head. As he turned around to follow Kirby, Sweetie Belle shot a beam at him only for him to deflect it before sending from his sword a sharp wave of energy at Kirby who was able to stop it with his sword. He swung back his sword at Sweetie charging toward him, slightly cutting her in the left cheek as she jumped back.

Kirby charged at him, and Meta Knight parried his sword. Sweetie took this to crack her whip on his back, hurting him. Using his wing, he flew away from the two of them, sending a few waves of energy that Sweetie was able to stop with her shield. Sweetie shot back her beams only for the knight to either dodge of deflect them. He then charged back at them and slashed his sword at great speed, cutting them multiple times as they were not able to parry all of them. Sweetie counterattacked by punching him in the face, her hoof surrounded in energy, making a small shockwave at the impact. "Yes!" she shouted at this. She followed the punch with a series of jabs, doing a real Vulcan Jab, hitting Meta Knight a dozen times before sending him flying with a Rising Break, before throwing a Force Blast at him.

Knuckle Joe would be proud!

Meta Knight stabilized himself in the air thanks to his wing only to be cut by Kirby jumping at him. He counterattacked with a slash, and Kirby was sent to the floor. Meta Knight then sent a tornado toward Sweetie Belle and she was barely able to dodge it. Landing on the floor, he jumped at Kirby who parried his sword. The puffball tried another slash but Meta Knight sidestepped it and attacked Kirby on the back only for him to slash three times at the knight. Sweetie took it to use her whip. However, Meta Knight jumped back and sent a wave of energy at her, cutting her. Kirby sent his own wave of energy at him and was able to hit before going back close and personal, the two sword-users trading blows after blows, parrying, counterattacking, slashing, jumping or dodging.

Sweetie kept her eyes on them, trying to find an opening. She eventually shot a charged beam at Meta Knight only for him to dodge it while continuing to fight Kirby. The knight then separated himself from his opponent and sent a tornado at him, and another at Sweetie Belle. Kirby dodged the first one only to be hit by another one hidden behind it, and the same thing almost happened to the filly. To stop him from sending tornadoes, Sweetie shot dozens of beams at him, forcing him to parry them or dodge them. He then charged at Sweetie Belle, slashing Kirby in the way before reaching her and swinging his sword, forcing the filly to use a shield against his endless attacks. Meta Knight was then hit from behind by a wave of energy from Kirby, and the knight flew away.

Sweetie looked at Kirby and the two nodded. Kirby then jumped toward Meta Knight and parried a wave of energy from him before hitting him with a slash, landing, and running. As Meta Knight was about to follow him, he saw Sweetie Belle firing a charged beam at him. He easily dodged it only for Kirby to jump in the way of the beam to deflect it back at Meta Knight, knocking him from the air. Sweetie Belle then sent her whip toward Kirby with her magic and wrapped it around him. She made him gain momentum by making him do some loops, and she finally sent him toward the knight, the puffball raising his sword. Meta Knight got up, saw him coming, and prepared to parry him, only for a Force Blast from Sweetie Belle to hit the sword, causing him to have his sword moved out of the way. At this moment, Kirby slashed his mask, making Meta Knight take a step back.

The mask then split in two.

And they saw his face.

Sweetie's jaw hit the floor. Two small oval-shaped yellow eyes, a mouth, a round body... He looked like Kirby! The main difference was that he possessed real hands instead of tubby arms.

His mask destroyed, his face revealed, Meta Knight wrapped himself in his cape and disappeared after getting up.

Sweetie got beside Kirby, mouth still open in awe. "He... He is from the same species as you Kirby! This is the first time that I see someone else that is really like you! Wait, does that mean that he can also copy abilities?"

"Poyo," Kirby said, shrugging.

And then the whole bridge started to illuminate.

"Oh no!" Sweetie Belle shouted. She quickly went beside Kirby and wrapped the two of them in a shield. Just in time, because not a second later, the whole bridge exploded, followed by more and more explosions all over the Halberd. However, the explosion of the bridge destroyed her shield and the two of them were sent flying outside, Sweetie's hooves wrapped around Kirby.

They soon landed on the remains of the deck around the bridge, hurt and burned, but alive. They slowly got up and looked around them at the wreck that the ship became.

"T-that was close... We must get out of here!"

"Poyo!" Kirby said, nodding.

That was when they saw a Wheelie approaching them. A few seconds later, the Wheelie stopped beside them and nodded.

"You want to help us get out of the ship?"

It nodded.

Kirby smiled at the Wheelie and jumped on it, a helmet with goggles appearing on his head.

"Thank you Wheelie!" Sweetie Belle said, jumping on Kirby's back which, again, was a bit awkward because of her size compared to Kirby and the Wheelie's.

The two of them now on it, the Wheelie started to roll.

And then, Meta Knight appeared above them, flying, a new mask on his face. Without a word, he sent a wave of energy at them, the Wheelie barely dodging it.

"He doesn't give up..." Sweetie said. "Keep an eye on the way, I will protect us!"

"Poyo!"

As the Wheelie rolled, jumped above holes, and went left and right to avoid explosions and debris, Sweetie shot a beam at Meta Knight only for him to dodge. He charged at them, sword ready, and Sweetie stopped him with a shield that broke at the impact before shooting another beam that forced him to go back. Meta Knight went above them and pointed his sword down.

"Dodge!" she shouted, and the Wheelie went to the left, avoiding the knight diving at them. Sweetie used her whip and hit him, pushing him away, only for him to come back with a charge. "Jump!" she shouted, and the Wheelie jumped, dodging Meta Knight's sword. Sweetie then used her magic and took the sword from Kirby, the one that Meta Knight gave him at the start of the fight, and used it to parry Meta Knight's next assault. The knight attacked and attacked again on the sword until eventually, with a big swing, he was able to send it away. Sweetie then shot him with another beam, this time charged and made of both her magic and her energy, and was able to propel Meta Knight away.

"Poyo!" Kirby suddenly shouted.

"What?" Sweetie asked as she turned her head, only to see them approaching the end of the ship. She clung to Kirby, closing her eyes, and Kirby clung to the Wheelie, closing his eyes too.

And they jumped.

---

After the longest jump of their life, they landed on the ground, the Wheelie able to turn around in the air to face the sea, and the Halberd. Sweetie and Kirby opened their eyes and stared in awe as the ship, once formidable, now an exploding wreck, crashed into the ocean, expelling tons of water in the air. The Halberd sinking in the ocean, the Wheelie turned around, and they started their journey back home, the sun setting in the horizon.

"I'm surprised Meta Knight hasn't followed us. I wonder where he is now," Sweetie Belle said. She then sighed. "That was intense... I'm exhausted. Still..." She laughed. "Destroying a battleship all by ourselves... That is not something I was seeing myself doing when I appeared in Dream Land. Nobody will believe me back home."

Kirby laughed at that. It sure was one heck of a story!

Sweetie then looked back toward the ocean. I hope Meta Knight will change his way. He wants to do good, but his method isn't the good one. She looked back forward. One day, maybe he will help us protect Popstar, the right way.

She closes her eyes, and started to sing.

"Lonely kniiight you have looost the way of the heroooo
To retuuurn you will haaave to restart back from zeroooo
Lonely kniiight don't lose hooope in the light of the woooorld
And your friends
And look back at the sky to search your glimmering guiding staaaar.

---

Discord closed the portal.

"Oh boy! Explosions, robots, ninjas, humor, lasers, what may be the start of a romance, suspense, turnaround, revelations, not so Manichean, and a final where the heroes go toward the sunset with a song. They gave us quite the spectacle!"

"You don't say!" Rainbow Dash shouted. "They took down a bucking battleship! With lasers! And robots! Just by the two of them! And Sweetie Belle can now throw energy balls! ENERGY BALLS!! And she got to be a real NINJA! WHY IS SHE THE ONE HAVING ALL THE FUN?!!"

"I really hope they will become friends with Meta Knight," Fluttershy said. "He is a good... uhh... puffball, in the end."

"Well, as long as he gets in his head that to protect the world, he must force others to fight, this'll be hard. Ah hope that getting his ship wrecked and being defeated in battle'll knock some sense into him," Applejack said.

"Yeah, he was being a meany, but he was so cool!" Pinkie Pie shouted. "Did you see when he threw tornadoes with his sword? And his cape that can turn into bat wings? And his mask?"

Scootaloo then went at Discord's feet. "Please! Send me in this world so I can be with Sweetie! I want to go on adventures like this too! This will be so awesome!"

"No Scootaloo!" Rarity shouted. "This is not a game, or one of your crusades. Sweetie has truly risked her life in this, and she almost got herself killed more times that I dare thinking! If that wasn't for that candy that gave her invincibility, that laser would have... And that huge robot... And that Meta Knight really tried to kill them too! One wrong move and she could have lost her head!" She took a big breath. "This is like the time we were sent to deal with that dragon, or all the times we had to go through the Everfree Forest... And she had many weeks of training behind her to help. Do you think you would be able to go through it? Knowing that you could die at any time?"

Scootaloo remained silent for a time before she answered. "I would probably have to train first, like Sweetie, but if she has been able to, then I can too."

"Me too," Apple Bloom said. "And with our help, she'd be able to better fight bad guys, and protect the world, even if it's scary. Because we are a team."

"Exactly!" Scootaloo exclaimed. "It's like with Rainbow Dash. She is the most awesome pony by herself, but it's when she is with all of you that she is at her best!"

"Well said Scoot!" Rainbow Dash shouted.

Rarity smiled at this and shook her head. "Even if it's a good reason, you will still not go to that world," she said.

"Why?" Scootaloo and Apple Bloom whined.

"Because Discord's already gone," Applejack then said, laughing.

"What?!" they shouted. When they turned around, the draconequus was indeed gone.

Fluttershy giggled at this before she saw Twilight fixing the wall where the portal was. "Twilight? Are you alright?"

"Uh? Oh yes! Yes! I'm alright! Food can heal! Everything floats without reason! Sweetie can become a ninja with Kirby getting on her back! Nothing makes sense! But I'm alright!"

Pinkie then popped beside her. "And this is why this world is so fun! Because as Discord would say, "what is the fun in making sense?""

"And that's why I love that world too!" Discord suddenly shouted from everywhere.

"Not helping!"

Rarity giggled, then looked at the wall where the portal had been. Please Sweetie... take care of yourself...

---

Sweetie got in her bed, even more stuffed than when she got back in the castle after all the food she ate on the Halberd. She had told everyone what she did, and Knuckle Joe had given her the Maxim Tomato pie as a reward. She had tried to eat only a piece, but after taking the first bit, she had eaten the whole pie in ten seconds flat. It was that good.

The worst part? As a reward for saving Dream Land in his name, Dedede promised more pie tomorrow, and Knuckle Joe promised her another one for doing her first energy ball, which was a Giga Force Blast, and for doing his special Vulcan Rising Blast combo. Ugh...

Oh. And Dedede will make her his second tomorrow, making her the superior of everyone in his army, and another banquet was planned to celebrate that. Re ugh...

Just... Curse this world...

---

Under the night sky, on a cliff, Meta Knight looked at where the Halberd sank. Beside him were Captain Vul, which was a bearded bird with tan feathers, a beak similar to an albatross and wearing a captain sailor outfit, Sailor Waddle Dee, which was just a Waddle Dee wearing a sailor cap, and some of his knights.

"I can't believe we lost..." Vul said. He took his captain cap and lowered it to cover his eyes in shame. "I failed as the captain."

"We all failed," Meta Knight replied. "We did everything we could, and we lost. Kirby and Sweetie Belle have been better."

"What do we do now?" the Waddle Dee asked in his small voice.

"You and everyone else will repair the Halberd. As for me..." He looked toward the sky. "I have much to think about."

Author's Notes:

So, I tried my hand with lyrics on the ending song of Revenge of Meta Knight, and it has been hard. I ask your opinion: is it good?

Chapter 19: A Celestial Dispute

"And so, I give you this cape, so it can show to everyone your position," Dedede said, putting a cape of the same red as his finery, with the same symbole and the same white rim, on Sweetie's back, wrapping it around her neck alongside her kerchief.

They were in the Throne Room, Dedede on his throne and Sweetie Belle before him. The room was full of minions watching the event including Waddle Dee, Broom Sunglasses, Cape Knight, and Knuckle Joe who had tears in his eyes.

Sweetie looked at the cape, feeling the fabric on her back. "It's nice. It's warm too."

"And it's strong too. It should be able to protect your back a little."

"Not sure it will do much against your hammer or Meta Knight's sword."

"Of course. Nothing is that strong outside of making you a real armor made of the strongest metal, but it would impede you too much. Now, to go with it..." He then placed a headband with the same red and yellow zigzag pattern as his cloth on her head.

Sweetie raised an eyebrow. "And now you will give me a hat similar to yours?"

This made Dedede laugh. "No, let's not go that far! This should be enough! If you want a hat, you will have to find one yourself... Unless you actually want a hat like mine?"

"No thanks."

Dedede nodded. "You can give now any order you want to my troops as long as it doesn't go against me and my own orders. Try to give one right now, anything to anyone. Go on."

Sweetie turned around and looked at the observers. Her eyes then fell on Broom Sunglasses. She smirked. He sweated.

"So... If I could order Broom Sunglasses here to wear a dress, he would have to?"

"You wouldn't dare!" he shouted.

"After all the times you made fun of me eating too much and risking gaining weight, it's tempting."

Broom Sunglasses remained silent for some seconds, thinking about something, before he talked. "So you wanna play like that! Okay then! I'm gonna wear your dress! And you will regret it!" And at that, he exited the room.

Sweetie stared at the exit and giggled. "I didn't even give him the order. I was just kidding. Oh well." She then looked at the crowd. "I actually don't know what to order. Mmh..." She pointed at a random Waddle Dee. "You! I want you to...! To...! To do something!"

The poor Waddle Dee found himself looking left and right trying to find something to do. But what will he do?! Should he clean the room? Should he bow? Should he fetch some Maxim Tomato pie, which was now known to be her favorite food? So many choices! Oh! He knew! Girls loved those things!

"You are the most adorable commander ever!" he shouted.

Silence... He blushed and slowly started to retreat toward the exit.

"Hum... Thanks..." Sweetie Belle said, her cheeks red.

Dedede guffawed.

---

"So, what does it feel to be everyone's superior?" Waddle Dee asked at lunch.

"I still have a hard time believing it. And I don't think I will ever get used to this role. I'm not really the kind to give orders, I'm more for asking and saying 'please'."

"And you can continue to ask and say 'please'. This is not because you are our superior that you have to change. It's just that now, if you want us to do something absolutely, like when we are invaded, we will listen to you without hesitation."

"Even if it's a bad order?"

"Well... Yes. But someone can always propose to you to give a better order if we feel like your actual one is a bad idea. I don't like saying this, but once the king has an idea, it's hard to make him change his mind, so nobody really tries to talk to him; but you, I'm sure you would listen. It would be good to name someone as your advisor. Or even two advisors."

"I see..." Sweetie Belle replied, starting to think. "Mmh... I could ask Cape Knight to be my advisor. He is captain of the guard, and so, he has a lot of experience in giving orders and would know what to do in time of crisis. As for a second advisor... Sorry, but I don't see anyone. Unless you wanna try?"

"Me? No. Definitely no. I don't know anything about giving orders."

"I suppose. But remember that you saved me the first day, stopping Dedede from attacking me. You convinced him to give me a chance and to let me live in the castle. You don't know how to give orders but you can help me taking decisions. And..." She hugged him. "I trust you. I don't need another reason."

He blushed. "May... Maybe... I could give it a try..."

"Hellooooo everybody!" a high pitched voice suddenly shouted from the entrance. Sweetie Belle and everyone else turned toward it to see a Broom Hatter. Only, he was wearing a pink frilly dress, pink high heels, and a wig of long blond hair. There was lipstick where his mouth should be if he had one and too many makeup on his face. The sunglasses were a giveaway of who he really was. Sweetie's jaw dropped. "How is everyone doing today?" he continued in that false girl voice. He then took a pink fan and flapped it at his head. "I'm Princess Sunglasses! Nice meeting all of you my beauties!"

"W...Wh... What the heck..." Sweetie Belle murmured.

"Oh my star!" the false princess suddenly exclaimed upon seeing her. "What an adorable little pony I am seeing here! Oh look at you, you are SO adorable that I just have to hug you!" He tended his arms toward her. "Come here cutie. I will smooch those adorable little cheeks, and then I will do some brushy brushy to your mane."

"Uh... No thanks."

"I insist! Come here!"

"No thanks..."

"I insist!"

"No thanks!"

"Then... Here I come!" he shouted, running in her direction.

"Eep! Nope!" She jumped over the table, knocking down her plate, and ran toward the end of the room, followed by 'Princess Sunglasses' doing kiss noises.

"Don't be scared! I just want some girl time with you! I will hug you, and pet you, and brush you, and dress you in cute little clothes! And then I will tickle that little tummy of yours, so I can listen to your irresistible little laugh!"

"Nope! I don't wanna!" Sweetie shouted just as she exited the room by the opposite door. "Help! I need an adult!"

"But I am an adult! Come here, you little ball of cuteness!" 'Princess Sunglasses' shouted as she exited the room after the filly.

Everyone in the room was silent as they continued to hear the filly and her pursuer shout more in the hallway until they couldn't hear them anymore.

And the whole room exploded in a roar of laughter.

---

After the "Princess Sunglasses Incident", the rest of the day continued as planned. The banquet came around dinner time and Sweetie got her two promised Maxim Tomato pies, and she promised herself to avoid them like the plague afterwards unless she wanted to become a literal 'ball of cuteness' and go to sleep with the great mother of all stomach aches each times. Those things weren't made for mortals.

The following week was one novelty and event after another. Rather than facing Waddle Dees and all kind of other 'small' opponents to train herself in fighting, Dedede was now sending his stronger troops composed of Bonkers, some beetle-like beings named Bugzzys, big lions with fiery manes named Fire Lions, Mr Frostys, Poppy Bros. Sr, or even some giant living alarm clocks named Mr Tick-Tocks. This sure made the trainings more intense!

With those more intense trainings came her finally starting to learn more spells to fight using Kirby's Abilities as inspiration, starting with the fireballs, then ice balls, and from there, various utilisations of the fire and ice elements, and by extension, water.

Then, one of the fortresses was assaulted by a famous group of mouse thieves stealing some great treasures, and she was sent to see if she could do anything. Sadly, the thieves had escaped aboard an airship and they had disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, and she couldn't do anything to help tracking them. She only got the name of the group of thieves and their leader: the Squeak Squad and Daroach. Wherever they were, one day, she will find them, and beat them, and take back the treasures. They weren't famous for nothing, it was far from being their first larceny.

Dedede defied Kirby in another Gourmet Race only to lose again. He had been training hard but the puffball only became more skilled after the first time, and it was yet again another close call. Seemed like it will become something like a monthly event, much to Sweetie's joy. Those races were just so fun to watch!

No news about the Meta Knights. They seemed to have disappeared after their defeat, because all their bases were abandoned. Sweetie wanted to hope that that was good news, but with Meta Knight, it could mean anything. Maybe right now, they were building a flying fortress that would pass the Halberd for a toy ship.

And then came the weirdest day so far: the day where the sun and the moon started to fight.

"What the heck?" Sweetie shouted, seeing through a window the moon pushing away the sun, turning the day to night in a few seconds. Then the sun came back and the two started to turn around bumping each other for at least one minute before the sun was able to push away the moon, turning the night back into day. Only for the moon to come back, starting the fight again. "Am I dreaming?"

"Nope," Broom Sunglasses answered at her right. "This is not a dream. The sun and the moon are fighting."

"How is this possible? Are the ones controlling them having a dispute?"

"Controlling? Nobody controls them."

"I don't understand! The sun and the moon are best friends! Why do they fight?" Waddle Dee shouted at her left.

"Wait... Are you saying that the sun and the moon are actually ALIVE?!" the filly yelled.

"Oh right. You said that in your world, your princesses move them, right?" Waddle Dee said.

"Yes! They are just... a rock and a ball of fire in the sky that the princesses move to make the day and the night! They aren't alive!"

"Well, here, they are." Broom Sunglasses said. "Don't ask how or why. They are just alive."

Sweetie stayed silent at this, mouth wide open. After a whole minute of day and night alternating, she shook her head. "Right... It's Dream Land. It's crazy." She then walked toward the exit of the room where they were. "I'm going out."

"Why?" Waddle Dee asked.

"I don't know why the sun and the moon started fighting, but I know that Kirby will want to stop it. And this means another potential adventure where I can help him. So I'm gonna find him, hoping he hasn't already started."

---

Riding on a Bronto Burt, asking him to help her finding Kirby, it wasn't long before she found him among other inhabitants of Dream Land, watching the two celestial beings fighting. So he was just staying here? Didn't he know how to stop them?

Duh! Of course he wouldn't! It wasn't like he knew everything! But maybe he could have just gone up on his Warp Star to ask them to stop fighting. Would they even listen to him? Probably not. But now what?

That was when she saw some round pink being with just a face and two feet wearing shoes, a red bow under his mouth, and a jester hat half blue half red, coming behind Kirby while hoping one foot at a time on a ball. She recognized him as Marx, a friendly but somewhat crazy guy that liked to mess around, doing more or less annoying pranks and other tricks. She remembered again the day he inhaled some helium to talk in a squeaky voice like her, making her laugh.

As Sweetie approached with the Bronto Burt, Marx shouted, "Hey, hey, hey," attracting the attention of Kirby and the others around him. Sweetie then landed beside them as he continued. "Can you make peace between the sun and the moon?" he asked.

"How?" Sweetie asked. "Would they listen to him?"

"No," the jester answered. "You need to ask the giant comet Nova for help!"

This made some of the inhabitants gasp. "Who?" Sweetie asked.

"Nova. He is so powerful that he can stop the sun and the moon from fighting. But first, there's something we must do. To ask Nova, we must gather power from all the stars around us." He then looked at Kirby. "It will be difficult, Kirby, but you can do it!"

"But how do we gather that power?"

"With the Fountains of Dreams! Starting with the one from Popstar!"

"So there are more... Which means that we have to go to actual other worlds?" She turned to Kirby. "We can do it, Kirby?"

"Poyo!" he confirmed with a nod.

"We... We are going to explore more worlds... Wow! I... Oh my gosh! I wonder how are the other worlds! This will be so awesome!"

Kirby laughed at her excitement.

"We are counting on you," Marx then said. "Good luck!"

"Thank you Marx! We are going to stop this fight! Don't worry! Let's go Kirby!"

"Poyo!"

A Warp Star then appeared, and Kirby and Sweetie Belle jumped on it, starting their way to the Fountain of Dream of Popstar.

---

They reached the fountain a few minutes later, still as beautiful as ever. The Warp Star dropped them not far of it, and they approached.

"So, how do we do?"

Kirby rubbed his chin, thinking of how they could make the fountain give them this power they needed to call Nova. Finally, thinking about how the fountain worked with dreams, he closed his eyes and dreamed of the fountain giving them what they wanted.

Suddenly, a big column of light appeared on the fountain, and the next instant, Kirby could feel this power entering him. He immediately released it, under the form of another, slightly bigger Warp Star. He jumped on it and signed to Sweetie Belle to come.

"That's wonderful, Kirby!" she shouted, jumping on the star.

With the both of them on it, the Warp Star started to go up in the sky. They soon passed the atmosphere and continued to go up, into space. Sweetie looked back, seeing the giant star that was Popstar, with its two rings, the sun and the moon still fighting around it, becoming smaller and smaller. She then looked around her with a big smile, laughing, not believing what was going on. She was flying in space! She could see the stars all around her, some close, others so far! And they were actually going toward other planets!

"This is awesome!"

Author's Notes:

I'm warning you, for the Milky Way Wishes sub-game, I will not do the whole thing with the abilities, and keep the usual 'eat an enemy and copy it'. I just couldn't find a way to integrate this mecanism only for this part of the story.
This will actually be the same thing with the mixed abilities of Kirby 64. This game may be great, but it has so much things different from the other games without reasons that for the continuity, I will have to go full mad doctor on its body. Sorry for the many fans of this game.

Chapter 20: Grass and Water

They were traveling in space for some time now, the distance between planets being far greater than a mere trip through an ocean. They were following some trail created by the Fountain of Dreams, probably leading them to the next world. And before long, they could see their destination appearing, Sweetie Belle awing at seeing the new world.

The world that they were approaching was clearly different from Popstar. It was a giant green dome surrounded by a ring covered in green too, all of that on a giant chunk of ground as if someone had taken a giant shovel, had plucked it, and had let it float in the middle of nowhere. As they got closer, they could see that the green on the dome and the ring were plants, revealing that it was a world almost entirely constituted of grasslands and green hills.

When they traversed the atmosphere, they saw that the hills were like big pillars of ground with grass only on the rounded top, some of the grass being white and forming horizontal white lines with white stars between them. Even the clouds were striped, white with blue lines! There were also some actual round hills farther, green, but also blue or pink. And then there were smaller pillar of grounds a little everywhere that actually looked like screws, again only green on the top with a yellow star in the center.

They landed beside a few small trees that looked like green bells with pink fruits, and some pink rocks that were shaped like donuts, even shaping an eight, and they could feel a small spring breeze brush them.

Sweetie looked around her at the beauty of this world so strange, so different, and yet so familiar. It felt almost like Dream Land. Heck, even the animals they could see, a frog and a chicken without legs, looked like the ones from Dream Land. And she could actually see one of those black doors on top of a ladder! So it wasn't just Popstar? Did this world possess the same crazy logic? Food popping everywhere? Yes! She could see a strawberry shortcake not far after the ladder, at the bottom of a tree! Will she still be able to breathe underwater? Walk on clouds?

Kirby poked her on the leg, getting her attention, before pointing toward the door, telling her that they should start searching the Fountain of Dreams of this world.

Right.

So, after Kirby got a quick snack with the strawberry shortcake-he really loved them-, they climbed the ladder and passed the door only to find themselves at the same place. But wait, something was different. The grass was now a darker green, the breeze was not present anymore, and it was hotter and drier. It felt more like Summer now, where before, it had felt like Spring! And was this now a candy at the place where there had been the strawberry shortcake?

And then, Sweetie saw something else that didn't make sense: a Bronto Burt! And he was attacking them! Kirby quickly ate him.

"What?! What is a Bronto Burt doing here? We are not on Popstar!"

"Poyo," Kirby answered, shrugging. He then looked back at the door, wondering something, while Sweetie ate the candy, not letting pass a free candy. Kirby then waved at her and passed the door. Sweetie raised an eyebrow before following him, only to be shocked again once on the other side.

Now it was Autumn! It was clearly Autumn! The plants were now orange, and leaves were falling from the trees! Actually, the one beside them was now cut, only leaving the bottom of the trunk with the roots, with now an ice cream bar beside it. And what was a Plasma Whip doing here?! Well, at least, he gave Kirby an Ability to better defend himself.

They took the door again, and now, it was Winter, the ground and the trees now covered in snow and- "Waaah!" She quickly shot a beam at the mutated Scarfy charging at them, making it explode. "A Bronto Burt! A Plasma Wisp! And now, a Scarfy! And is that a Chilly?" She saw a living snowman made of two snowballs with two round hands floating at his sides, wearing a bucket as a hat, and a bell around his neck. "Yep, it's a Chilly. So earlier, those animals were really a Sir Slippy-" The frog. "-and a Tookey?" The chicken. "So what, that means that this world has the same inhabitants as Popstar?"

Kirby shrugged again, as if saying, "Seems like it."

Sweetie put a hoof on her forehead, sighing. "Well, it doesn't make less sense than the rest..." She jumped from the top of the ladder, landing on the snow. She then smiled, looking at the snow. "At least, we are in Winter! And you know what that means?"

"Poyo?" Kirby asked, landing on the snow behind Sweetie, only to suddenly take a snowball between the eyes, making him fall on his back. "Poyo?!"

"A snowball fight!" she shouted, more snowballs levitating around her. Kirby saw that and smirked at her before giving up the Ability and eating the Chilly, gaining the Ice Ability. Using the Ice, he materialized snowballs in his hands and started to run, getting around the tree, which somehow was not cut anymore. He dodged a snowball from Sweetie and threw one back at her.

Sweetie quickly used her magic to create a wall of snow between her and Kirby who got out of behind the tree to throw another snowball at her only to hit the wall. Seeing that Sweetie built some defense, he used his Ice Ability to build two walls of snow at the left and the right of the tree, making sure to stay hidden. Once the walls were finished, he started to throw snowball after snowball from behind the left one, and Sweetie counterattacked by throwing dozens of them at once.

Some Chillys and other creatures saw what they are doing and approached to get a better view. Kirby saw them and signed to them with a big smile to come help him. They accepted. However, two of them decided to join Sweetie Belle so she was not alone. This got the fight to grow in proportion, the walls quickly becoming small snow fortresses, and getting the attention of more Chillys who joined the battle in either Kirby's army or Sweetie's army.

Before long, the battle became a full blown war between the Fortress of the Crusader on one side, and the Fortress of the Great Tree on the other, the walls now easily two to three times the size of Sweetie with steps to get on them and battlements at the top. On Kirby's side, flying creatures got the idea to go to the top of the tree with a few Chillys to build an ice platform from which they could rain snowballs on their enemies, forcing Sweetie and her Chillys to create a ceiling made of ice.

"Soldiers!" Sweetie shouted at her knights around a round table of ice, now wearing a helmet made of ice. "Because of their platform on the tree, the enemy has the advantage! So, I ask you..." She slammed her hooves on the table. "Do any of you have an idea?"

"I may have one, Captain Crusader!" a Chilly yelled, doing a salute.

"Which is?"

"We are below a door, madam! We could use it to send troops to another season, so they can take another door back to Winter behind the enemy's line!"

"Excellent idea, soldier! Alright, half of the army is gonna take that door and attack the enemy from behind! The other half will cover them and unleash the biggest snowstorm of our life on the enemy's fortress! Now let's start the operation 'Avalanche'! GO GO GO!"

"Yes Captain!" all the soldiers present shouted.

As ordered, half of the army was ready to run toward the door while the other half, Sweetie at their head, prepared hundreds of snowballs to defend them. The second half was the first to start, getting out of the cover of the ceiling to go on the wall and throw everything they had. They were immediately pelted from the platform on the tree that was pelted back by Sweetie. The first half then started their run. The door was not far, but with all the snowballs raining around them, it was as if the door was miles away. More than one of them fell victim, but despite that, they continued, for the glory of the Crusaders!

They reached the ladder under the door!

"They did it! We must continue everyone!" Sweetie yelled as she hit an enemy Chilly right in the head.

Before long, they were all able to pass the door, and Sweetie and the others returned under the cover of the ice ceiling, taking back their breaths. The operation was a success, but they got heavily hit. At least, it will be worth it!

"Captain!" a soldier suddenly shouted. "We have a problem!"

"What is it?"

"Come and look!"

They came in an observation post at the edge of the wall, and Sweetie saw with horror what got her soldier so panicked. On the platform on the tree, the enemy was about to launch a giant snowball! Big enough to crush at least half the fortress, which would render them vulnerable to an assault!

They must stop it! They must...!

Kirby was there, waving at her with a big smile. That little...

Too late.

Sweetie could only watch as the giant ball fell right in the middle of her fortress, destroying a big part of the wall and the ice ceiling and burying many of her soldiers under pounds of snow. Immediately, she heard shouts coming from the enemy fortress, and a great part of their army charged right at them with ice bags full of snowballs!

"Everyone!" she yelled. "Take cover behind whatever you can! We are under attack!"

She hid behind a part of the wall that survived and readied dozens of snowballs in her magic. If she had to go down, she will go down fighting!

What followed was despair, her army separated in small groups behind whatever cover they could find, bombarded from every directions. Seemed like this was it...

But then, she heard it, more shouts, but this time, coming from beyond the enemy fortress, further behind! They were here! And the platform at the top of the tree was suddenly shot down by a giant snowball coming from behind!

"They have a catapult!" she heard an enemy yell. Oh, these clever...

Without the platform, her army could now take more risk without finding itself pelted from the sky. And the enemies in their fortress were forced to flee before the arrival of her soldiers from behind, leaving them open. Another giant snowball fell on their wall, destroying a part of it, and she could start to see her troops coming on the other side.

And thus came chaos. The enemies trapped, they were forced to disperse to find covers while her soldiers took over the enemy fortress. However, a few courageous enemies, including Kirby, remained in the fortress, forcing her troops to fight them. Her troops still in the remains of her fortress used the confusion to also disperse everywhere, forcing the attackers to also disperse. And now, the whole area was a giant pandemonium where her troops and the enemies were fighting each others everywhere, with snowballs flying in anarchy, to the point that nobody was sure anymore who hit who. All of that was worsened by the giant snowballs of the catapult still falling from the sky, hitting friends and foes.

At this point, all notions of armies disappeared only to let place to a giant free for all until the absurdity of the situation got to Sweetie and she started to laugh. Kirby saw her laughing and started laughing too. This was followed by the soldiers around them, and the soldiers around those soldiers, until everyone laughed, ending the Great Snowball Fight.

---

"So, remember, the door only appears in Autumn, and you will have to fight the guardians," the Chilly said.

"Thank you," Sweetie Belle replied. "And thank you all for this good time."

"No, thank you for giving us a good time. This snowball fight is the most fun I had in my life, and it's certainly the same thing for all the others." Sweetie giggled at that. "Good luck for your journey. You can come back anytime. Goodbye!"

"Goodbye, and thank you!"

And so, Sweetie Belle and Kirby left the Chilly, took a door, and returned in Spring, only to take it again until they were in Autumn. After that, they followed the instructions of the Chilly until they reached the door they searched. They could say that it was this door because there was a big star above it.

Before passing it, Sweetie and Kirby took a deep breath, readying themselves to fight the guardians. Once ready, they went through it. On the other side...

They found themselves between two living trees, like Whispy Woods.

Sweetie gave a deadpan look. "Of course there are living trees in this world!"

The ground suddenly started to shake, and long roots popped out of it, trapping Sweetie and Kirby between the two trees. They could fly above them, but they would have to dodge the attacks of both trees and it would be hard.

Sweetie turned to one of the trees, she will call him N°1, and Kirby turned to the other, N°2. N°2 then puffed air at them, and N°1 made giant apples, worms, and Gordos fall from his branches. Kirby slid below the puffs of air and charged to the bottom of N°2, breathing ice at him, and Sweetie jumped above them before shooting the apples and the worms and avoiding the Gordos, yelling at Kirby to look out for them. She then wrapped her whip around one of the Gordos and sent it right into N°1's left eye, making him yell in pain.

N°2 avenged him by trying to impale her with his roots while N°1 puffed air at Kirby to stop him from attacking his brother. All the while, the two trees made more apples and other projectiles rain on them. While Sweetie rolled around to avoid the roots, shooting a fireball at N°2, Kirby jumped above N°1's puffs of air and froze the apples and the worms, turning them into floating ice blocks. He then kicked them, sending them in the face of the two trees. Once the roots stopped coming, Sweetie turned back toward N°1 and sent fire from her horn, burning him gravely and making him squirm in pain while Kirby returned breathing ice on N°2.

This made N°2 angry, and more roots poked out all over the ground, threatening to impale them. Sweetie and Kirby jumped above the roots and joined together in the air right in the middle of the path between the two trees. With their momentum, they took each other's hand/hoof and spun around sending fire and ice alternatively at them. This made the two trees stop attacking them, crying in pain, giving up the fight.

Victorious, Sweetie high fived Kirby, and the two of them took an apple from the floor as a reward. They weren't as good as Whispy's but they were still good. At the same time, a big black door appeared between the trees, and once the filly and the puffball finished their snack, they passed it, appearing before this world's Fountain of Dreams.

Kirby then closed his eyes and did like on Popstar, and when he made the Warp Star appear, it glowed with two different colors.

"I wonder how many time we will have to do that," Sweetie asked herself.

Finished with this world, they jumped on the Warp Star and went toward the sky. Passing the atmosphere of this world, Sweetie looked back at it.

"We will definitely come back. It will be nice to go there to pass a nice, snowy Winter day in the middle of a hot Summer, or vice versa."

"Poyo," Kirby confirmed, smiling.

They remarked the new trail that had appeared, leading to their next destination, and they followed it.

---

The next world was... a giant bubble almost full of water, that shined at the center. Well hopefully, Popstar's logic will follow them to this world and they could breathe underwater.

When they approached the surface, it turned out that this world was not just made of water, because they could see many islands with vegetation out of it. But they weren't stopping at one of the islands, instead diving right in the ocean with the Warp Star, ramming a few Blippers and Sir Slippys in the way. The Warp Star eventually disappeared, leaving them beside a door at the bottom of the ocean. And yep, they could breathe.

They passed the door and appeared under the surface of the ocean, beside a small island. Going on it, they avoided an explosive coconut and Kirby ate a hot dog before they looked around them at the world they were in. As far as they could see, there was water with colored stars on it and islands everywhere. The clouds were all spherical, looking like floating giant rock candies.

If only she had a camera.

They went on another, bigger island beside the first one, Sweetie having to be on Kirby's back to reach it. Note for later, learn to self-levitate. Upon landing on the island, Kirby gave up the Ice and ate the Sir Kibble before them, obtaining the Cutter. Once done, they could see further ahead a big wall, meaning they would have either to get around or fly above it. But between them and the wall were three Bomb Blocks with Glunks among them. Two of the blocks did nothing but the middle one destroyed a part of the floor, letting them dive in more water under the island with a few Gordos. Sweetie shot another Bomb Block in a wall, destroying the whole thing and letting them pass under the island where they had to avoid currents. They reached a third island in the way, and on the other side of it, they found a Bomb Block in it. Destroying it caused a door to appear on the island, sadly leading nowhere. Returning, they found some food in the water under some destructible blocks, including a Maxim Tomato that they shared despite Sweetie still being full of the apple of the previous world.

They then reached another part of the same island, with a black cannon like they used to reach Dyna Blade back when they were assaulting the Halberd. Understanding that it may lead them somewhere important, Sweetie used her magic to light the fuse, and they hopped in it. However, it only led them to some food before they went back through a door. After the cannon, they entered another door in a wall.

They appeared in a giant submerged cavern, the water here full of stars and air pockets. They had to swim while avoiding a few Gordos until they reached a tunnel with the water suddenly stopping at the entrance. Fighting a Broom Hatter and a Knuckle Joe in the way, they jumped in a hole, diving in more water that led eventually to another section of the tunnel without water. This led to more water with a biscuit, an ice cream, and a Maxim Tomato. This time, Sweetie only ate the biscuit, trying not to go too far, with their adventure just beginning and Rick not being here so she could ride on him. It was still hard for her to miss a Maxim Tomato.

Above them was another door in a pocket of air. They ended up... What? In space? Water floating in space? With what seemed like the entrance of a palace? A palace not even floating in the water, the water stopping around it! And were these Meta Knight's knights guarding it? What were they doing there?

Just... What?!

Kirby had to tap Sweetie on the head to reboot her brain before they continued, entering the palace, the filly stopping thinking about the impossibilities and scolding herself for not learning after the first couple dozens times. After this whole "the sun and the moon are alive and fighting", she should have stopped asking questions.

On the other side of the door, they had to fight a bunch of Blade Knights before going down by breaking a few blocks in the floor. Seemed like this temple belonged to another order of knights. They jumped above some spikes, Kirby ate a Maxim Tomato in the way, and they reached a big colored window showing the sun and the moon, a Jukid (the creature wearing a white gi like they encountered in the Halberd) waiting to fight them. He sent his hands toward them only to be charged by Sweetie who put her hooves around his waist before bending her back to make him crash head first on the floor.

Darn it, there was nothing in this palace, they lost their time. At least, she could now say to Knuckle Joe that she defeated a Jukid with a belly to belly suplex. He will be proud.

Getting out of the palace, they returned in the water and found another door, this one leading to a room, followed by an hallway going up and down.

"Okay. We have two ways. Up and down, which one do we take?"

"Mmh..." thought Kirby, arms crossed. He then pointed to himself, then pointed down, then pointed to Sweetie, and finally pointed up.

"Ok!" Sweetie shouted, saluting.

So Sweetie went up only to reach a door. When she took it, she got back in the previous room before the hallway. "What?"

Kirby then appeared beside her. "Poyo?"

They looked at each other before they returned in the hallway, this time the two of them going down. Sweetie saw a door at a dead end, but Kirby pointed at it and shook his head. They took the way opposite to the door, then down, then went toward another door, only to end up back in the first room again.

"Oh no... We are in a maze where we probably have to find the right door and all the others lead back at the start." She put a hoof on her forehead. "This will be... Ugh!"

"Poyo..."

---

https://youtu.be/MXcMV-d_2Js

---

After countless ups and downs, lefts and rights, restarting the maze who knew how many times, they tried their luck in a small hallway after a room going down, then right, then up, and they got out of the water in a bigger hallway.

"Oh Celestia... Please... Make it the good one..." Sweetie Belle pleaded.

Kirby then showed her the door at the end of the hallway, after two tomatoes, two plates of pancakes, and two flans. It had a big star above it!

Sweetie looked in awe at it before a smile as big as Pinkie Pie's appeared on her muzzle, and she shouted, "Yay! We found it! Let's get out of here!" She was about to run toward the door but Kirby then pointed at the food with a pleading look.

"Poyo..."

Sweetie bit her lips before sighing. "Alright, let's take a break."

One tomato, plate of pancakes, and flan for each of them later, they FINALLY got out of this Tartarus of a maze! They ended up in a giant caverne half submerged, on a long wooden bridge with some red grass. Looking around, they suddenly heard a big Splash! behind them, and when they looked, they saw a giant pink whale in a sailor suit with a pipe in his mouth jumping toward them!

"Oh... Buck..."

The whale fell in the water beside them, creating a huge tidal wave that swept them out of the bridge, right in the lake. It was followed by numerous rocks falling from the ceiling of the cavern, almost hitting them on the head as they quickly went back on the bridge. The whale then went back beside the bridge, rolling on himself on the surface of the lake trying to hit them with his head. Jumping above it, Sweetie and Kirby hit the whale with blades and ice balls until the whale went back under the water. He then returned only to shoot water from his blowhole, hitting the ceiling and making raining more rocks that Sweetie destroyed with her beams as Kirby cut the whale with more blades.

"Okay. I may have an idea to hurt him really badly. Give me a minute."

Kirby nodded and prepared his blade, looking for the whale.

Sweetie then started to shoot fire from her horn into the water, evaporating some of it. Being in a cavern, the steam eventually accumulated under the ceiling, forming a cloud. She quickly dodged the whale jumping above the bridge, trying to ram them, and shot more fire into the water, getting the cloud bigger. After many minutes of dodging, she stopped and started releasing toward the cloud ice balls and fireballs.

During all these weeks, beside training, she also learned much about Dream Land and its inhabitants. She had been curious about Kracko, and by extension, how the clouds worked. Back in Equestria, they hadn't reached the lessons about how the weather worked, but now, she knew this: a cloud was made of water (duh!) that had been evaporated and compacted. But that cloud right now was not as compact as she wanted, so using her magic while continuing throwing balls, she 'grabbed' the cloud and started to compress it. She smiled as she saw it starting to become black. A giant black cloud.

Kirby, somehow, found himself riding on the whale's back, clinging to him and cutting him with the cutter to force him to not attack Sweetie Belle. He saw the filly create a giant black cloud above their head and sweat appeared on his head. She will not...? Will she? Suddenly, the whale jumped high and fell beside the bridge, Kirby finding himself thrown off from his back.

Sweetie got swept by the tidal wave created by the jump, and quickly went back on the bridge alongside Kirby to continue her work. It was almost over! By compressing the cloud, she caused the droplets of water in it to come closer from each other. Then by sending fireballs and ice balls, she caused the droplets to be heated or cooled. As everyone could feel when they took a bath, hot water goes up, and cold water goes down. When they go up, they get colder and go back down. And when they go down, they are heated and go back up. And because the droplets are so close, they bump into each others. And somehow, through a process about atoms and electrons and negative charges and other advanced scientific stuff that Twilight would better understand...

THIS CREATES LIGHTNING!!!

BRAOOOOOUUUUUM!!!!!

Sweetie quickly formed a shield around herself and Kirby as the cloud rained lightning around them! The electricity spread in the whole lake until the cloud stopped a few seconds later. The cavern then fell into a deep silence until the whale emerged from the water alongside hundreds of Blippers, not moving anymore.

She made the shield disappear, huffing and puffing, her horn hurting. If she knew how to shoot lightning, she wouldn't have needed to do something so overkill, but... Oh well! At least, it did the job, and it was awesome!

Kirby stared at the carnage around him, jaw hitting the floor. "Po... Po... Poyo...?"

---

They left the water planet behind and started following the trail to the next planet, the Warp Star now glowing with a third color. Kirby still sweated at thinking about the final move of Sweetie Belle, this filly right now sleeping beside him, her energy depleted after what she did. She had sure gone far! Luckily for him, if he ended up fighting her, she would have a hard time getting this attack ready, with him constantly attacking her.

Who knew what other moves she will create in the future, or was actually hiding behind her horn. So far, she showed only controlling fire and ice, without forgetting about her magical beams and her fighting skills, both with her hooves and her whip. When she will learn to control more...

She will be a formidable ally, and also a formidable opponent.

Author's Notes:

Sweetie Belle used Thunderbolt Tempo. It's ULTRA effective! The Fatty Whale enemy is KO! The army of Blippers enemy is KO! Victory! Sweetie Belle gains over 9000 xp!

More seriously, if there are experts in weather, tell me if I did anything wrong with the creation of this storm cloud. I used my memories of my physic classes and of One Piece to do it.

Chapter 21: Wind, Flame and Cave

When the Warp Star reached the third planet many minutes later, which from afar looked like a giant blue ball surrounded by layers upon layers of clouds, Sweetie Belle was still sleeping peacefully. The Warp Star passed between many of those clouds in various colors as well as floating balls and stars until reaching a floor made of more clouds, beside a floating door. Rather than going abruptly and risk another crash like all the previous times, Kirby decided to approach slowly before hopping down from the Warp Star with the filly on his back.

He hesitated to wake her with how peaceful she was. So rather than passing the door and carry on with their adventure, Kirby decided to lay Sweetie on the fluffy cloud, which made the perfect bed. He then took some pièces of cloud from the floor and used them to make a cloud wall with a hole for a door and another one for a window around them. Before long, he created a small cloud house similar to his own house in Dream Land, with the filly sleeping inside. Deciding to use the occasion to take a nap, Kirby went on the floor beside Sweetie Belle, covered himself with her cape while making sure that it still covered her, and snuggled against her. In her sleep, Sweetie put a leg around him as if he was a teddy bear, and soon, he joined her in Dream Land. He should sleep on clouds more often. So fluffy...

---

Sweetie Belle woke up, slowly opening her eyes. She could feel that she was sleeping on something really soft, and hugging something else just as soft. Looking around, she quickly saw that she was in a round cloud house, and that she had been sleeping on said cloud. She yawned, then looked at what she was hugging, only to raise an eyebrow at seeing that she was hugging a sleeping Kirby.

And now, Sweetie found herself with a few conflicting thoughts. Kirby was a boy, so the two of them sleeping together like that made it weird and she was now blushing, and she had to stop herself from jumping away or pushing him. However, the puffball was far too innocent to be thinking about this kind of thing, and probably only wanted to keep her company and warm, like when she and her friends in Ponyville sleep sometime together during a Cutie Mark Sleepover, especially when it was cold. And it sure was cold here, wherever they were. Beside, with how soft he was, she didn't mind the idea of sleeping with him, he was like a big plushie.

And Celestia darn it, he was adorable.

And did he built this house where they were? Gosh, his kindness could rival Fluttershy's. Such a sweetheart. Now it would be cruel to push him away, as awkward as the situation was. Will she even dare to wake him up? He let her sleep, so... But they should continue their journey, they already lost enough time.

She then could feel him rubbing his face against her, pressing himself against her.

She sighed. Why are you making this so hard?

Waiting until he wakes up it was, then. Curse that ball.

---

They got out of the house, fully rested and ready to end this adventure. Sweetie looked around her, seeing clouds everywhere alongside those big balls and those stars. So they were in a world made of clouds now? Well, that was nice, but it was a little cold.

She then turned to Kirby at her right and said, "Thank you again Kirby, you are a great friend. Let's... Let's just not talk about it to anyone, they could get ideas."

Kirby tilted his head. "Poyo?"

"... Let's just go."

She then jumped through the black door, Kirby just watching for a moment with a raised eyebrow before following her. They had to fight their way through Chillys, Bronto Burts and a few other enemies trying to stop them for some reason before they reached a small cloud tunnel with a Star Block in the ceiling. There was a strong wind in the tunnel pushing them, so it was a little hard to target it, but Sweetie was able to destroy it, revealing a small hallway going up, and she let Kirby go see what there was up there while she continued, freezing a Twizzy, a bird, in the way with an ice ball before kicking it into another Twizzy.

At the end of the tunnel, she found some food and decided to eat while waiting for Kirby, letting the hot dog for him. No meat, thanks. She remarked some structures further ahead that looked like towers where she could just see the tops poking of the cloud floor. So there were normal buildings in this world? It would be nice to visit them. Kirby came back a few seconds later with a new Ability, the puffball now wearing a metallic hat that looked like a plane, with an engine behind.

"Poyo!" he shouted.

"Hey! What is this Ability? And there, a hot dog for you."

"Poyo!" Kirby thanked her before gobbling the hot dog. He then jumped, and thanks to the engine of his hat, charged right forward at a great speed for one second before the engine stopped. He landed and looked back at Sweetie, raising his left arm shouting; "Poyo!"

"Neat! You can fly fast now!"

Kirby then looked at her, rubbing his chin pensively. Quickly, he ran back to her and jumped on her back. After a small flash, Sweetie could now see metallic wings poking out of her back, each of them with two small engines. "Poyo!" he shouted in joy at that.

"Wait, you are not telling... How my gosh! I could fly?!"

"Poyo!"

"OHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHOHMYGOSHQUICKQUICKQUICKQUICK!! I must test it! I must test it!" She then put her four hooves firmly on the floor, neck right and head looking forward. Thanks to the Ability, she instinctively knew how to make the wings work, and before long, she could hear the engines purring and fire starting to get out of them. "Here we GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!" she shouted, suddenly taking off at a speed that would make Rainbow Dash proud. Which was too fast! She almost hit one of the towers before quickly going right. She then saw a wall of yellow and green blocks quickly coming, and she tilted her body to go up.

And so, she flew through the clouds, trying not to crash on one of them. She found herself doing loops, U-turns and other zigzags for what looked like hours, only to be a few minutes, until she was able to gain control of her wings and she started to have an idea of what she was doing.

After a whole minute of silence, she then shouted, "WHEEEEEE!!! I'm flying! I'm flying! I don't believe it, I'm flying!"

"Po... Poyo..." Kirby groaned on her back, his pink turning green.

After a few more minutes of flying around, they were able to reach where they had been, only they directly landed at the end of the path, beside a door. Sweetie then took Kirby from her back and hugged him. "I can never thank you enough for this! Thank to you, I was able to fly! Fly! First the ninja, and now this! Oh Kirby! Thank you! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"

Kirby rubbed his cheek against hers before stepping back and jumping back on her back. He then pointed at the door, shouting, "Poyo!"

"Alright Kirby! Let's go!"

She ran through the door with the biggest smile she could give, only for this smile to disappear at seeing what awaited them after it. They found themselves in a small room, with a Parasol Waddle Dee, a Parasol Waddle Doo, and not one, not two, but THREE doors.

"Uh... Alright Kirby, where do we go?"

Kirby looked at the three doors, then pointed at each door in turn while singing, "Po po po popoyopoyopoyo..." Eventually, he stopped at the door in the center. "Poyo!"

"Well... Let's hope that luck is with us."

Slowly, with the help of a small push from her wings, she flew to the door and took it only to end in a similar room with more doors. She could see that they were in a different room because the decor and the enemies guarding it were not the same.

"Oh please... no..."

She took one of the other doors, and they ended up in another different room with more doors.

She gave a deadpan look. "A door maze..."

Kirby gave a deadpan look too. "Poyo..."

---

https://youtu.be/dFTLFv1iZEM

---

"I... hate... mazes..."

They were actually in a room with three doors, a Grizzo, which was some sort of bear with stripes on its back, and two Noddys, round creature that passed their time sleeping with a sleeping cap on their head. They had now gone through at least two dozens doors, some of them they probably took more than once, but it was hard to say with how the rooms all looked almost identical.

Wait, she could swear she had been in this room before... Oh yeah, she had come from the middle door and had taken the left one. And now... they entered it from the left door. Urg... Well, this meant that they hadn't taken the right door, hopefully it will lead to a new room.

They took it.

On the other side, something fell before them.

"Wha-" BAOUM!!!

Whatever it had been, it caused a big explosion. Sweetie and Kirby fond themselves propelled in the air, the Jet Ability knocked out of the puffball. Despite the pain, Kirby quickly got up and took back the Ability before it disappeared. Sweetie, meanwhile, slowly sat up, rubbing one of the burns she got.

"Owie... What happened?"

Answering her, Kirby went on a platform, started to walk in a funny way toward the edge, then at the edge he let himself fall. When he reached the floor, he shouted, "Boum!"

Sweetie facehoofed. "That was a Bomber?"

Kirby nodded.

Sweetie looked up toward the ceiling. "But where did it fall from?"

He shrugged. He then took a Maxim Tomato on the floor of the room and gave a half to her.

"At least, there is that. Thanks."

As they ate, Kirby pointed at the door in the center of the room, on the floor. Seeing the door, then the big star on top of it, she gobbled the remain of the tomato, took Kirby on her back, and ran through the door without looking back.

They were out of this bucking maze! Yay!

On the other side, they were on a small arena made of blocks, and before them came a familiar big eye. The eye gathered clouds around him, and before long, a Kracko lookalike in a grey-blue color was facing them. Was this his brother? Or the same Kracko but with a different color?

Sweetie took her whip and turned on her reactors, ready to start the fight. She didn't have to wait long, because Blue Kracko charged at her only two seconds later. She flew away from him and shot a beam at him before dodging a lightning bolt. Avoiding more bolts, she flew away again before doing an U-turn, charging right through the Blue Kracko, making a big hole in his cloud. She restarted the same maneuver only to be hit by a lightning bolt before Kracko rammed her. She counter-attacked with her whip, hitting the cloud a dozen times before flying away.

She retried another charge and was able to dodge a lightning bolt with an aileron roll, and another with a second in the opposite direction, before passing through Blue Kracko, creating another hole. Blue Kracko decided to fly after her, starting a chase through the sky as the cloud tried to ram her again, shooting dozens of lightning bolts. After a moment, she turned on her back, her head facing the Blue Kracko while still fleeing from him. Kirby had to cling to her back to not fall. Still going left and right to avoid the lightning bolts, she shot back her beams, some of them dodged by Blue Kracko, but with him being bigger, he was not able to avoid all of them.

Eventually, she charged a magical beam in which she infused her energy, she then spun her body, charging right at Blue Kracko again, before shooting the beam right at his eye. The beam hit, and then she rammed his eye, plucking it right out of the cloud. She gripped the eye in her hooves and dove toward the arena where they started the fight. At the last second, she placed the eye under her hooves, and they crashed into the ground, the eye crushed between her and the floor. She then kicked the eye away, letting it fall beyond the edge of the arena.

He was not getting back. This opened the door to the fountain.

"Ah! Take that you Kracko wannabe! I'm Dedede's second in command! Kracko is just one of his lieutenants! You had no chance against me!"

Kirby sweated. "Poyo..." Having fought Kracko not long ago, she should watch out. The cloud was learning and may not be as easy to beat.

---

After getting out of the cloud world, and after a small trip in space, they now reached the next world: a giant ball of rock on fire. Could they even get close to it without being cooked alive?

Seemed like yes, as long as they were quick. The Warp Star led them into a hole in the surface, leading to an underground cavern. While still being hot, at least this i=was not TOO hot. They will still need to drink a couple of bottles of water once they get out of here...

The Warp Star crashed them on a rock poking out of a wall, and they already could see that the Jet will be a big nono. There was magma everywhere, and with the Jet, the risks of crashing into it were too high. So Kirby released it and let Sweetie get on his back.

They flew for about a minute, Sweetie shooting a Sir Kibble in the way, before they reached one of these floating cannons that can propel them. Taking it, they were shot to the other side of a big pathway with more magma and a Bomb Block. Once they landed, or rather crashed, Sweetie shot a beam at the bomb only for it to cause magma to fall. With nothing else to do, they continued, flying up before reaching a place where they could walk. In the way, Kirby ate a Sir Kibble to gain the Cutter, and they found an Invincibility Candy.

They looked at each other, Kirby raising an eyebrow. Sweetie sighed. "There are no other ways? Like, you could break it in two and give me just a part?"

He shook his head.

She sighed again. "Alright, go on."

One mouth to mouth later and the both of them were now running as fast as they could, wanting to use their temporal invincibility as much as possible. They passed a door only to find themselves behind a minecart.

Again, they looked at each other, this time smiling. They then both jumped in the minecart and Sweetie used her magic to push it. Taking speed, they now moved forward, somehow rolling on magma, as if they were in an amusement park, not quite like in a roller coaster but close enough. They lost their invincibility, destroyed walls, pushed in the ground wooden stakes, sometime somehow creating a path, and rammed enemies in the way, all the while laughing in fun. Sadly, they had to jump out of the minecart when a wall of magma suddenly appeared in front of them, Kirby taking Sweetie on his back. Luckily, there was another minecart after the wall, with some food floating in front, including a Maxim Tomato. Sweetie took them in her magic and, after eating two candies, a half of the tomato, and drinking fruit juice, she started to push the minecart.

Sadly again, the ride didn't last long before they were stopped by another wall of magma that was followed by a door. It led to another area full of magma everywhere in the floor and the ceiling, and Sweetie was forced to go back on Kirby's back so he could fly them through it, avoiding Gordos in the way. Sweetie saw another Maxim Tomato a little out of the way and took it in her magic in case they got hurt.

They then reached some cannons, leading them through a small maze of cannons, much to Sweetie and Kirby's annoyance. The fact that they couldn't see where they were going because of the cannons didn't help. The first cannon at least led them to yet another Maxim Tomato, and another cannon to yet again another tomato! This made three tomatoes that Sweetie was keeping in her hooves, until they reached a fourth at the end of a small pathway. Sweetie took it in her magic, and they then reached the door to the guardian.

"We can't keep these tomatoes, they will bother us. But I'm starting to get a little full..."

Kirby licked his lips in anticipation of eating four Maxim Tomatoes at the same time.

"Alright, you take three, I take the fourth."

One meal later, they passed the door finding themselves in a big room with nothing in sight. Where was the guardian?

They walked around the room, looking everywhere until, suddenly, Kirby was rammed from behind by something, sending him flying a few meters. When Sweetie turned around, she could see a creature a little bigger than her that looked like some sort of red lizard with two big eyes at the sides of its head and protrusions at the back of its head that looked like horns. It possessed small forelegs with claws, and two long hook-like hind legs that it actually used to stand up.

The lizard looked at her, opened its mouth, and suddenly, she was grabbed by a very long tongue. Next thing she knew, she was trapped inside the lizard's mouth. No wait... Could this be a chameleon? Answer later, right now, she must try to not get eaten. But before she could do anything, she was spit back outside, right into Kirby, making the two of them crash into a wall.

They quickly got up only to see the lizard change color, blending with the room. Yep, it was a chameleon. Sweetie quickly shot an ice ball at its last position, only to hit nothing, the chameleon having already moved elsewhere. Rapidly, Sweetie and Kirby moved to the center of the room and went back to back, not leaving any blind spot to not be surprised.

...

...

"Poyo!"

Sweetie turned her head and saw a tongue coming at them. She took her whip, dodged the tongue with Kirby, and wrapped the whip around the tongue.

"Grab the whip! Quick!"

Kirby understood and took the whip alongside her. Forcefully, they pulled on it, and they were able to lift the chameleon from its spot. Another pull, and it was slammed on the floor, forming many cracks in it. Kirby quickly threw his blades at it, and Sweetie wrapped her whip around the hind legs, crippling it. But the chameleon was a smart one, and it started to use its forelegs to spin, dragging her around it. Kirby was forced to jump to avoid her while she tried to regain control, without success. Kirby ran to the chameleon and went on its back where he lashed out at it with countless slashes from his blades.

Sweetie then got the idea to trap her hind legs to the floor with ice, so she pointed her horn to them and did so. Even if the cold hurt her, at least, it worked, and she stopped being dragged by the chameleon, immobilizing it. The chameleon still tugged at the whip, trying to break the ice, but Kirby then slashed at one of its eyes, stopping it from tugging, instead trashing on the floor in pain. This left it vulnerable to more slashes from Kirby and charged beams from Sweetie until, finally, it stopped moving.

Sweetie released the legs, melting the ice with some fire, and approached the chameleon, glaring at it, daring it to move. Kirby jumped from its back and went before its face, blade ready to cut.

It opened its eyes, then its mouth, and Kirby found himself trapped inside it. It turned around, ready to spit him back at the filly, only to suddenly put its claws around its neck, its expression turning into one of pain. It then spat Kirby on the floor before it, cuts visible on its tongue, and more inside its mouth. Sweetie took this to charge a Force Blast and fired it inside its mouth. It flew and crashed right on its back at the impact and stopped moving again.

The door appearing proved to them that this time, it will not wake up anytime soon.

They sighed in relief. This chameleon took more effort to beat that they had thought first.

---

Finished with the fire planet, they followed the trail to the next world. This time, the world they were approaching seemed to have nothing special, just being a big ball of rocks. When they passed the atmosphere, they found out that the whole world was mountainous, with clouds hiding their base. The Warp Star crashed them on one of those mountains, right beside the door probably leading inside it.

Passing it, they ended up in a cave facing a Bio Spark that Kirby ate, much to Sweetie's joy. After passing a Gim, the robot with a cap and a yo-yo, they took a ladder going down, watching out the Gordo going left and right in the way. Another ladder, this time going up, with another Gordo later, and they ended up in a room with crates as floor where a Chef Kawasaki was waiting them. He was an orange egg-shaped being wearing a chef outfit, with two tubby arms, and two pink red feet. And his first action was to try to fry them, trying to drag them into a cauldron with his ladle that could extend. Sweetie simply took the ladle in her hooves and used it to lift the chef before dumping him head first into the cauldron. His body caused the cauldron to roll, spilling the hot soup all over the crates. The chef didn't wake up after that.

Leaving the unconscious chef, they reached an intersection with a path going forward and a ladder going down. They decided to take the ladder only to discover that it led to more paths. At this instant, they understood: another maze.

Sweetie screamed.

---

https://youtu.be/0M6e9e-NzOA

---

This one was the worst so far. Not only they had to find the right way, but they had to fight many stronger opponents along the way, like a Poppy Bros. Sr, a Mr. Frosty, a Bonkers, or an Iron Mam-big armored ball with spiked balls for shoulder pads, two big round pink hands that were not attached to the body, two pink shoes, and a pink bow-and many others. Right now, after a long hallway full of food, they were fighting a Bugzzy. Too bad the Bugzzy was in a dead end.

The Bugzzy charged at them with his mandibles ready to grab them, one of his eyes swollen because of a punch from Sweetie, and many cuts all over his body because of Kirby. The ninja puffball jumped out of the way while throwing kunais, and Sweetie sidestepped him before punching him between the eyes with an energy charged hoof, sending him flying. Kirby ran after him, took his katana, and slashed his belly, making him drop unconscious.

This caused a door to appear.

Sweetie's eye twitched. "We had to fight those guys... until we find the one that opens the door? In this maze?"

"Poyo..." Kirby rubbed his head before going to the door, followed by a filly taking deep breaths to calm herself. They ended up in an area, where they saw a big metallic door like there were in the Halberd, the kind that opened with a switch. Said switch was revealed to be after a Bomb Block, which the destruction caused water to fall, forcing them to swim up. Hitting the switch with a beam from Sweetie, they quickly went back down and were able to pass the door before it closed. Behind this door, they found a black door leading to a small room with some food, including a Maxim Tomato and an Invincibility Candy.

Now the two of them invincible, they ended up in the previous area, above the metallic door. Quickly running on the remaining path above them, they ran up some slopes, went down two ladders, ignored the Maxim Tomato at the end, and passed the door to the guardian.

They were now on a platform arena in a giant room plunged in the dark. Looking around, they eventually saw something appear in the dark, and whatever it was, it was giant. Or at least, it looked giant. They could just see the head, and even then, they could only see a few features: stone-like eyes, a big stone-like mouth, two stone-like ears with diamond-shaped earrings, a stone on the forehead, and some stone-like thing on his head that is maybe hair. Thanks to all these features, they could see that the head was square-shaped, and that was all, the rest being hidden in the dark. Also, Sweetie and Kirby were even smaller than his eyes... What was his full size? Unless it was just a big floating head? Hard to say.

Then, a giant floating hand made of stone appeared above them and dropped on them, only for it to be destroyed by their invincibility that disappeared just after. The destruction of the hand seemed to hurt the giant.

Another hand appeared and tried to ram them, and Kirby jumped above it while sending kunais at it. Sweetie just avoided it by running out of the way before sending a normal beam at it, not having more time to charge before it disappeared in the dark.

Kirby then jumped on Sweetie's back, giving her the Ninja Ability, and she used it to avoid another hand that turned into a bunch of boulders raining on them. A second hand snapped its finger, causing more boulders to rain from the ceiling. All the while, Sweetie jumped from boulder to boulder, sending shurikens at the hands and the face of the giant, not making much damage. Two hands appeared on both sides of the arena and tried to crush Sweetie and Kirby between them only for Sweetie to jump again, but this time, she made sure to fall on one of the hands, getting lifted by it.

This made the giant angry and he tried to get rid of Sweetie by shaking his hand first, then by turning it so Sweetie would fall into the abyss, but thanks to the Ninja Ability, she clung to it no matter what he tried all the while attacking the hand. The giant then tried to punch her with another hand only for Sweetie to jump on it while the punch caused the first hand to be destroyed, hurting himself.

On the second hand, Sweetie shot charged beams at his eyes, making him close them. In pain, he shook his hand again, without success, until Sweetie took a katana and jumped directly toward the head, planting the katana in the stone in the giant's forehead. Getting her hind legs around the katana and letting herself hang from it, she then charged a Giga Force Blast and fired it right between the giant's eyes, making him yell in pain. She saw a fist coming right at her and got on her katana before jumping from it just as the fist collided with the giant's face, planting the katana entirely into the stone. At this moment, as he yelled again in pain, she threw kunais on his eyes, inside his mouth, and on his stone, the kunais having red burning parchments.

Just as she landed on the arena, the parchments burned completely and exploded. With a last scream of pain, and with smoke coming out of his mouth, his eyes, and his now destroyed stone, the giant fell on his back, making the whole room shake.

...

...

"Did I just knock out a giant at least one hundred times my size?"

Author's Notes:

I know we only see Wham Bam Rock's head, but it's never precised if it's a floating head or if he has a body, so I decided to let him have a body.

I also remembered that I hadn't reread the previous chapter before posting it. Now it's done and it shouldn't have as much errors.

Chapter 22: Machine and Eternal

Still having a hard time believing that she just won a fight against an actual giant (or maybe just a giant it, she still couldn't tell), even if she had been helped, Sweetie and Kirby were going toward the next planet, following the trail. Reaching it, they were marvelled by what it was: a planet sized futuristic floating city, with skyscrapers going both up AND down below the world. Going to the surface, they could see huge buildings everywhere, without anything else, of all shapes and size. They were so amazed that Kirby didn't see where they were going. When Sweetie looked, she screamed, "Watch out!" but it was too late and they crashed through a wall at the top of one of the skyscrapers.

Thankfully, nothing too bad, a bump at worst. Slowly, they got up, Sweetie glaring at Kirby. "Maybe next time, you should watch where you are going when you are driving."

"Poyo..." Kirby replied, rubbing his head, sorry.

Looking around, they saw that they were in a small room with just a door and nothing else. For some reason, the door looked like the ones in the Halberd. Kirby was the first one passing it, followed by Sweetie Belle, now giggling, remembering all the times she crashed because of Scootaloo when she was driving her scooter, carrying her and Apple Bloom on their cart.

The door led them on the roofs where they had to jump on a second building with a Bomb Block at the top. Destroying it caused the apparition of water all around the building. The third building had two ways possible: the roof where they would have to avoid Gordos, and through a pathway where they would have to run on disappearing blocks that were above electrified floor, with a Gordo in the way. They chose the roof where they could take their time to avoid the Gordos, with some food in the way. At the end, they reached a cannon that shot them at a second cannon below, then a third further, that shot them through a wall until they hit another more solid one. Kirby quickly took Sweetie on his back before she fell, before flying on the roof of the building they collided.

This seemed to be the end of the way until Kirby saw at the other side of the building, on the wall, a Bomb Block that he destroyed by sending a kunai on it. That caused the destruction of the whole building, except for a door on a platform with an Invincibility Candy falling on it. Sweetie also saw a Maxim Tomato falling and took it in her magic before they took the candy and passed the door.

On the other side, they went inside a building where they had to do some jumping before having to go down, then up, and they entered a room with somehow a strong wind pushing them back and a door under the ceiling. As the invincibility disappeared, they ate the Maxim Tomato from before the previous door before Kirby went on Sweetie's back and, now with the Ninja Ability, she ran on the wall until reaching the door. On the other side, they had to take an elevator down passing many Gims before passing another door which only led to an empty room. Annoyed, they went back into the room with the wind.

Because of the wind, they didn't try to go on the path above, rather taking the one below where they had to avoid more Gordos. Kirby then decided to give up the Ninja before eating some bird named Birdon, with red feathers and goggles on his eyes. That gave him a new Ability where Kirby now had wings on his arms with a mohawk of feathers on his head.

After jumping on some platforms, they saw a switch at the end of a conduit, and they understood that they will have to go through metallic doors again. Sweetie activated it with her beam and they jumped on the platform above where they found a closed metallic door with a switch in front of it. Not losing time, they ran toward the door, activating the switch in the way which opened it. Behind the door, Sweetie shot another beam on a third switch in an hallway below and they quickly passed a second door followed by a third. They found the exit door below a platform at the end, after Sweetie ate an ice cream.

That led to an elevator that went up, and they stopped at the second floor. Here, they entered one of the two proposed rooms, only to find a Mr. Frosty awaiting them. Kirby immediately flew at him and cut him with his sharp feathers, followed by Sweetie punching him all over the body with a Vulcan Jab, beating him before he had time to throw his ice block. That made a Maxim Tomato appear, and Sweetie took it in her magic. The second room had a Jukid. Beating him made a biscuit appear.

Walking back to the elevator, they reached the third floor, with two more rooms.

"Let me guess, we will have to beat more of those guys until we find the one making the door appear? Like in the previous world?"

Kirby shrugged at her with an expression that said, "Seems like it."

In the end, the door was defended by a Bonkers in the fourth floor. Seeing this was the door leading to the guardian, they ate the tomato released by the Frosty before entering it.

This led them inside a factory and... Wait... Are these Heavy Lobsters they saw in these containers? There were dozens! Thankfully, they were deactivated. But, at this moment, they heard something falling behind them, and when they looked, they saw a silver Heavy Lobster ready to crush them. Jumping back, they readied themselves.

"We have gotten better since then. I'm sure we can destroy it without problem this time."

"Poyo."

The Heavy Lobster opened one of its claws and shot a mini-lobster at them. Kirby flew up to avoid it while Sweetie took her whip, wrapped it around the mini-lobster, and sent it back to the Heavy Lobster who then charged at her. The bridge they were on not being large enough to jump out of the way, Sweetie was forced to use a shield to protect herself. That was however not enough to protect her, and her shield was destroyed before she was rammed into a wall. Kirby attacked the Lobster by sending sharp feathers to stop it from attacking Sweetie and was able to gain its attention, the Lobster sending fire at him. Sweetie quickly took the occasion to send a Giga Force Blast at the Lobster, sending it on its back.

Seeing that Sweetie was disadvantaged, not being able to fly, he landed on her back, hoping that it will do what he thought it will do.

And yes it happened: wings appeared on her back. At that, Sweetie gasped.

"OH MY GOSH! Does this mean I'm an alicorn now?!"

"Poyo!" Kirby interrupted her, pointing at the Lobster going up.

"Oh, right!"

The Lobster going back on its feet, she flapped her wings and was able to fly away from the bridge. Thanks again the Ability giving her instant knowledge of how to use it, or else, she would have probably crashed.

She then avoided barely a mini-lobster sent at her and she counterattacked by sending a charged beam at the Lobster. It attacked again by sending more mini-lobsters in rapid succession, forcing her to fly around it while approaching it. Avoiding one of its claws, Sweetie then charged her energy into her hooves while Kirby sent his sharp feathers at one of the eyes of the Lobster. Once she charged enough energy, she then started to throw her hooves forward at a great speed, sending powerful shockwaves hitting the Lobster all over its body, causing dents to appears all over it.

"Take my Meteor Jabs, you piece of junk!"

The Lobster didn't admit defeat and was able to grab the filly in one of its claws, trying to crush her. Kirby then flew from her back, went around the Lobster, and used one of his wings to cut at its left eye, damaging it to the point that it stopped flashing red. The Lobster dropped Sweetie Belle and immediately slammed its claw on Kirby, sending him crashing into a wall, but that gave Sweetie time to go behind it and send a Force Blast into its reactor, causing it to explode. The Lobster turned to her and retaliated by kicking her, sending her hitting a wall. Kirby came back and was able this time to cut its right eye, making it stop flashing red too.

Kirby then helpped Sweetie getting up and went on her back, giving her wings again. The filly quickly flew out of here, avoiding a mini-lobster as the now blind Heavy Lobster went on a rampage, sending mini-lobster everywhere. She took one in her whip, went behind the Lobster, and threw the mini-lobster at the remains of its reactor, destroying more of it and opening a small hole. The Lobster turned around and shot fire at her position but she flew out of the way and went back again behind the Lobster, charging another Giga Force Blast. Throwing it at the hole that remained after the destruction of the reactor, the blast reached important mechanisms inside the robot, finally destroying it, the robot falling in pieces.

"Yay! We did it! We destroyed a Heavy Lobster!" Sweetie shouted in joy.

"Poyo!" Kirby suddenly yelled, pointing at the remains of the robot, arcs of electricity appearing everywhere on some of its pieces.

"Oh oh..."

As quickly as she could, she spotted the door to the Fountain of Dreams and flew through it just as the remains of the Heavy Lobster exploded, the explosion engulfing the whole room, reaching the other Heavy Lobsters.

---

They could see the resulting explosion from the Fountain of Dreams in the sky not far from the factory, taking the form of a giant fiery mushroom that went high in the sky, and destroying a great portion of the area around it, probably destroying at the same occasion the buildings they crossed to enter the factory.

While she remained to look in awe at so much destruction caused by her, Kirby took the power from the fountain, readying them to go from this world.

"Well, at least Kirby, I don't think we will encounter another Heavy Lobster anytime soon," Sweetie then said, giggling slowly.

"Poyo," the puffball replied, creating a new Warp Star.

As they started to fly up in the sky to leave the world, Sweetie spoke again. "It seems like Meta Knight has come to this world before. Between the doors, the Heavy Lobster, or the electrified floor, he probably used this world's technology to build the Halberd. I wonder how he has been able to come here."

Kirby answered her by flapping his wings.

"His bat wings? He can go in space with them?" Then it clicked in her mind. "Oh right. We can breathe in space, so all he has to do is fly in space until he reaches this world."

Kirby nodded.

...

"I really hope he is not preparing another plan to take over Dream Land..."

---

They got close to the next planet which seemed to be a big rock divided in two parts: the south was surrounded by clouds, and the north was surrounded by millions of small yellow stars. The whole thing was turning around itself rapidly, but the clouds were turning in the opposite direction.

They approached by the north, only for the Warp Star to hit one of the stars and explode, sending them flying and bouncing on a few other stars before Kirby was able to stabilize himself with his wings and took the filly on his back.

"Thank you Kirby. I didn't think that these stars were that solid, some of them are hollow."

"Poyo."

"Here is a door," Sweetie Belle pointed a little at their left. Surprisingly, the door was not black but white, but seeing this whole world seemed dark, in the end, it was no wonder.

Taking it, they were teleported to the south part of the world, on the surface. They could tell because of the strong wind suddenly pushing them. With the help of his Wing Ability, Kirby was able to use it to rapidly fly them above countless of creatures, Scarfys, Bio Sparks, Grizzos, Bronto Burts, or even Bombers. They quickly reached a section where Kirby had to slalom between floating electrified blocks, not easy between the enemies harassing them and the wind, and they were shocked more than once, but they were able to pass it and reach the door.

They were now in the north part of this world, walking on yellow stars, and...

"Minecarts!" Sweetie Belle shouted, immediately jumping in the one in front of her.

"Poyo!" Kirby followed, joining her.

Like in the fire planet, Sweetie used her magic to propel them, gaining speed and ramming enemies until they crashed into a wall of stars. Luckily, there was another minecart above them, only for this one to not go far except leading them above a small hole with a Star Block. Destroying it, they discovered a door leading to a room with a few Simirrors, creatures whose bodies were totally hidden under a mage outfit constituted of a robe and a wizard hat with a star. They just could see their hands, one of them wearing a wand, and feet. With the wand, they could create mirrors to attack their enemies, create illusions, or to deflect projectiles.

Kirby decided to eat one of them to gain their Ability that could be useful in this world against all those powerful enemies. It gave him a two-colored blue jester hat with some parts made of mirrors and a wand with a diamond-shaped head. He then jumped on Sweetie, not changing much her appearance outside of giving her a reflecting mane and tail, but it gave her the possibility to create similar mirrors from her horn, far more useful than her simple shield.

Going back in the previous area, they took another minecart above the previous one, this one crushing a wooden stake that opened the way. One fun ride later and the minecart led them right in front of a door. Before taking it, they ate the food not far to heal the damage from the electric blocks from the previous area.

The door teleported them beside a small Warp Star at the start of a tunnel made of stars. Taking it, they were able to traverse the whole area, Sweetie taking a Maxim Tomato on the way with her magic, before they crashed on a wall of stars, finding themselves facing a Chef Kawasaki and an Iron Mam at the same time. Kirby took on the chef, sending sharps mirrors at him from Sweetie's back, while the filly attacked the Iron Mam with more mirrors. The chef threw plates at her only for Sweetie to take them in her magic, dodging one of Iron Mam's attacks, before throwing the plates in her face followed by a charged beam. Kirby then warned her about something, and she jumped to her right, avoiding the chef's ladle, the chef instead grabbing the Iron Mam who ended up in his cauldron.

"Aaah! Sorry!" he shouted, before a whip was suddenly wrapped around the cauldron. Sweetie made it do a loop around her before sending it at the chef's head, spilling the soup and knocking him out alongside the Iron Mam, making a door appear.

This led them to the south part of the planet, at the bottom of a small mountain, with wind pushing them up. Using it to fly, they avoided the Scarfys, the Gordos, and the Shotzos in the way, using the mirrors to defend themselves when needed, until reaching a floating water section inside of a tunnel where they ended up reaching the door to the guardian.

Eating a floating Maxim Tomato beside the entrance, they advanced until they were stopped by three floating windows opening in front of them: one big rectangular at the top, one smaller under it, and a last even smaller rectangular one at the left.

The second window then showed a new figure, a human magician with a blue mage outfit, a red bow, and a magician staff in his left hand. What a shock that had been to see that there were actual humans in Dream Land, even befriending one of them, a girl named Adeleine that loved to paint. She could even give life to her paintings! So knowing that, she had no problems recognizing what this magician was.

Text appeared in the first window:

A Magician appears!

And the third window showed:

HP: 080

This made Sweetie giggle. "It looks like one of Button Mash's video games."

The magicien suddenly got out of the second window and the first showed:

Kirby and Sweetie Belle attack!

Sweetie and Kirby raised an eyebrow at this until they understood that it was the moment to attack. So they shot a few mirrors toward the magician until he went back in the window where he couldn't be attacked anymore.

The Magician takes 60 damage!

HP: 020

"So we are fighting a video game? That's the weirdest fight ever."

The Magician casts a fire spell!

"Horsefeather!"

She quickly raised a mirror shield before her and Kirby, just in time to not be burned by flames thrown from the staff of the magician at them.

Sweetie Belle raises her and Kirby's defense!

"Alright, once I go back in Equestria, I will tell Button Mash that no, real life video games aren't funny! Not when you can be hurt!"

Kirby and Sweetie Belle attack!

"It's our turn! Quick!"

"Poyo!"

A few mirrors later.

You beat the Magician!

"Yay!"

Then, a new figure appeared in the second window, bigger than the magician. This revealed to be a human dark knight with purple armor, horns on his helmet, red glowing eyes, a rather big sword, and a red shield with a skull.

An Evil Knight appears!

HP: 180

"How many will we have to fight?"

Kirby and Sweetie Belle attack!

As soon as the knight touched the floor, Sweetie sent a Force Blast while Kirby threw a few mirrors.

The Evil Knight takes 120 damage!

HP: 060

The Evil Knight throws knifes!

The knight then threw knifes at Sweetie, only for the filly to run to avoid them.

Kirby and Sweetie Belle avoid the attack!

Kirby and Sweetie Belle attack!

Sweetie used that to attack the knight with a Vulcan Jabs while Kirby threw a mirror copy of himself to him, finally making the knight explode.

You beat the Evil Knight!

Thinking that it was not finished, Sweetie prepared a Giga Force Blast and Kirby prepared his wand. They did well, because the next enemy appeared: a big, brown colored dragon. Not one like the Ice Dragon! No! A REAL dragon, like in Equestria!

Sweetie gulped.

A Great Dragon appears!

HP: 250

"Alright, that's not so bad."

The Great Dragon gets the first attack!

"Oh! come on!!!"

"Poyo!" Kirby jumped in front of Sweetie Belle and put a big mirror shield in front of them. Thanks to that, the filly didn't have to stop her attack.

The Great Dragon slashes with talons!

The dragon slashed toward them with one of his claws. Kirby braced himself and intercepted the claw with his mirror, only to be sent flying by the strength of the dragon breaking the mirror.

Kirby blocks the attack!

Kirby takes damage!

Sweetie didn't move her eyes from the dragon, she knew that Kirby will be alright. It wasn't that that will seriously hurt him.

Kirby and Sweetie Belle attacks!

She threw the Giga Force Blast at the dragon and continued with using both her whip and her beams, quickly helped by Kirby when he came back, attacking with mirrors.

The Great Dragon takes 200 damage!

HP: 050

The Great Dragon breaths fire!

They ran out of the way of the fire, Sweetie getting the end of her tail and her cape a little burned.

Kirby and Sweetie Belle avoid the attack!

Kirby and Sweetie Belle attack!

The two of them ended this fight by shooting a charged beam and mirrors, making the dragon explode.

You beat the Great Dragon!

Kirby and Sweetie Belle defeated all the enemies!

"Yay! Finally!"

"Poyo!"

You gained 156 EXP! (Not that it matters.)
Your Kindness went up by 2!
Your Maturity went up by 4!
Your Eye Sparkle went up by 3!
Your Roundness went up by 2!

"What?"

The third window disappeared.

Your Heroism went up by1 !

The second window disappeared too.

Your Love went up by 3!

And the last window disappeared, ending this whole crazy nonsense. The door then appeared.

"Oookaaaay..."

"Poyo," Kirby said, waving at her to forget about it and go toward the door.

"Yeah... Still, that was the weirdest thing in my life, and I saw many weird things."

---

Kirby got the power of the Fountain, and then, a smile formed on his face before he started to jump in joy, repeating, "Poyo! Poyo!"

"What?"

"Poyo!" he waved at her.

Sweetie stared at him, until, "Wait. Are you saying we have the necessary power to invoke Nova?"

"Poyo!" he nodded.

"Oh my gosh! Yes!" She took Kirby's arms, and they started to jump together. "We did it Kirby! We did it! We will see Nova!"

Kirby then stopped jumping and created a new Warp Star before waving at her.

"Yay!" They jumped on the Warp Star. As they went up in the sky, Sweetie asked herself, "I wonder how he looks? How will he stop the sun and the moon from fighting? Will he become our friend? Ooh! I'm so excited!"

---

"Ho ho ho ho ho! They have done it. I knew they would succeed. Now, it's my time! Ohh ho ho ho ho!"

Author's Notes:

For the Heavy Lobster, remember how the one we destroy in the Halberd cause the destruction of the right wing? Then did you ever wonder what happens when we destroy this other Heavy Lobster INSIDE A HEAVY LOBSTER FACTORY ? Exactly. And yes, this is a Heavy Lobster factory, look at the background during the fight, you can clearly see Heavy Lobsters.

Chapter 23: Nova and the Traitor

Now possessing the power of all the Fountains of Dreams, Kirby and Sweetie Belle left the dark world behind, going deep into space. A few minutes later, they finally stopped in the middle of nowhere, and Kirby separated the Warp Star into eight stars of different colors of the rainbow that started to spin around both him and Sweetie as they floated in the void.

"Oh boy... Oh boy..."

The filly was beyond excited at this point. They were about to invoke Nova! A being so powerful that he could stop the fight between the sun and the moon! He will probably be as powerful as Celestia, maybe even more! She could feel her heart about to explode!

The stars then flew away far into space, until reaching a single point that illuminated everything around, almost blinding them. And then, with lightning bolts flashing around, he appeared, and Sweetie's jaw dropped.

He was HUGE!!! About half the size of Popstar! He looked like a giant yellow pocket watch, the center looking like a sun with a red shooting star above his right eye, while there was a hole above his left eye, showing a giant gear. All around him were various giant items, in clockwise: a weather vane, several gears, a telescope, a wind-up key, a drafting compass (beside his cat-like mouth), a globe, two atomic tubes, a grandfather clock pendulum (at the bottom), a pocket watch without numbers and its hands bent (at the other side of the mouth), a triangular ruler, a chain, several piano keys, a compass, and a light bulb. Sweetie would ask herself why there were all these objects, or why he had the mouth of a cat, but she was too occupied by being amazed to be concerned about this.

Because, this was him.

Nova.

A giant, planet-sized clockwork comet.

And he talked. "READY." He then looked at them. "I WILL GRANT YOU ONE WISH..."

Sweetie's jaw dropped even further. He can grant wishes? That's beyond powerful! He could help me go back home! But... We have to ask him to stop the fight between the sun and the moon... She sighed, only to smile just after. We can always invoke him again.

Kirby opened his mouth, about to make the wish in his poyo language, but then...

Someone came and kicked him into Sweetie, sending them away.

And they heard a familiar voice shout, "Well, I want to control Popstar!"

What?

They looked back at the being who kicked them away, stealing their wish, and saw than it was none other than him.

Marx.

"OK," Nova said, closing his eyes.

Oh no! He will grant his wish!

"3... 2... 1..." He started shaking before he opened his eyes, emitting a great light from them, saying, "GO!"

Everything flashed for a moment, and when they could see again, Nova was flying away, seeing that his back had four nozzles making him move. When they followed the direction he took, they recognized, far away, the star of Popstar.

"I did it!" Marx shouted, the jester floating beside them, watching them in victory. "It all went according to plan! I got the sun and moon to fight. I got you to go into space..."

"What?"

Light suddenly emitted from Marx, and in a few seconds, they could see him transform. Big yellow bat-like wings appeared at his sides with two sharp claws that looked like fangs jutting out of them and also a red heart. Rather than skin under the wings, there were flashing mirror-like, multicolored, hexagon-shaped scales. As for Marx himself, he was a little bigger, his eyes were now huge, with big black pupils that looked in opposite directions, and his mouth was larger with two fangs. His bow was almost undone, and his shoes were now round at the end.

"It was all according to my perfect little plan!"

Sweetie looked at him with pain and betrayal, tears in her eyes. How could he deceive them like that? So all this time, all those pranks, making them laugh, being friendly and all, it was false? Just him playing them?

Was it what Rarity and her friends felt when Discord betrayed them for Tirek?

He continued talking as he started to fly away toward Popstar. "So now Popstar is mine! All mine! Now I can cause all the mischief I want! Haha! See you later!"

Sweetie ground her teeth in rage. "We will stop you! You will pay for betraying us! You hear that, YOU JERK?! YOU WILL PAY!!" Sweetie shouted.

"I would like to see that!" he replied back, laughing crazily.

"What do we do Kirby?" she asked, looking at the pink ball.

Kirby looked back at her for a moment before closing his eyes and taking her hoof. The next instant, the colored stars reappeared around them before engulfing them in a rainbow light, forcing Sweetie to close her eyes. When she opened them, she found herself now behind Kirby in a flying chariot with a yellow star at the front and white-blue streamers for walls. She was awed at this.

Immediately, Kirby took control of the starship and flew at the pursuit of Nova.

"How will we stop him? He is so big!"

"Poyo!"

It took them a few minutes to catch up to Nova close to Popstar, only to witness an unbelievable spectacle: the sun and moon working together to push him back! They stopped their fight to protect the world! They couldn't help but smile at seeing this, giving them the occasion to go in front of Nova and find a way to stop him for good. Kirby then led them inside Nova, passing by the hole above his left eye.

"We are going to destroy his core?" Sweetie asked.

"Poyo," he nodded.

"But... This will kill him..." she said sadly.

"Poyo..."

"We have no choice, uh?"

"Poyo." He shook his head, making Sweetie sigh.

Now in their way to Nova's core, they were attacked by many defenses trying to stop them, like cylinder-shaped blue missiles, some sort of discs with spikes and blue fins, or dome-shaped gun turrets, all coming in great numbers from all directions. Kirby did everything he could to avoid being hit by all these defenses, maneuvering to dodge them, or shooting them with star-shaped projectiles from the starship. Sweetie helped him, either by shooting beams, or placing a magical shield around the ship.

One wave of missiles came from below, and Kirby shot them while he dodged the projectiles from a turret that Sweetie destroyed. Discs came from the left, then the right, followed my more missiles from above. They slalomed between giant gears to avoid them, shot a few missiles coming from in front, shielded from a few turrets on giant cylinders left and up right. They were hit by a disc coming from behind, then they dodged the ones that followed, and Sweetie shot another turret and a few other missiles coming from up left.

They avoided things that looked like circular saws and passed beside giant ball-things with blue glowing lines on them while avoiding more missiles coming from up, down, left, and right by accelerating. Discs tried to force them to crash into the numerous obstacles in the way with more and more saws, and less and less space to fly, before they entered a small tunnel, leading them to their destination: the core.

They were now in a huge room where the main colors were grey metal and purple. The core itself was heart-shaped, spinning counterclockwise and floating inside a forcefield between two giant machines above and below, the machines themselves each surrounded by three rings parallel. All around at the edge of the room of the core were eight clusters of red, blue, green and yellow spheres floating up and down between moving pillars. Kirby immediately shot at one of the clusters of spheres, destroying them and a part of the pillars above and below them.

Nova didn't seem to like it because the pillars started to move faster, giving Kirby a hard time to target the spheres. Sweetie helped him again, shooting her beams at the spheres. A second cluster was destroyed, then a third. Nova suddenly stopped the pillars and made them move the other way, almost making Kirby crashes into one of them. Three more clusters were destroyed, and now Nova was getting desperate, moving the pillars erratically back and forth, making them unpredictable. But this just delayed the inevitable, because without anything trying to stop them beside the pillars themselves almost making them crash a few times, they eventually destroyed the last two clusters, destroying the forcefield around the heart.

The heart vulnerable, both Kirby and Sweetie shot at it until electricity surrounded it as the heart fell and hit the machine below. Seeing it was about to explode, Kirby did a U-turn and took the way back to get out of here, followed by the sound of the heart exploding, and the explosion itself following them, getting closer. Going as fast as they could, they were able to get out of Nova just before the explosion reached them, causing the hole above Nova's left eye to become bigger and sending the giant gear flying into space, forcing him to close his left eye and stopping his advance toward Popstar.

Outside of Nova, the starship disappeared to reform the colored stars, giving Kirby back his Warp Star. To Sweetie's surprise, they left her with her very own Warp Star, flying beside Kirby!

They had no time to wonder about it because they spotted Marx flying toward a giant asteroid, and they followed him, not taking long for Sweetie to understand that her Warp Star worked with her thoughts. However, she was flying slower than Kirby, not yet used to it and not wanting to take risks.

They both reached the asteroid and crashed on it, Sweetie now understanding that it wasn't easy to land with a Warp Star. She could forgive Kirby for all the times they crashed.

"You have been able to stop Nova," the voice of Marx said behind them, causing them to turn around to face him as he flew, glaring at them. "But I don't need him anymore. With the power he gave me, I will be enough to control Popstar. But first, I will show you that you can't stop me ! Prepare to die!" he shouted, following that by a crazy laugh before disappearing.

Kirby readied the wand of his Mirror Ability while Sweetie took her whip and lit her horn to charge a beam, both of them looking around. Marx reappeared not far at Sweetie's left, and she shot her beam at him, only for him to teleport above her and Kirby and send crescent blades that Kirby countered with his mirror. Marx teleported again, avoiding the projectiles sent back to him, and threw more blades. Sweetie ran between the blades and cracked her whip, but Marx teleported again, this time behind Kirby, and threw a third wave of blades. One of them cut the puffball only for him to counterattack, turning around and sending mirrors, some of them hitting Marx before he teleported away.

Marx reappeared between them and flew up in the sky, suddenly making raining a dozen seeds all over the battlefield. Sweetie and Kirby were able to dodge them only for dark branches of energy to sprout out of the ground where the seeds planted themselves, almost hitting Sweetie Belle who had been about to walk on one of these spots. Sweetie then saw a big shadow appear under her, and before she could understand what was happening, Marx popped out of the shadow and sent her flying. Marx came back only to be hit again by more mirrors of Kirby, and he counterattacked by sending a stream of arrows at him that he ran away from, the stream following him with Marx laughing.

The whip hit him from behind, stopping his attack, and he turned around to see Sweetie before he teleported one, two, three times around her and threw more of his blades at her, then at Kirby, then at Sweetie again. Dodging the blades, Sweetie was able to hit Marx with a beam before he teleported above Kirby, spitting some sort of bomb on him. Kirby ran out of the way only for the bomb to explode and send ice balls all around it, one of them hitting Kirby and freezing him while Sweetie jumped above. At least, Sweetie was able to hit him a few more times with her beams.

Two teleportations later, he appeared farther away, and his eyes suddenly became all black, and black blobs fell of them and bounced from the floor toward them. They dodged them only for the blobs to follow them, forcing them to run around a few more times. Sweetie wrapped her whip around Kirby and sent him toward Marx, but the jester disappeared just before the puffball reached him, and he reappeared beside his trajectory, spitting a giant laser right at him, badly hurting Kirby and knocking the Mirror out of him.

While Kirby recovered the Mirror, Marx went back to Sweetie and shot more arrows at her, only for her to jump and send a Force Blast at him, sending him back. He then teleported a dozen times around both Kirby and Sweetie Belle until he stopped, facing both of them. His eyes suddenly grew bigger, to the point that they protruded out of their pockets, forming big white balls with many pupils appearing all over them, and they shot small lasers all over the place, the lasers moving around. Sweetie and Kirby were both able to dodge the lasers, jumping between them, slightly disgusted by the attack, and they reached Marx before attacking him with the whip and the mirrors until he teleported away again.

He teleported once and spat another ice bomb, and the two jumped above the ice balls. He teleported again and he flew up, sending his seeds to the floor, only for it to be for nothing. He then teleported between them, and he suddenly retracted his wings, spreading in their places countless red veins, one of them grazing Sweetie and burning her a little while Kirby counterattacked by throwing mirror images of him at Marx. Sweetie attacked him too a few times with her whip while sending a beam.

Marx ground his teeth and teleported away, making a shadow appear under Kirby. The puffball ran around, followed by the shadow, but he was able to avoid Marx getting out of it, and Sweetie punched him just as he got out, sending him back on the floor where he took a charged beam from the filly and some mirrors from the pink ball.

"RRAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!" he suddenly yelled, the area around them glowing red, blue, and green a few times until it stopped. Marx then teleported again and reappeared between the two heroes. "Why..." He threw his blades that were dodged, and teleported. "Won't..." He spat his laser at Sweetie, here again dodged, the filly seeing it coming. He teleported. "You..." The black blobs. One of them hit Kirby from behind, but Marx took damage from a beam. He teleported. "DIE?!" He split himself in two, to both Kirby and Sweetie's surprise, and A BLACK HOLE appeared between the two halves. They ran away from it as it tried to suck them in before it disappeared and Marx reappeared. Seeing that the black hole hadn't worked, he started shaking in rage.

"Because we will not fail!" Sweetie shouted, wrapping her whip around him and pulling at it, forcing him to approach her, right into her hoof, sending him back. She pulled again, and Marx took another punch, another pull, another punch, until he had enough and was able to teleport away, only to be attacked almost as soon as he reappeared by Kirby's mirrors. Flying away, he threw blades at him only for Kirby to deflect them with his mirror shield, getting Marx hit by his own attack, before taking a Force Blast in the back. He then started teleporting erratically everywhere, throwing one attack after another, turning the battlefield into chaos as it flashed red, green and blue again and again, showing how much Marx was now straining his power to the maximum to beat them. Dodging all these attacks was almost impossible, and Kirby and Sweetie were hit many times as they ran left and right.

"You have to fail! I have been given the ultimate power by Nova himself! I can't lose to simple beings like you! You will die! And the whole world will become my playground!"

Seeing the battle getting desperate, both for them and for Marx, Sweetie quickly got beside Kirby and whispered something to him. Kirby nodded at her idea and he jumped on her back, giving her the Mirror Ability. Jumping out of the way of a laser, she then threw a Force Blast at Marx, only to miss him as he teleported. But then, a mirror appeared in the way of the blast and deflected it. Dodging some blades followed by a stream of arrows, Sweetie shot another blast right at the first one, the two blasts fusing to get bigger and more powerful. Kirby made another mirror appear in the way of the blast and deflected it again.

What followed was Sweetie throwing dozens of blasts everywhere, trying to hit Marx, only for him to teleport out of the way, but each times, she and Kirby would make a mirror appear and deflect the blast. After a moment, dozens of blasts were flying around the battlefield, deflected by mirrors, merging, or hitting Marx even if he tried to teleport to avoid them and attack Sweetie and Kirby again. One of the blasts eventually became really huge, result of the fusion of many blasts, until it became four times bigger than Sweetie. The filly then charged a Giga Force Blast.

She shouted, "Hey Marx! I have a question!"

Marx stopped teleporting, curious. "Yes?"

She jumped right beside him, smirking. "Why did you stop?"

And she threw the Giga Force Blast at him at close range, hitting him and sending him flying. Before he could recover, he found himself in the path of the giant Blast, deflected by another mirror below him created by Kirby, and he impacted it, the giant ball of energy flying up, up, up into space, carrying him with it.

The ball, with Marx, flew right toward Nova's hole, and the planet-sized clockwork soon exploded in the biggest explosion ever, illuminating the sky for almost a whole minute as the various objects composing him were blown away into space.

Seeing they won, Kirby and Sweetie hugged each other, jumping, and the filly shouting, "We won! We did it!" and the ball shouting, "Poyo! Poyo!" before they let themselves fall on their back on the floor, looking at the sky that became little by little black again.

They remained here, just laughing, for a few minutes, before Sweetie finally talked. "That was the craziest thing ever!"

"Poyo," Kirby said, nodding.

"We... We beat... This guy had powers that could have rivaled Princess Celestia, and yet, we beat him! In a fight! Not even using an artefact like against Dark Matter!"

"Poyo."

"And we caused the destruction of a machine the size of a small planet! Kirby, am I dreaming?"

Kirby punched her on the foreleg.

"Ow! No, I'm not dreaming..." She giggled before stopping, losing her smile. "But this also means that I killed someone... I don't think that Marx survived such an explosion." She took Kirby in her arms and hugged him. "I killed him... Kirby... What does that make me?"

"Poyo..." Kirby looked at her sadly, before pointing at himself. "Poyo."

"That makes me... like you?"

He nodded.

"Right... You killed Dark Matter back then. Even if he was a being of darkness, he still was someone. So... Is it part of being a hero? Sometime having to kill the bad guy for the better of everyone?" She then remembered something that Meta Knight said. "Having to take hard decision, to do what is right?"

He nodded.

"Will I have to kill again in the future?"

He shrugged.

She looked back toward the sky.

---

Sweetie was walking on a road, exploring some part of Dream Land a little farther of the castle. Sometime, an inhabitant of Dream Land, half the time a Waddle Dee, would pass beside her, some of them waving at her, and she would wave back.

"Hey, hey, hey! Are you new around? I never saw you before!" a new voice said behind her. Sweetie turned around and discovered a strange little guy hopping on a ball and wearing a jester hat.

"Yes. I arrived in Dream Land not long ago after an accident, and I now live in Dedede's castle. My name is Sweetie Belle, what is yours?"

"My name is Marx, nice meeting you. I would like to shake your hoof but like you see, I don't have a hand to shake it."

This made Sweetie giggle.

---

"What are you doing Marx?"

"I'm about to do an imitation! Look!" He took a balloon and inhaled the helium in it. He then started to talk in a squeaky voice. "Hello everyone! My name is Sweetie Belle, and I'm adorable!"

This caused Sweetie's cheeks to puff, trying to hold back her laughter. "S-stop it!"

"S-stop it!" he repeated.

"Stop talking like me!"

"Stop talking like me!"

Sweetie thought a moment, before saying, "I'm stupid!"

"You're stupid!"

Sweetie glared at him before laughing loudly, followed by Marx.

---

"Woah! You can really give life to your painting!" Sweetie Belle said, seeing the painted Waddle Dee moving around.

"That's right!" the human girl with a green smock and a red beret, Adeleine, replied. "I can paint anything and make them real!"

"That's so cool!"

"I have the same power!" a familiar voice shouted.

Adeleine facepalmed. "Oh no... Not him..."

"Oh! Hey! Marx!" Sweetie shouted, waving at the approaching Marx with a paintbrush in his mouth.

"Look! With this paintbrush, I can make a red Adeleine!"

"Really? How?"

"Like this!" He jumped toward Adeleine and swung his brush a few times on her face. When he jumped back, Adeleine had now a black mustache, black fangs on her mouth, and black big eyebrows that frowned above her eyes.

Adeleine took a mirror and saw what Marx did. Her face immediately turned red and she screamed, "You jerk!" before chasing Marx who was running away laughing loudly.

Sweetie rolled on the floor laughing.

---

Sweetie started to cry. "Why... Why has he done this? Why did he betray us? Why did he try to take over Popstar? He was my friend... Kirby... It hurts... It hurts..."

"Poyo..."

---

One hour later, the two of them were flying back toward Popstar, each on their own Warp Star, Sweetie getting used of it. Any other time, she would laugh and have the time of her life.

But now...

They passed the atmosphere of the planet, seeing the sun back at its place, about to set, and no moon trying to push it away. They flew above Dream Land, taking in the view, taking their time to return home. Kirby then saw his house and waved at Sweetie, and she waved back at him, saying goodbye to him with a small smile. The ball then dove toward his house... and crashed beside it. She giggled a little. At least, she could count on Kirby.

It wasn't long before she reached Dedede's castle. She went down toward the entrance, only to not stop in time, and she crashed through the doors, startling the guards beside them as she ended up on her face. She groaned, slowly getting up, and looked around her at the guards with a sheepish smile.

"Sorry everyone. I'm getting used to my new Warp Star."

Author's Notes:

Yes, I have given Marx his attacks from Smash Bros Ultimate, I wanted to give him some more power, knowing that some of his attacks are rather limited in a 3D environment.

This ends Kirby Super Star Ultra for now. For the ones who ask:
The Great Cave Offensive happened, but only Kirby got this adventure, so it happened off screen.
Dyna Blade happened off screen too, as stated before the attack on the Halberd.
Meta Knightmare will not happen.
The Revenge of the King... will happen later, much later. I have a special spot for this one.
The arenas obviously will not happen.
As for the mini-games... Well... Kirby almost splitting Popstar in two with a punch... As much as Kirby is awesome, I don't think he is THAT awesome, or he would beat the bosses with just one punch. The mini-games may happen in one of the slice of life chapters, but it will be within reason.

I also always wondered why Kirby was going to Popstar's Fountain of Dream, and yet there was only 7 stars at the end rather than 8.

Chapter 24: Doing What is Right

"YOU DESTROYED NOVA?!!"

Sweetie was almost blown away by the loud roar of King Dedede. She then hid herself partly behind the table, only letting half of her head poking out.

"Uh... Yes..."

"Nova... THE Galactic Nova... Destroyed..." Dedede said in disbelief.

"I... I know he was a big deal around here... But I didn't have a choice. He was helping Marx trying to conquer Popstar. He would have probably repaired himself and resumed his assault if I hadn't done it." She looked at the floor. "I'm sorry..."

Dedede took a deep breath. "Don't be. You have done what you thought was the right thing to do and saved all of us. And frankly, I would have probably done the same thing in your place. Still..." He slammed a hand on the table. "Curse that Marx! If you hadn't already blown him up with Nova, I would have gone clobber him to next week!"

"I still don't believe that Marx played us all this time," Waddle Dee said. "He was so friendly!"

"It shows that not every person we trust are reliable. Maybe someone in this very room is a traitor biding their time," Cape Knight said.

At this, the guards and servants around the table looked at each others in suspicion.

Dedede then yelled, "I hope for them that no! Or else..." He slammed his hammer on the table, breaking it, making everyone gulp.

Sweetie looked at the broken table, sweating , and slowly said, "IIIIII'm... going into my room. After this adventure and this fight against Marx, I need rest. And... I also need some alone time."

Dedede looked at her expressionless, then said, "Alright. I will even give you free time tomorrow. I can see you have many things to think about."

"Thank you your majesty."

"But."

"Yes?"

"Don't feel guilty about Marx. You have done the right thing."

Sweetie remained silent for a few seconds before replying. "I know... But it's still hard. Knowing that I have killed someone. Two, counting Nova."

Dedede sighed. "Just go."

Everyone watched her as she left the room. Then Waddle Dee said, "Should we really leave her alone?"

"She just needs some time to get over this," Dedede replied. "She now understand that the path she took, protecting Dream Land and Popstar, involves sometime bloodying her hooves. Now, she has to accept that."

"For her, it must be even harder, knowing that she is a child coming from a people extremely pacifist," Cape Knight said. "The idea of killing, even to save the world, must be sickening. But at least, this shows that she isn't a monster."

---

She couldn't sleep.

Sweetie was in her room, on her bed. Outside, it was the middle of the night, the moon was high in the sky, and the stars sparkled. Not a sound was heard, everyone was sleeping.

But not her. She just couldn't.

She saved the world, but for that, she had had to kill someone. As far as she knew, even her sister and her friends hadn't killed any of the bad guys they fought.

Nightmare Moon was purified into Princess Luna.

Discord was petrified.

The changelings were thrown away by the love barrier.

Sombra... Nopony was really sure about him. All they were sure was that he was disintegrated by the Crystal Heart.

Tirek was sent back into Tartarus.

But here...

Dedede was thrown through the roof of the castle.

Nightmare exploded with a part of the moon.

Dark Matter exploded too after one too many cut from the Rainbow Sword.

Meta Knight was able to escape the Halberd.

And now, Marx was sent into Nova who exploded.

So far, half the bad guys they fought were killed, and she had a role in the last one's death. What did that mean? Twilight and the others could find a way to (almost) always spare their enemies, but here in Dream Land, Dream Land, they couldn't? Had there even been a way to spare Nightmare, Dark Matter, and Marx? So far, she couldn't think of anything.

Nightmare would have continued to try plunging the world in an eternal nightmare, he had just been evil, and the only means to stop him had been the Star Rod that killed him, not sealed him. Not every artefacts were ones that sealed or locked like the Elements. And he had been too powerful to be imprisoned the normal way, and Dream Land didn't seem to possess any special prison like Tartarus.

Dark Matter... What he said to Gooey, when he had been possessing Dedede. Feel hurt... For some reason, feelings had been hurting him, and yet, he and Gooey had been of the same species, and Gooey wasn't hurt by the feelings. And if she followed what Gooey said right, then it was Gooey who somehow gained the capacity to feel without being hurt. Could they have done the same thing to Dark Matter? But how... How did Gooey gain the capacity to feel? If only he could talk... Really talk. Beside, in the middle of the fight, it was hard to think of a way to help Dark Matter while trying to not be killed by him. MAYBE there had been a way to spare him, but they didn't have it, or known it. And like Nightmare, they had had to end him.

And Marx. He could have been defeated the normal way without having to use any artefacts, but he had just been too powerful. Despite this giant blast, he would have probably continued the fight if he hadn't been sent into Nova, and they probably would have lost. If they had been stronger, then things could have been different, and they could have beaten him down and talked to him. There must have been a reason why he had wanted to control Popstar, and he hadn't seemed as evil as Nightmare or Dark Matter. He had looked more like Discord. He had been evil, but maybe they could have convinced him to find a better way. Too bad again, no Elements of Harmony to help keeping him in check. And again, in the middle of the fight...

In Dream Land, they just didn't have the means to spare the villains too evil and/or too powerful.

And Sweetie didn't like that.

She decided to get up and go walk outside of the castle. Maybe some fresh air will help her.

---

It was hard to believe that such a peaceful land hid such a hard truth, that villains weren't as easy to spare as in Equestria.

She was walking on a road, passing beside a tree every now and then. It was a little cold, but her cape kept her warm enough to not shake. Nobody was around, she was all alone in this path with her thoughts.

Or, that was, until she heard a familiar voice talking. "You seem to be lost in thought."

She gasped and turned to her right at the source of the voice. There, sitting at the bottom of a tree, was Meta Knight himself, looking at her. "Meta Knight!"

He chuckled at her reaction. "You didn't think you would see me, uh?"

Sweat appeared on the filly's forehead, not sure what to consider Meta Knight. "Well, you have disappeared after our fight, and nobody heard about you or your knights since then."

"And you aren't sure about my intentions. Well, do not worry, I don't intent to attack you. I'm just enjoying a good night by myself. And it seems you are doing the same thing."

"Yeah..." Sweetie answered, looking toward the ground. "I needed some fresh air..." She sighed. "to think about... things." She remained silent for a time, Meta Knight just looking at her without saying anything. She then looked at him. "I killed someone."

"I see... Yes, the first kill is always the hardest. I learned to live with this, knowing that this is part of the path that I chose. And with the path that you chose, it had to happen sooner or later."

"Yes... Now I understand that."

"Who was it?"

"Marx. And if he counts, Nova."

At that, Meta Knight's eyes became bigger behind the mask for the space of one second. "You destroyed Nova? I suppose it has something to do with the chaos that happened yesterday, with the sun and the moon."

"Yes. Marx secretly caused the sun and moon to fight and then asked Kirby to invoke Nova so he could stop them. I helped him finding the Fountains of Dreams of various worlds, passing traps and fighting powerful guardians. By the way, sorry, but we destroyed the Heavy Lobster factory in this futuristic world. I hope you will not mind."

Meta Knight facepalmed. "This just means that I will have to search for something else, or build our Heavy Lobster on our own."

"Anyway, in the end, we were able to invoke Nova only for Marx to steal the wish under our nose. He wished to control Popstar, gaining great powers while Nova started flying toward Popstar. Kirby and I stopped Nova by destroying his core, then we fought Marx, but he was too powerful. In the end, I used a giant Force Blast and, with the help of Kirby, I sent him toward Nova, making it explode with Marx."

Meta Knight nodded. "You have done the right thing."

"That's what everyone is telling me, and that's what I'm telling to myself. But... I can't help myself but think that there could have been a better way."

"Thinking about 'what ifs' will not change what happened. You fought Marx, he was overpowering you, you acted in consequence to ensure that you would not fail, and it means that you had to take a drastic measure. For the same reason that I thought that taking over Dream Land to protect it was the best way, you thought at the time that killing Marx and destroy Nova to protect Popstar was the best way. Sometime, to do the right thing, you have to take hard decision. And it's the harsh trust that every warrior must accept one day. If you do not, then just give up your whip and return to what life you had before taking it."

After a few seconds of silence looking at the ground again, Sweetie said, "I don't like it."

"I never told you to like it. Sometime, the trust hurts. I don't like it either. Kirby doesn't like it either. My knights don't like it either." He sighed. "As crazy as he seemed back then, even Vul doesn't like it." His gaze became harsh. "The ones that like it are the ones that we fight."

Before she could think of a reply, Meta Knight's eyes suddenly turned toward the sky, slightly to his left, before he looked up. Curious, Sweetie followed the direction he was looking at and her jaw dropped in awe. Up there, something was falling from the sky.

"Is that a meteor?" she asked.

"After your fight against Marx, I doubt. It could be a part of Nova. They must be littering the space not far of Popstar."

After he talked, they saw the falling object hitting the ground a few miles from their position. Sweetie then saw Meta Knight getting up and opening his wings.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm going to see what it is, in case it may be dangerous," he answered.

"Then I'm coming, just in case."

Meta Knight only nodded, taking off. He was soon followed by Sweetie Belle on her Warp Star.

"So you got a Warp Star?" he said.

"Yes," she answered. "I got it just after destroying Nova's heart. It has been given to me by the Fountains' power. However, I'm still learning to control it, so I don't dare going too fast."

Nothing more was said. They didn't take much longer to reach the impact area, and saw the smoking crater left by the object. They landed beside it, only for Sweetie to crash again, the filly bouncing on the ground a few times as the Warp Star exploded.

"Urg..." groaned Sweetie, slowly getting up. "I really need to learn how not to crash..."

"It's one of the hardest things to do with a Warp Star, avoid crashing," Meta Knight said, chuckling.

Sweetie groaned again before approaching the crater alongside Meta Knight. The smoke was starting to disperse, letting the two of them see what crashed, and Sweetie gasped.

"Marx?!" she shouted.

Hearing this name, Meta Knight took his sword and got closer, seeing, indeed, the jester himself, face on the ground, burned all over his body with a few scratches. His jester hat somehow survived but had many holes. They heard him groan.

"He has survived?! How?!"

"His powers gained from Nova must have been great enough to protect him from the explosion. But..." He readied his sword. "he is weakened. Let's not pass this occasion to really end him, or he may start again." He then advanced toward the fallen villain.

"Wait..." Sweetie suddenly said.

This got Meta Knight to stop and look at her. "What?"

"I... I understand that this may be best to k... kill him so he doesn't try to take over Popstar again but... Can I try to talk to him before? In his state, I don't think he can do anything to me, and I will keep an eye on him. I just want to understand something first."

Meta Knight looked silently toward her before saying, "You are about to take a big risk."

"I know. But please..."

He sighed and put away his sword. "Alright."

"Thank you."

Sweetie took her whip in her magic and walked toward Marx, stopping just beside him, hearing him groan again. She then slowly turned him on his back, seeing that he had his eyes closed in pain. She looked at him, both in anger and in pity, before sighing.

"Marx?" she called him.

All she got in answer were more groans, but she then saw his eyes starting moving under his eyelids, before they slowly opened. His pupils then turned toward her. "Oh... You..."

They silently stared at each other for a few minutes, nobody saying anything, Meta Knight just looking at them without moving. Sweetie Belle then said one thing, as tears appeared in her eyes.

"Why?"

Marx answered her with more silence, until he laughed, not his crazy laugh, but a pained laugh that still possessed amusement. "Because I want to have fun."

"Didn't you have already fun with us? Like when you imitated me?"

"Oh, I had fun. But not enough. Messing with peoples, doing what I want, without anyone telling me what to do or not to do... The whole world as my playground... without limits... I would have had SO much fun..."

Sweetie sighed. "Even if you end up without friends?"

"I don't need friends to have fun."

"Maybe... But... Let me tell you a story."

"Oh... I love stories."

"It comes from my world, and let me tell you, it's a true story. You see... Long ago, there was a powerful creature. He was so powerful, than in the snap of his fingers, he could do what he wanted, and nobody could stop him. But this creature loved to have fun, and so, using his powers, he made the whole world into his playground. One snap, and the houses were flying. Another, and the roads turned into butter. Another again, and he turned the clouds into cotton candies, and made them rain chocolate milk. He was the master, and nobody could defy him. This creature called himself Discord, the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. And he thought exactly like you, that he didn't need friends to have his fun.

But one day, two sisters were able to gather powerful magical artifacts called the Elements of Harmony, and despite Discord's huge power, he couldn't do anything against them. The Elements turned him into stone, and left him trapped like that for over one thousand year."

"That stinks..." Marx said.

"You have no ideas, and me neither, but I know that he must have been bored to death. However, he eventually was able to escape his prison of stone, and the first thing he did was trying to retake control like before. But yet again, in less than a day this time, he got turned into stone by the Elements, and he could have ended trapped in it for another millenia. But then, something unexpected happened. The sisters, the same ones that imprisoned him the first time, decided to give him a chance, because they knew that deep down, he wasn't truly evil. All he wanted after all, was to have fun. He just had to learn to have fun without messing with the lives of everyone else.

And so, they used the Elements to free him, but he had to avoid going too far, or less he would be turned into stone again, but that still didn't stop him from pranking everyone. And while many saw him as an annoyance, some people tried to befriend him, and despite him, he actually started to care for someone, his first real friend. She accepted his chaos, and would have fun with him, and they would laugh together. In return, he would go with her to do simpler activities, like..." She laughs. "tea parties. And despite these activities not being as chaotic as what he generally did, he still had fun, because he was passing time with a friend. And with time, he got more friends, and more fun. He now uses his chaos to not only make himself laugh, but also to make others laugh, ans seeing others laugh makes him laugh even more.

He may not have as much 'fun' as before, but he now has fun with others, and he learned that this fun is the best fun.

Do you understand Marx? What you told me you wanted to do a few minutes ago, it's exactly what Discord was doing one thousand years ago. You wanted to use your powers to have fun, but it would have been a lonely fun. You already had enough fun with everyone else, with your pranks, with your tricks... But now... You have just lost everything..."

She stopped talking and looked at Marx, in the eyes, expressionless. Marx looked back at her, mouth slightly open, not saying anything.

Then, she smiled. "There is something more in my story. You see, there was that centaure named Tirek that escaped from a special prison for powerful villains, and Discord was tasked to stop him. However, Tirek was able to convince him to help him and betray everyone. In the end, he hurt everyone he was starting to care, only to be betrayed too by Tirek, who didn't need him anymore. Tirek even threatened to kill him, only to be saved by one of the persons he betrayed, and he helped finding a way to beat Tirek and send him back to his prison. After that, despite his betrayal, he was forgiven, and now, he his a friend that we can trust, even if he is annoying.

So Marx..." She took a deep breath. "I don't know about the others but..." She smiled at him. "I would like to give you a second chance, so you can have fun, with me. Oh, and sorry, I would like to give you a hoof so you could use it to get up and shake it, but you don't have a hand to take it."

She smiled widely at him, and he looked at her with wide eyes.

And then, he laughed.

And she laughed too.

Meta Knight still watched, not intervening.

---

Marx fell asleep after a whole minute of laughing. Sweetie took him on her back before returning beside Meta Knight.

"I hope for you, and for everyone, that this will not bite us in the back," he said.

"I know that I'm taking a big risk, but I don't want him to get killed if there is still a chance for him to be good. Don't worry. If he betrays us again, then you, me, Kirby, or even Dedede will be ready to stop him again, and this time, for good. I'm still training, so I will get stronger, and Dedede is getting stronger too, and you too, I guess. So I'm not scared. I only want to kill someone if there are no other options."

He nodded. "What will you do with him?"

"I... don't know actually. The castle may not be a good idea. King Dedede is really pissed off at him. Maybe Kirby can help him? He forgave Dedede for stealing the food of Dream Land, so maybe he will forgive Marx despite him trying to take over Popstar."

"Yes. Kirby is that simple. He doesn't really care for someone's past actions. If that person doesn't do anything bad right now, then he will accept them."

Sweetie giggled. "Goodbye then, Meta Knight, and thank you, for helping me."

Meta Knight nodded. "Goodbye, Sweetie Belle." He turned his back to her. "You have a big heart. I hope that this will not be your downfall." And at this, he took off.

Sweetie followed him with her eyes for a time before saying, "Don't worry. I only do what I feel is the right thing. And deep down..." She looked at the sleeping Marx on her back, smiling. "I know that I'm doing the right thing."

---

Looking through a window-portal, Discord smiled warmly at what he just saw, a tear at the corner of his left eye.

Twilight will be so proud.

Chapter 25: Smile

Kirby slept peacefully in his bed, wearing his favorite sleeping cap. A well-earned rest after exploring seven worlds, fighting powerful guardians, and saving Popstar from a giant wish-granting clockwork comet and a mad jester with demigod powers.

But his well-earned rest was suddenly interrupted by a loud noise coming from outside his house, the one of a Warp Star crashing. He heard this sound enough time to recognize it. And since he wasn't the one crashing, for once, because of the fact that he was in bed, then this meant one thing. That was probably Sweetie Belle.

Why was she here, in the middle of the night? Had something happened? It may be urgent.

With that in mind, Kirby got out of the bed and ran toward his door, not even taking off his cap, before opening it. Once outside, he looked around, trying to spot the filly, until he heard her groaning. Following her voice, he saw her upside down, back against the bottom of the tree beside his house.

Sweetie then saw him and waved at him before saying, "Hello Kirby. Sorry for waking you, but you may be the only one that can help me." She then rolled on her side and got on her hooves, shaking her head. Kirby remarked that her horn was surrounded by the familiar green light of her magic and raised an eyebrow.

"Poyo?" he asked.

Sweetie answered him by pointing her right hoof up. "Look up, and you will see."

Kirby did so and saw a familiar silhouette floating down. It took him only two seconds to recognize Marx, sleeping and with burns all over his body. His jaw dropped.

"Poyo?!"

Sweetie placed Marx slowly on the floor beside her and said, "I know. He survived the explosion of Nova and crashed just a few minutes ago. I was walking outside, talking with Meta Knight-don't ask-, when we spotted him falling. I talked to him when he was still conscious, and I think... I think that I may be able to redeem him, so we don't have to kill him. But now, he needs a bed, but I don't dare bring him to the castle because of Dedede being angry at him, so I told myself that you could help me... And help him.

I know it may sound crazy, knowing what he has just tried to do, and with how powerful he is now, but I really want to try and help him. He may not be irremediably evil, and we may make him our friend... for real this time. So, do you accept, Kirby?"

She looked at him with pleading eyes. How could he say no? Not like he wanted to refuse. As long as Marx didn't try anything again, he will help him without problem. So he nodded, smiling widely, saying, "Poyo!"

Sweetie Belle smiled at his answer and hugged him, saying, "Thank you Kirby. I knew I could count on you."

The next minute was spent getting Marx in Kirby's bed. The puffball didn't have any spare bed, but he didn't mind sleeping on the floor, it wasn't so different from the times where he napped at the bottom of a tree. He put the cover on Marx and turned to Sweetie, smiling.

"You are sure you don't mind sleeping on the floor?" she asked.

He nodded.

"And..." She bit her lip. "Is it okay if I remain here too? Don't worry, Dedede gave me the day off tomorrow, and I will sleep on the floor too. I don't mind. I just want to be here for when he wakes up."

He nodded again. "Poyo."

"Thank you again." She then looked around and pointed at the fireplace with a small fire still burning. "Well then, I'm gonna sleep over there."

At that, she went in front of the fireplace and lay down on her side, making sure to face the bed, and using her magic to take off her cape and headband. Looking at the cape, Sweetie wondered how it hadn't been damaged with all the hits she took in her adventure. She remembered the same thing happened with Dedede's clothes when they beat him at Dark Castle. She will have to ask what was the material they used because she was sure that Rarity will want some.

Too busy looking at the cape and wondering about the reasons there were no cuts or burns, she didn't see Kirby approach her, and so was surprised when she felt him suddenly sit against her belly, putting his head on her as if using her as a pillow. When she looked at him, she saw that he was already closing his eyes, going back to sleep. Rather than saying anything, she just sighed with a small smile.

This puffball, really...

She decided to let him. Beside, at least, he will keep her warm. Finally putting her headband a little further, she then folded her cape and placed it under her head, using it as her own pillow, falling asleep while unconsciously curling around the ball.

---

When morning came, Kirby was the first to wake up, rubbing his eyes from the dust and yawning one last time. He then saw that he was not on his bed, but on the floor, but it didn't take him long to remember what happened last night, Sweetie Belle bringing Marx alive but unconscious to his home in the hope to give him another chance. They let Marx sleep in the bed while they slept beside the fireplace on the floor.

He could feel her hooves around him, and he understood that he was being hugged like a teddy bear by the filly. As nice as it was, he decided to slowly remove her hooves before going up, instead giving her his sleeping cap which should do the job in his place. Letting the filly sleep, he approached the bed to look at his unexpected guest still sleeping in it. He was still in a really bad shape, maybe he should go search a Maxim Tomato to heal him when he wakes up.

But first, breakfast. He took two strawberry shortcakes from his food stock, gobbled one, and let the other on a plate in front of Sweetie for when she wakes up. Once done, he walked to the door and exited his house, searching the healing fruit.

When he came back with the fruit, none of his two guesses had yet opened their eyes. No, scratch that. Marx was just waking up. He could hear him groan while he started moving, and before long, his eyes slowly opened. Kirby rapidly went beside the bed, putting the tomato to his right, before raising his left arm and saying, "Poyo!"

This startled Marx who tried to sit up in surprise only to lie back down groaning in pain. Yeah, they got him good... Kirby wanted to give him the tomato but he was not sure he should give it now, not if it was for him to go back into his 'crazy bat jester' mode. Even if they could probably beat him again, especially now that they knew his moves, he wanted to make sure that he could heal him without regret.

Marx then looked at him, and after a few seconds of silence, smiled and said, "Hey... hey... hey..."

"Hiiii."

Marx looked around and said "I didn't expect to end in your house. It seems nice by the way, cozy, but a little boring. Where is Sweetie Belle?"

Kirby pointed at the sleeping filly.

"Oh here she is. Look at her. Isn't she adorable? She is such a sweetie," Marx said before laughing at his pun. "I don't believe her. Despite what I have done, she decided to let me live. She is either too nice, too naive, or too crazy. Maybe the threes at the same time. Well, I'm not gonna complain. I love living."

At this, Kirby got his head close to Marx's and looked at him right in the eyes with the most serious stare that he could give. He then pointed at his eyes, then at Marx's, shouting, "Poyo!"

"Hey! Back off, or we are gonna kiss! And do you really think you scare me?"

Kirby opened wide his mouth, as if ready to inhale Marx.

"Come on! Nobody told you that it is bad to eat your guests? Especially when the guest is hurt and can't defend? What would Sweetie Belle say?"

Kirby closed his mouth and stared at Marx. Then, he smirked and took a feather from... somewhere. He slowly approached the feather to Marx, his smirk getting bigger at each second.

"Hey now... Are you really gonna do this?" Marx said, looking at the feather and sweating, as if seeing his doom coming.

It got closer.

"Stop."

Closer.

"Stop."

Clooooseer.

"Stop! Alright! I get it! I will stop!"

"Poyo!" Kirby nodded, smile wide and eyes closed. He then took the Maxim Tomato and gave it to Marx. "Poyo!"

"You are really giving me a Maxim Tomato?" Marx asked, surprised. "Just like that?"

He nodded. "Poyo!" He then glared at Marx and point at him, shouting, "Poyo!" and he smiled again, saying another, "Poyo."

That was the moment that Sweetie Belle chose to wake up. The two balls heard her and looked in her direction, seeing her stretching like a cat. She then got up, rubbing her eyes, and saw them. Seeing them, she smiled and spoke.

"Good morning you two! I'm glad that you are awake Marx! And Kirby, it's so nice of you to give him a tomato to heal!"

"Hi!" Kirby shouted before pointing at the strawberry shortcake beside her. "Poyo!"

Sweetie spotted the cake and took it in her magic. "Thank you Kirby. So, Marx, how are you?"

"Like I'm having the time of my life!" he said happily. Too happily. Yeah... That was hidden sarcasm.

"...Ok. That was a dumb question. Sorry," Sweetie said, laughing sheepishly and approaching the bed. She sat down at Kirby's right and started eating the shortcake. "At least, you will get better once you eat your reds," she continued, giggling.

Marx laughed. "I would throw that tomato at you for this joke, but I need it."

"If you do, then make sure to target my mouth."

"Right now, I'm targeting MY mouth!" he said, taking a bit of the tomato.

"Well, you could still target my mouth, giving it to me like Kirby took the habit to do."

"How so?"

"Mouth to mouth."

This caused Marx to spit some of the tomato before coughing, which led to Sweetie guffawing. Once he stopped coughing, Marx glared at Sweetie Belle for two seconds before rolling on the bed laughing too. "You got me!"

Kirby tilted his head, not sure he understood why it was funny. It was alright to give food from mouth to mouth, it helpped everyone being healed equally.

"Wait!" Marx continued. "Kirby really gives you food like that?"

"Only when it's necessary, like with the Invincibility Candies."

"Now I have to tell that to everyone!"

Sweetie smirked at the attempt to get at her and stuck out her tongue. "Too late." She looked away, blushing. "One Waddle Dee saw us in the action and told it to everyone at the castle. Now everyone teases me about it sometime." She then crossed her hooves, mumbling something about Kirby not being her coltfriend or something like that. Thankfully nobody saw the two of us sleeping together, or I wouldn't hear the end of it.

"Bummer. Oh well. when can I expect to animate your wedding?"

"Eep! Not you too!" she shouted, as red as a tomato. "Beside, I'm too young for that!"

This made Marx rolls on the bed from heavy laughter again. "Got you!"

Sweetie continued to glare at Marx before laughing too. "I should have kept my muzzle shut."

And yet again, Kirby didn't understand what was going on.

"And deprive me of such a good laugh? Please no!"

"So it's fun, uh?"

"Uh?"

"Laughing together like that, telling jokes, teasing each other. Don't you find it fun?"

"I... find it fun. Yes."

"See?" Sweetie asked. "It's nice." She then lost her smile. "All of this wouldn't have happened anymore if you had won. You would have laughed, but you would have been the only one laughing."

"Yes..."

"Didn't you like it, when you were making others smile with your jokes?"

"I... liked it... But I wanted more..."

"For a jester like you, there shouldn't be anything better than making others smile. You know, back in my homeworld, there is this pony named Pinkie Pie, and she has a song that is perfect for you."

"Sweet. I love songs."

"Then let me sing it to you. She sings it so much that I remember it entirely." She then cleared her throat.

"My name is Pinkie Pie
And I am here to say
I'm gonna make you smile and I will brighten up your day
It doesn't matter now
If you are sad or blue
'Cause cheering up my friends is just what Pinkie's here to do

'Cause I love to make you smile, smile, smile
Yes I do
It fills my heart with sunshine all the while
Yes it does
'Cause all I really need's a smile, smile, smile
From these happy friends of mine

I like to see you grin
I love to see you beam
The corners of your mouth turned up is always Pinkie's dream
But if you're kind of worried
And your face has made a frown
I'll work real hard and do my best to turn that sad frown upside down

'Cause I love to make you grin, grin, grin
Yes I do
Bust it out from ear to ear let it begin
Just give me a joyful grin, grin, grin
And you fill me with good cheer

It's true some days are dark and lonely
And maybe you feel sad
But Pinkie will be there to show you that it isn't that bad
There's one thing that makes me happy and makes my whole life worthwhile
And that's when I talk to my friends and get them to smile

I really am so happy
Your smile fills me with glee
I give a smile I get a smile
And that's so special to me

'Cause I love to see you beam, beam, beam
Yes I do
Tell me what more can I say
To make you see
That I do
It makes me happy when you beam, beam, beam
Yes it always makes my day

Come on everypony smile, smile, smile
Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine
All I really need's a smile, smile, smile
From these happy friends of mine "

She pointed her hoof at Marx. He understood and started to sing with her.

"Come on everypony smile, smile, smile
Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine
All I really need's a smile, smile, smile
From these happy friends of mine "

She signed Marx to continue to sing the refrain while she sang.

"Yes the perfect gift for me
Is a smile as wide as a mile
To make me happy as can be "

She then signed him to follow what she said.

"Smile, smile, smile, smile, smile

Come on and smile
Come on and smile"

They ended the song, Sweetie hugging Marx with her left foreleg, under Kirby's applause.

Marx laughed before saying, "That was fun!"

"I know, right? She loves having fun. And for her, having fun means giving fun to the others. And everypony loves her for that, even if she can melt our brains with her crazyness. Not literally, of course. Even if she did give Twilight a meltdown once." She laughed at this.

"I understand..." Marx said. "I..." He sighed. "I'm sorry... I have been stupid. Thank you Sweetie Belle."

"You are welcome. Friend?"

Marx nodded. "Friend."

Sweetie then bumped his right foot to seal it. At the same time, just as the hoof and the foot were hitting, Kirby bumped them too, shouting, "Poyo !"

"But I still wouldn't mind freezing alive someone and use them to slip down a slope!"

"What/Poyo?"

---

Twilight was in her library, reading dozens of sheets of notes and formulas about how to use magic to successfully open a portal to another world without using a mirror.

And this led to nothing!

"Arg!" She threw the notes above her head in frustration. "Why is it so hard to open a portal without a mirror?! I have been able to send somepony to another dimension by accident, so this is not my power that causes problem!"

"You know, maybe you should try to create a portal with the help of technology rather than magic. A Star Gate, a portal gun, whatever, I'm sure it would work."

"Not now, Discord..." Twilight said, rubbing her forehead.

The draconequus then popped just before her, a plate with a chocolate cake on his claw. "Here is some cake. You have been at it for hours."

Twilight looked at the cake before sighing. "You are right... I won't mind a piece." She materialized a knife and poked the cake with it, intending to cut a piece, when it suddenly exploded like a balloon, because it had been a balloon! The explosion surprised Twilight, causing her to jump in shock before falling on her back, under Discord's laughter. She groaned. "Discord..."

"Oh come on. This is just a little prank to lift your spirit. Pinkie would do the same."

She couldn't help but smile. "Right... Thanks." She got up. "But I'm sure you haven't come just for that. You have some news about Sweetie?"

"Yes! Sadly, I have opened the window a little too late and missed her latest adventure, arriving just at the final battle. But what a battle! However, I wouldn't have liked to be at Sweetie's place. Fighting someone that love spamming Teleport? No thanks! But wait! I haven't told you the best part!"

"Then tell me."

"She reformed her first villain!"

"Really?!" Twilight shouted, smiling widely.

"Yesterday, they were fighting each other to the death. This morning, they were laughing together! If I didn't know better, I would think she was your apprentice."

"And how did she reform this villain?"

"She first had to almost kill him by sending him colliding with a planet-sized robot cat comet, making it explode. Then once he crashed back in Popstar half dead in the middle of the night, she talked to him, learned that he pretty much wanted to be like I was before, so she told him my tale, and chose to do like you and gave him another chance. And this morning, she has reminded him that he loves making people smile, and so she sang to him one of Pinkie's songs, about making ponies smile making her happy. And now they are friend!" He materialized a Sweetie plushy with a mortarboard and a diploma with written on it 'friendship', letting a tear fall from his left eye while looking at it. "They grow so fast."

"I'm so glad to hear this. Rarity will be so happy too. Maybe I will make her my protégée once we bring her back. Wait..." She looked at Discord in disbelief. "What was it about a planet-sized robot cat comet? And sending the villain colliding with it, almost killing him?"

"I have not seen this adventure, but I heard her recounting it to that king penguin, and I'm not sure you are ready to hear it. Your brain would just shutdown. Trust me, you are not ready to hear that they had to stop the living sun and moon from fighting each other by invoking that giant cat robot that could grant a wish by exploring seven different planets, only for the villain to come and wish to conquer Popstar. Oopsie! Did I say that? Twilight? Twilight?"

Chapter 26: The Calm Before the Dark Storm

They stayed together talking, joking, having good laughs for a whole hour before Marx told them that he wanted to go back to his house to get some more rest, still feeling tired, before thanking them. Sweetie Belle then decided that she should too return to the castle. And so, the three friends bid each others goodbye before separating.

Rather than taking the Warp Star, she decided to walk back. The castle was not that far and she knew the way. When she reached the castle, she took the way to the throne room, expecting Dedede to be there. The king not being here once she entered, she then went to the boxing room where he was probably training. And yes he was, clobbering dozens of dummies, trying to perfect his skills.

"King Dedede!" she shouted to gain his attention.

"Mmh? Oh, it's you Sweetie Belle. Where were you? Nobody was able to find you this morning."

"Sorry your majesty. I couldn't sleep so I got out in the middle of the night to take some fresh air. Then... an incident happened and I ended up sleeping in Kirby's house. NOT TOGETHER!!!" she screamed the last part at seeing the smirk on Dedede's face.

"Yeah sure. Anyway, what was this incident?"

"I found someone hurt, and Kirby's house was the closest. But this doesn't matter. I have been able to think, and while I don't like the idea of killing, I understand that to save Popstar, I may be forced to do it, and I accept it. However, I will only do it as a last resort if there are no other ways to stop the villain."

Dedede smiled warmly at her. "I understand. So what now? Remember that I gave you free day today. You can do whatever you want."

"And I know what I will do!"

---

"So you are saying that you beat my two cousins in Floria?" Whispy Woods asked, with many burns on his bark and trying to stop crying.

"Eeyup. I knew they must have been related to you somehow. They had your face," Sweetie said, sitting against the tree while eating an apple. "However, their apples weren't as delicious as yours. You should tell them your secret recipe, just in case I decide to visit them someday. I know that I will probably come back in this world, it was nice, and we made some good friends. By the way, next time we battle, you should ask them to help you. This way, you may have a chance to beat me. Sorry Whispy, but you are starting to get too easy."

---

She dove under Orange Ocean, finally having her first view of how it was under the ocean. Considering she didn't need to hold her breath, she could explore it as much as she wanted, and she was doing well! By Celestia, this was beautiful! She slowly swam beside a shoal of Blippers, following them as they passed between two rocks with some Glunks on them. On the other side, she could see a group of Squishies going up and down in their way, and further beyond, another shoal of Blippers.

The ocean got deeper the more she swam away of the coast, columns of rocks started to appear left and right, some of them going beyond the surface to form islands. She could see a cliff further to her right where it went evn deeper, and after some more swimming, passing by a tunnel with many Glunks, she found a fissure in the ground. Smiling at the idea of exploring it, she went inside, discovering the fissure to be the home of many faunas and floras, some of them reflecting the light of the sun, illuminating the dark.

If only she could show this to everypony.

---

"WIIIIIII!!!"

Sweetie was using the bark of a dead tree (not one of Whispy's family) as a snowboard, going down the slope of a high, snowy mountain. Going slightly to the left, she barely avoided a Rocky in the way, then went right to avoid a tree. She saw a cliff approaching before her, but rather than slowing down, she braced herself. Jumping the cliff, she did multiple 360°, laughing loudly, until she saw a tree getting closer in her way. And nope, she will not pass above it.

"Horsea-" BAM! "Arg!" Crack! "Ouch!" Crack! "Eep!" Vlan! "Ow! Aaaaah!" Scrunch!

And she fell head first into the snow at the bottom of the tree, only her hind hooves, butt and tail sticking out of it, the tree bark falling at her left. A few seconds later, she extracted the rest of her body and shook the snow out of it before rubbing her head.

"Owie... I'm not doing this again anytime soon," she groaned, before giggling. That was still fun.

---

She was sitting at her picnic place, under the tree beside the lake, sighing in contentment, having just finished her lunch constituted of various food she found around, including a strawberry shortcake, bread, an ice cream, a banana, and a few cookies with some milk. Not the more healthy and usual lunch, but she didn't care, it was delicious, and she couldn't pass something like cookies, cake or ice cream.

Maybe she should take a nap. Yeah... A nap sounded good...

"Googoo!" she suddenly heard.

"Uh?" She opened her eyes and looked around until she spotted the origin of the voice approaching, making her smile widely. "Gooey! Long time no see! Where were you?"

Gooey waved around with his tongue.

"You were exploring around?"

"Goo!" He nodded.

"Exploring Popstar?"

"Googoo!"

She giggled. "This sure explains the time you took. Lucky you, I have not yet explored beyond Dream Land. The farther I have gone is Rainbow Resort, with the Fountain of Dream. But now that I have a Warp Star, one day, I will explore Popstar too. But you know what? I got to explore other worlds!"

"Goo?"

"Let me tell you, you will not believe what happened to me and Kirby."

---

"And now, Marx is our friend again! At least, I hope this is for good this time, and that he isn't faking it. He still seems to be a little crazy and sadistic..."

"Goo!" Gooey shouted, doing some punching with his tongue. "Goo!"

Sweetie giggled. "It's nice that we can count on you to help us if he betrays us again." She then looked at the lake, seeing a Blipper swim on the surface for a few seconds before going back in the water. Her smile diminished. "I have a question Gooey."

"Goo?"

"Could... Could we have spared Dark Matter?"

Gooey looked at her in surprise. "Goo?!"

Sweetie then pointed at him. "You were like him, right?"

Gooey looked at her in silence, getting sad, before nodding. "Gooey... Dark Matter..."

"Thought so... And yet, somehow, you became kind. But good feelings hurt Dark Matter, so how did you become... you? Why aren't you hurt anymore by good feelings?"

Gooey looked pensively at the ground for a whole minute. He then took a stick and started to draw something in the earth. After a moment, Sweetie identified the drawing as Dark Matter in his last form, a black ball of darkness with an eye and smaller orbs behind him. Once he was done with Dark Matter, he then drew beside him a small heart, before crossing it. After that, he drew an arrow coming from the crossed heart to Dark Matter.

"Dark Matter can't love," Sweetie guessed from the drawing.

Gooey nodded and drew below the heart a smiling face, and crossed it, yet again drawing an arrow going from it to Dark Matter.

"Dark Matter can't be happy, or feel joy."

Another nod before he drew a fire with a swirl in it, crossed it, and drew an arrow from it to Dark Matter.

"Fire?"

Gooey shook is head and pointed at Sweetie's chest. Could this be...?

"The soul?"

He nodded.

"Dark Matter... doesn't have a soul?"

He nodded again, then drew a small star, and like the previous times, crossed it and drew an arrow from it to Dark Matter.

This one was harder. What did the star represent? "I don't understand. What is the star?"

Gooey mimicked someone sleeping.

"Sleeping? Wait..." What does someone do when they sleep? "Dreaming?" It would seem so. After all, the artefact that helped spreading dreams was a wand with a star.

Gooey nodded, confirming her conclusion.

So the star was a symbol of dreams? So, did that mean that Popstar was the world of dreams? No, not just Popstar. When she was exploring the other worlds, stars were everywhere. It was as if all those worlds were made of dreams. That also meant... Well, she had been starting to have a doubt, but now... Could she be in an universe made of dreams? A different dimension? This would explain the crazy logic. Food popping everywhere, breathing in water, walking on clouds. Those were dreams come true!

But that also meant that she couldn't go home with just a spaceship...

Focus Sweetie. I will think about it later. Right now, I'm talking with Gooey. "So... Dark Matter can't dream?"

Gooey nodded. Then, he went to another place and started a new drawing. Before long, he drew what she recognized as the Fountain of Dreams, but without the Star Rod, and so, not working. He pointed at the fountain with the stick. "Goo!"

"The Fountain of Dreams when Nightmare was corrupting it."

He nodded again, then drew above the fountain a smaller Dark Matter. But then, Gooey pointed at the Dark Matter, before pointing at himself. "Goo! Goo! Dark Matter!"

"That's... you? I mean, it was you? You were there?"

He nodded before restarting drawing something on the fountain. He drew the Star Rod, and the fountain started working again. He then drew a circle of stars around the fountain, and drew around the stars arrows showing them spreading everywhere, making sure to point at the Dark Matter Gooey.

"So... The Fountain of Dreams working again, it spread the dreams back all over Popstar, and with you being there, you were affected. Let me guess, it gave you dreams?"

"Goo!" He nodded, smiling. He then drew a small star beside the Dark Matter Gooey. After that, he drew an arrow from it to elsewhere, and at the end of the arrows, he drew a heart, a smiling face, and a soul.

"Dreams gave you a soul and the possibility to love and feel happiness!"

"Googoo!" He drew a circle around the Dark Matter, the star, the heart, the soul, and the face, then linked it to another arrow. At the end of the arrow, he drew himself, like he was actually.

"So, the 'Nightmare Incident' led to you gaining dreams and feelings!" she shouted excited.

"Googoo!"

Her smile then disappeared. "That means... We couldn't have saved Dark Matter. Unless another being like Nightmare forced the 'Nightmare Incident' to happen again, nothing could be done..."

"Goo..." Gooey confirmed with a nod. He then started to think about something, and after a few minutes, drew something new. He drew himself, then beside him, Dark Matter. Sweetie nodded to confirm that she was following. Gooey then drew another Dark Matter, then another, then another. At each new Dark Matter drawn, Sweetie got more and more shocked. A few minutes later, he had drawn twenty Dark Matters in total, without counting himself.

She gulped. "There are more of you out there?"

He nodded and started to draw one last thing behind all the Dark Matters. One big circle, at least ten times their sizes, and in the circle, one single eye. Nothing else.

Whoever, whatever that thing was, it filled Sweetie Belle with dread. "Who... is that?"

Gooey looked at what he drew in pure fear, shaking and sweating. Silent.

"Father..."

"Evil..."

"Hate..."

"Zero."

---

In the depth of space, the beautiful little stars were floating everywhere, giving light to the dark and filling the emptiness.

However, there was something else that was filling that emptiness. Moving with a destination in mind, a giant cloud of Darkness progressed between the stars, engulfing some of them, leaving nothing behind. Some small eyes could be seen poking out of the cloud every now and then before disappearing back in. However, there was a constant feature to that cloud. An eye, red like blood, giant, never disappearing, always looking in the same direction, the same one that the cloud was moving to. Its black pupil was fixed into a single point, far, far away. But each days, that point became a little bigger.

A star.

Chapter 27: The Darkness Returns

Author's Notes:

Watch out, dark and bloody stuff ahead!

Sweetie Belle immediately told Gooey to go warn Kirby in case this Zero decided to visit Popstar. It was even almost certain that he was coming, Dark Matter's actions could be better explained this way. He destroyed the Rainbow Bridges which were a source of good emotions in Popstar, and spread terror and despair in the world, this way, Popstar would have been more vulnerable to an assault of the Dark Matters and their leader. They stopped Dark Matter, and Gooey was turned good, but now, how long they had before Zero came? It was over a month since Dark Matter's defeat, so he could come any day now.

And the day he will come, it will be ugly. But now that Kirby knew about Zero's existence, he could start to prepare. However, they first had to find a solution to fight Zero. Use the Star Rod? No... It would be too risky to take it and stop the fountain, the inhabitants will need to keep dreaming to keep hope. Recreate the Rainbow Sword? It may not be enough. The sword represented the good emotions of Popstar in general. Good emotions hurt the Dark Matters, but they would need the strongest of them to have all their chances against Zero.

Love.

Having passed the night thinking about it, she made sure to tell that to Kirby the next day, and just after that, Kirby took his Warp Star before flying in the direction of Rainbow Resort. Yeah, maybe the Fountain of Dreams could do something about that. Hopefully.

Before that, she told Dedede everything Gooey told her, and also about her fear. In answer, Dedede told her that they would go inside their secret fortress in Iceberg so they could hide from the Dark Matters and hopefully not being possessed.

"There is a secret fortress in Iceberg?" Sweetie Belle said at learning about its existence.

"Of course!" the king answered. "In the middle of the ice, and with the blizzards, it's a good hiding spot in time of crisis."

"But shouldn't we try to help Kirby?"

"We can't do anything to the Dark Matters, unless you can somehow shoot love beams from your horn. The better way to help him will be to make sure we don't become his enemies too. I don't know how many Dark Matters there will be, but I doubt I would be the only one being possessed this time. All we can do is hide... and hope."

Sweetie hadn't liked it, but he was right. The risk of being possessed would be too big. And so, the next day, after Sweetie told Kirby about her idea of using love to fight Zero and he went to the fountain, everyone living in the castle departed to Iceberg, and rapidly, they reached the island's secret fortress, which was nothing more than a big round tower large at the bottom and smaller at the top, blue with a yellow horizontal band in the middle, and surrounded by a red wall with yellow rims.

And now, one day later, Sweetie was at the top of the tower, on the roof, alongside Dedede, looking at the icy island all around the fortress with dread, knowing that anytime, Zero could come. She hoped that Dedede was right and that this fortress will hide them from the Dark Matters, but she couldn't help herself but fear the worse. She didn't think that this fortress was hidden enough. Also, a giant tower was not what she would call a well hidden fortress... A fortress carved in the ice would have been better. And the colors clashed with the ice and the snow around them. Curse Dedede's ego!

"What is that?" the penguin suddenly said, looking at the sky.

Looking up at the sky in the same direction as him, she could see that something black had appeared, and each second, it was becoming bigger, or rather, it was coming closer. Before long, she could identify a giant red eye in the middle of the black, and she gulped, understanding what it was.

It was him.

So I was right... I hope that Kirby is ready.

When the black thing, which they identified as a cloud of pure darkness, reached the space above Popstar, they could see how big it was. It must be about half the size of Nova! And then, it did something unbelievable: it broke the rings around Popstar! As if they were made of glass! Following that, the cloud started to spread all over the world, looking like a giant octopus, and one of the giant 'tentacles' was coming right toward them!

She could hear Dedede gulp. "M-maybe I should have made this fortress less visible from the sky."

"No, really?!" Sweetie Belle shouted.

The cloud rapidly reached the sky above the islands, and before long, countless Dark Matters appeared out of it and flew to the surface, some of them coming in their direction.

"Run..." Dedede said, stepping back, taking his hammer. "Run!" he shouted.

"No need to tell me this twice!" sweetie shouted back as she left the roof, entering the tower followed by Dedede.

"Alert!" the king screamed at his soldiers. "They are coming! We must escape!"

"Dedede! Behind us!" Sweetie yelled.

The Dark Matters had already reached the tower, and they entered by the roof, chasing them. They could see them approaching, at least a dozen, covering everything in darkness.

"My king!" a Waddle Dee coming in front of them shouted. "They are coming from the front door too!"

That stopped everyone in their escape attempt, Dedede saying, "So we are trapped..." He then turned around and prepared his hammer. Just as one of the Dark Matters reached them, he swung his hammer and hit the ball of darkness, sending it into a wall, forming a shadow on it. One second later, the ball reformed from the shadow, with no harm caused to it.

Sweetie shot a beam to another Dark Matter, sending it flying back before it came back.

It's no use... They seem weaker than the one I fought last time, but they are still invincible to our attacks. "What do we do Dedede?" Sweetie Belle asked in fear.

"We fight, and we try to pass them. Go on my head," he said, swinging his hammer again, sending another Dark Matter into a wall. After Sweetie climbed on Dedede's head, they resumed their escape alongside the soldiers that joined them, while others remained behind in the hope of gaining them time.

It didn't work...

Sweetie shot at the many Dark Matters still following them. If one of them got too close, then she warned Dedede who turned around and hit it with his hammer, or the soldiers used what they had to try to stop it. Sometime, one of them ended up possessed, either because of a Dark Matter charging at them, or they jumped in the way of a Dark Matter about to possess Dedede.

After going down a few floor, they found themselves facing more Dark Matters coming from before them, the ones that entered the fortress by the front door. They were followed by some of the possessed servants and soldiers, readying whatever they used to attack.

Dedede prepared his hammer and charged, swinging it left and right, knocking away possessed minions and Dark Matters alike. The remaining unpossessed however were falling one after another until, by the time they reached the next floor, there were only Dedede and Sweetie Belle remaining, totally surrounded.

Dedede jumped to avoid a charging Dark Matter, swung his hammer to knock another away, crushed a possessed Waddle Doo, and kicked a possessed Broom Hatter. Sweetie shot beams by dozens, and cracked her whip everywhere. She shot a Dark Matter coming from before, a Bronto Burt coming from the left, another Dark Matter from before, hit a third one with her whip, and hit the bomb of a Poppy, making it explode and hurting a few enemies with the explosion.

They were fighting with everything they had, each meters gained with great difficulty. But just as Dedede was hitting a Blade Knight and Sweetie shot at beam at a Dark Matter, another one was able to approach and hit Dedede from the back, making him fall on his belly and causing Sweetie to roll from his head. The Dark Matter disappeared into the penguin, and he immediately got back up, looking as if he was sleeping.

Like last time.

Sweetie tried to run away, scared to tears, only to see another Dark Matter charging at her...

And everything became black.

---

They were back on the roof of the fortress, now a giant red eye paint on it at the top, a few hours later, looking at their master, waiting. The Incarnation was coming, with the Traitor, and they already purged the majority of this world of their influence, stopping the master from turning this world of Dream into a world of Dark.

They looked down, and here they were, passing the front door with those animals and that cursed wand gathering love.

For the master.

For darkness.

They will kill them.

---

Angel was waiting in the last room before the roof for Kirby and the others to bring her her feathers. Those dreadful beasts of darkness plucked them out of her wing to make her miserable, but soon, she will get them back. Suddenly, something wrapped around her from behind, and she was dragged at the hooves of one of her persecutor. She looked at her eyes in fear, the eyes looking back at her, full of hate.

She should have followed Kirby...

---

They went everywhere they could, fighting many creatures possessed by the Dark Matters, including some friends. They helped all the unpossessed beings they found, using the wand given by the Fountain of Dreams to collect their love. With its help, the Dark Matters were almost chased from Popstar, only one place remaining. And after climbing this tower, fighting many enemies, collecting Angel's feathers, they finally reached the top floor, just before the roof.

Kirby and Gooey, respectively using the Needle Ability and the Fire Ability, followed by Rick, Coo, Kine, a pink octopus with a red bow named ChuChu, a big white cat with orange fur on his head, back, and tail, and with brown ears and some more brown on his back named Nago, and a small green bird with a white belly named Pitch, expected to see Angel to give her her feathers, only to stop in shock at what they were seeing.

Angel was here, but she was now heavily hurt, injured all over her body with some burns and frostbites, back against a cracked wall. The responsible of her state was just in front of them, blocking the way. A gray-furred filly with a mane and a tail made of dark purple and dark pink hairs, looking at them with an expression promising suffering, and a whip floating at her right, ready to hit.

Kirby easily recognized her, his fear getting true.

Sweetie Belle.

So she was possessed too... But not any longer! Kirby took a determined step forward, ready to fight his friend to save her. Gooey came at his right, puffing some fire. The animals were behind them, ChuChu jumping on Rick's head, and Coo and Pitch flying toward the ceiling.

Kirby then charged at Sweetie Belle, and the filly answered by shooting a fireball at him. He jumped to his left, avoiding the fireball that almost hit Nago, only for the cat lowering his head at the last second. Rick took Gooey and threw him at her, the blob ready to headbutt her, only for Sweetie to put a shield around her, stopping him. The blob stopped, she made the shield disappear while he was sliding down on it, and she hit him with a punch from above, crushing him between her hoof and the floor.

Kirby then came from her right and was able to hurt her with his needles, followed by Coo and Pitch approaching her, Coo attacking her with his claws while the smaller bird use his beak to poke her horn, understanding that it may be a weak point. Sweetie hit Pitch with her hoof as if he was a fly, causing him to be sent toward a wall, only for Nago to catch him with a jump that would make a goalkeeper proud. Gooey took the opening to breathe fire at Sweetie's face, making her step back and freeing him, before he slapped her a few times with his tongue until he was hit by a shockwave sent from one of her hoof, knocking him on his back.

Kirby hurt her again with his needles, only for him to be wrapped in her magic and being sent flying toward Coo, his needles hurting the owl. She was suddenly punched from her left by a pink tentacle from ChuChu, the octopus still being on Rick's head. The hamster had approached the filly from the left while she had been busy fighting the others, and they had taken the opportunity to attack. ChuChu unleashed a storm of punches at Sweetie followed by Rick charging at her, knocking her on her back. He was about to stomp on her belly only to be hit by a beam that forced him to take a step back.

Getting back up, Sweetie unleashed on them her Vulcan Jab followed by a Smash Punch, a powerful forward punch releasing a shockwave that sent Rick and ChuChu hitting a wall. Nago suddenly fell right on her, crushing her under his weight, before taking her left back hoof and using it to slam her on the floor one, two, three times. At the third time, he was stopped by a kick in the face from Sweetie's right back hoof, stopping her in midair where she was sent into a wall by a flaming comet that was actually Gooey. Kine used the opportunity to slap her with his tail a few times before jumping away, only for Sweetie to materialize a shield under him before sending it up, crushing the fish between it and the ceiling. She then sent another shield to fend off an approaching Gooey.

Coo, Kirby in his claws, released the puffball above Sweetie Belle, letting him fall head first on her, where he hit her back with his needles, poking her through her cape. Still upside down on her back, Kirby kicked the back of her head before jumping away only to be bucked, and as he flew away because of the hit, the whip wrapped itself around him, and he found himself used as a wrecking ball on his friends, hitting Nago, Kine, Coo, before knocking ChuChu out of Rick's head. He was saved by Rick taking the whip and stopping it, freeing him. Kirby then released the Needle Ability and ate the whip, getting an Ability he never got until now: the Whip Ability, gaining a whip similar to Sweetie's alongside a red stetson hat with blue stars all around it. He approached Sweetie as she was busy...

Wait, was she about to put Pitch in her mouth?

"Poyooo!" Kirby shouted in panic, running to get closer before wrapping his whip around the bird, saving him just in time. Releasing Pitch, he then wrapped the whip around Sweetie's neck and used it to send her flying around him for a few loops before throwing her in the path of Gooey charging again like a comet. Violently hit by the attack, she crashed head first into a wall, cracking it.

She didn't move after that.

That was not the end, Kirby knew it. The Dark Matter was still in her, and if she wakes up, hurt or not, she will restart the fight. They must purge the Dark Matter out of her, but for that, they still need to fight Dedede-it was obvious it was him waiting for them on the roof-, and they must not forget Angel.

Speaking of Angel, they must heal her.

Kirby waved at Coo and shouted, "Poyo!"

"Coo?"

Kirby pointed at Angel, then at the door from where they entered the room. "Poyo poyo!"

"Coo!" the owl shouted back, saluting before passing the door.

Not even a minute later, he came back with two bottles of energy drink in his claws, and gave them to Kirby who nodded at him in thanks. Kirby then approached Angel and slowly moved her, hoping to wake her, not wanting to force her to drink while she was unconscious. Angel's eyes opened not long after, and she looked at Kirby, the puffball smiling and giving her a bottle.

Drinking the bottle, then the other, was enough to heal her. Once done, Kirby gave her the feathers, and soon, her wings were back like they were before.

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" she shouted, flying around in happiness.

Smiling, Kirby then took the wand given to him by the Fountain of Dreams, a cone with yellow and red parallels lines. Something suddenly got out of Angel, shifting back and forth between a star and a heart. The Heart Star flew to the wand, making it flash.

Hopefully, it will be enough to fight Zero, but before, they must get the Dark Matters out of this area. Looking back one last time at Sweetie Belle, Kirby and the others bid Angel farewell before taking the exit door leading to the roof, ready to fight the possessed king, again.

---

Consciousness came back to Sweetie Belle, her body hurting. Why was it hurting? She couldn't remem- No, wait, that's right. Zero and his Dark Matters came conquering the world or whatever, then she got possessed by one of them alongside Dedede and everybody else in the fortress. She... She could only look then, as the Dark Matter in her did horrible things with her body, hurting innocent people, destroying things...

Oh Celestia, what she did to that angel...

And then, she fought Kirby, Gooey, Rick, Coo, Kine, and three other animals, and... SHE ALMOST ATE THE BIRD ALIVE! Oh Celestia... It made her sick just thinking about it.

That was when she felt that she was in someone's arms, against their chest. She slowly opened her eyes and saw that the person was actually the big cat that she fought earlier, carrying her to the roof of the fortress. The cat saw her opening her eyes and smiled warmly at her.

And she understood that she was free.

Just then, they reached the roof, and she heard a familiar voice asking, "Are you alright?"

Turning her head, she saw Dedede looking at her worried. She could see that he was badly hurt too, probably fighting Kirby and the others, but he didn't seem to mind that much. This showed how much stronger than her he was.

And he was free too.

And the sky was not covered in darkness anymore.

And minions were starting to get on the roof too, bringing healing items, mainly bottles of energy drink.

They were free too.

They were all free.

Tears appeared in her eyes, both of relief, but also of pain. Seeing that, Dedede's expression became uncertain before he sighed and took Sweetie Belle in his arms, pressing her against his chest and petting her head. In return, Sweetie hugged him, putting her hooves around his neck and her head under his chin making sure to not poke him with her horn.

They remained like that for one minute, before someone said, "Excuse me..." When they looked, they saw a Waddle Dee, Sweetie's friend, approaching with two bottles of energy drink. They could see that he was also a little hurt, but not as badly as them. "Here are bottles to heal."

Dedede dropped Sweetie on the floor before taking one of the bottles, the filly taking the other, healing themselves, but not completely. At least it didn't hurt that much anymore.

"Thank you Waddle Dee," Sweetie Belle said. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah don't worry, I got punched a couple of times, nothing more. Still, that cat has one heck of a punch."

Speaking of the cat, he was still watching them, sitting and chuckling a little at Waddle Dee's comment. That was when Sweetie saw that Kirby, still with the Whip Ability, Gooey, and the other animals were also here. When she saw him, Kirby immediately hugged her, happy to see her alright. He was followed by Gooey, Rick, Coo, and Kine, before being joined by the last three even if they didn't know her, and not wanting to be left out, Waddle Dee also joined them, leaving her in the middle of a giant group hug, making her giggle.

When the hug ended, Kirby presented the three new animals to her. When he said Pitch's name, she just had to say something.

"Sorry for almost eating you."

Pitch waved his left wing, as if to say "That's ok."

"Nice meeting you three."

"I think we should stop right there with the presentations," Dedede then said, looking at the sky. "Kirby has a job to finish and he has rested enough."

Sweetie followed his eyes and saw that there was still a giant dark cloud far in the sky. It was smaller than before, but she could see it growing back little by little.

"So Zero is still up there?" she asked, frowning, grinding her teeth.

"Yes," Dedede answered. "And he is not giving up. Kirby must somehow go up there and beat him to end this once and for all."

"But how will he go into that cloud?" Waddle Dee asked.

At that, Kirby took the wand and showed it at them.

"What is this wand?" Sweetie asked.

Kirby pointed at her.

"Me? Wait, that's right. After I told you about trying to find a way to use love to beat Zero, you went to the Fountain of Dreams to see if it could help. Is it a gift of the fountain?"

"Poyo!" Kirby confirmed with a nod. He then turned in the direction of the cloud with a determined expression and brandished the wand toward the sky. From the wand, dozens of Heart Stars got out, floated around, before fusing with the wand, now giving it a yellow heart at the top, on the biggest part of the cone.

Gooey went beside Kirby, and the two of them nodded, ready to go.

"Wait!" Sweetie Belle shouted, approaching them. "Let me come with you! Like last time!"

"Are you sure Sweetie Belle?" Dedede asked. "You aren't fully recovered from... that whole experience."

Sweetie sighed. "I know but..." She looked at Dedede in anger. "I wanna help Kirby, and fight Zero. This will make me feel better. Beside..." She smiled at him. "Don't you want someone to save the world in your name?"

Dedede looked at her with doubt before putting his hand between his eyes, rubbing and sighing. "Alright... Go on... Just... Be careful."

"I will," she said before turning back to Kirby and Gooey. "So, can I come?"

"Poyo," Kirby said, nodding, before jumping on Sweetie's back. That caused Sweetie's coat to turn pink, and the color of her mane and tail to turn... like Princess Cadance's? And now she had wings too.

Sweetie facehoofed. Of course the wand made of love would turn her into a filly version of the Princess of Love. She didn't have her Cutie Mark however. Bummer. The best part however was that the transformation healed her entirely.

Kirby then brandished the wand in the direction of the dark cloud, and Gooey wrapped his tongue around him, before the wand made them fly toward the cloud, and their enemy.

---

After a few minutes of flying, they finally reached the cloud and entered it, the wand opening a small tunnel to let them pass. At the heart of the cloud, they were in a pocket of emptiness totally surrounded by darkness, with oval-shaped agglomerations of darkness flying all around them in a maelstrom. They were really in the eye of the storm, but where was Zero?

Darkness suddenly conglomerated before them, forming a Dark Matter bigger than the others that possessed them, about the same size as the first one they fought above Dark Castle. The newly formed Dark Matter didn't lose time and attacked them by shooting the now familiar dark lightning that Sweetie blocked with her shield. Kirby and Gooey both counterattacked at the same time, Kirby using the wand to throw heart-shaped projectiles that seemed to heavily damage the Dark Matter.

"It works!" Sweetie Belle shouted in happiness. Thanks to this wand, this redoubtable enemy was now nothing more than a slightly more powerful minion of the same level than Dedede's lieutenants. But that didn't mean the Dark Matter was weak, so they must keep their guard up.

As for Gooey, making sure to keep contact with Kirby and the wand, he shot star-shaped projectiles, probably filled with the love of the wand, hurting the Dark Matter as much as the heart-shaped projectiles.

The Dark Matter charged at them, and Sweetie flew away to avoid being rammed, using more shields to protect themselves of more dark lightning. Eventually, the Dark Matter stopped and threw his small orbs toward them. Remembering that these orbs were explosive, Sweetie created another shield and expanded it like a balloon, forcing the orbs to explode before coming too close, but causing the shield to be damaged before she made it disappear. Not minding the slight aching in her horn, she shot back at the Dark Matter her own heart-shaped beams before flying away from another charge.

The Dark Matter still charging at her, shooting dark beams that Sweetie dodged with more or less success, she decided to stop, turn around, and prepare a jab that she filled with her energy. The energy itself being filled with the love of the wand, the resulting punch sent the Dark Matter flying back, hurting him a lot, probably doubled by the fact that she hit him in the eye. More projectiles from Kirby and Gooey eventually finished him, the Dark Matter exploding like the first one, expelling darkness all around him with a big screech of pain.

This fight had definitely been far more easier than the first Dark Matter. Either this one had been less powerful, or the wand was too powerful.

Suddenly, the cloud flashed, forcing Sweetie, Kirby, and Gooey to close their eyes. When they opened them after the flashes, they finally saw him.

A giant white sphere, with a single big eye in the color of blood, and a big, black pupil.

He stared at them, they stared back, Sweetie grinding her teeth. Here he was, the responsible of so much suffering in all Popstar. Because of him, she had been forced to hurt innocents and fight her friends, almost killing someone. The leader of the Dark Matters in person.

Zero.

The fight started with them throwing what they had at Zero, the giant ball not even flinching at taking them as he started to charge at them at great speed despite his size. Sweetie didn't have time to get out of the way and took the full force of the charge, sending her flying in the darkness before she came back, Kirby and Gooey still on her back. Keeping her distance, they bombarded Zero again without stopping. He riposted by creating from his body a dozen of small Dark Matters that immediately flew toward them.

So he could create Dark Matters? Well... That sucked...

Sweetie flew away from the Dark Matters chasing her, Kirby and Gooey shooting at them to destroy them, then barely avoided Zero charging at her again, taking the occasion that she was so close to him to punch him, which didn't seem to do much. She immediately went away from him before he could ram her again, and she had to avoid more small Dark Matters flying around her, more and more numerous, to the point that she had to attack a few of them to diminish their number alongside Kirby and Gooey.

She saw Zero sending from holes in his body projectiles made of liquid red like his eye, and she used a shield to stop them, recognizing, to her disgust, what the projectiles were made of.

"B-b-blood?! He is shooting his blood at us?! What the buck?!"

Because of the blood on her shield, she didn't see Zero approaching, and she found herself hit by another charge destroying the shield, causing Gooey to be thrown out of her back, where he took his Dark Matter form and started to attack the other Dark Matters around him with his own lightning, much less effective than love. Zero was still creating more of them from his body, the Dark Matters flying everywhere in chaos. Before she was able to recover from being rammed by Zero, Sweetie was rammed by one of the Dark Matters, sending her flying into another one, then another one, before being saved by Kirby destroying the next Dark Matter about to ram her.

Sweetie used that to form a spherical shield filled with love around her body before expanding it, hitting and destroying dozens of the Dark Matters, clearing the area, before charging right toward Zero's eye, punching it with her right hoof filled with love energy, making the eye bleed. Kirby took this occasion to shoot the heart-shaped projectiles into it, hurting Zero more. The white ball decided to fly away in the darkness, and they could see him at the edge of the area, barely visible behind the agglomerations of darkness, where he shot his blood at them. Sweetie was able to avoid them, flying around the projectiles while shooting love beams back at Zero, the leader of the Dark Matter being able to dodge some of them thanks to the distance.

Gooey returned on her back and immediately started to use the love of the wand to destroy the Dark Matters that were coming back, helped by Kirby and Sweetie, until Zero came back, charging at them from above. Sweetie flew away at max speed, the giant white ball missing her from an inch. Looking at Zero, Sweetie flew a few more meters before doing an U-turn, charging at him, surrounding herself with another love filled shield, hitting Zero from the side like a comet. She flew away and started another charge, but Zero did the same, and the two collided. Zero being far stronger and bigger, Sweetie was the one losing the clash, and she was sent away, only for Zero to continue his charge and ram her, getting the filly lying on his head with his speed.

Rather than letting herself being sent into the darkness again, Sweetie ran on Zero, shooting love beams all the while, and she jumped from his back before turning around, shooting again her love beams alongside Kirby and Gooey. When Zero turned around to look at them, he shot more of his blood alongside creating more Dark Matters, still not giving up despite all the attacks he took. Sweetie created another shield around her and charged again at Zero, passing through blood and Dark Matter, until hitting him right in his eye, where she followed with a charged love beam at it. Then, she did a love-filled Vulcan Jab, heavily hurting the eye which bled even more, cracks forming in the white around it. Zero tried to fly backward to stop the filly from attacking his eye, but Sweetie didn't let him go, too determined to kill this monster there and then.

He shot his blood at her, but despite being hit, Sweetie didn't give up her attacks, only focusing on the eye with more jabs and beams, without interrupting, more and more cracks appearing around the eye. The Dark Matters around were however getting closer and more numerous, despite Kirby and Gooey attacking them to keep them away.

"Poyo!" Kirby shouted.

Sweetie looked back at all the Dark Matters and went a little away from Zero. She created another shield around her, and like earlier, expanded it, hitting both Zero and the Dark Matters, destroying all the black balls. The shield hitting Zero caused the cracks to grow even more, before the eye suddenly got out of the white body in a big explosion of blood, leaving behind a big bloody hole. As the eyeball continued to float, stopping bleeding, the white body eventually disappeared into the darkness. The eyeball then looked at them, much to Sweetie's surprise.

Sweetie gulped back some bile before saying, "He is still alive?"

The eyeball charged at them, not giving up the fight, and rammed Sweetie in the belly, throwing her backward. Clenching her teeth, she created a new shield around her and charged back at the eyeball, hitting it with force, making it bleed. She flew away, then came back, hitting it with another charge, then another, then another, not giving the eye any respite, because he must pay, for everything!

Who knew how many worlds he destroyed or plunged into darkness?

BAM!

Who knew how many died because of him?

BAM!

He only knew hate, anger and pain.

BAM!

And with his Dark Matters, he spread them in the universe, causing untold suffering, like they did to her, and forced her to do.

BAM!

Never again!

It! BAM! Must! BAM! End! BAM! NOW!

She gave one last charge, sharping her shield as much as she could at the front, like a spear.

And she pierced him.

The eyeball started to spiral, totally losing control. Blood was spewing of it in quantity far greater than it should possess for its size. And finally...

It exploded.

But that was not the end. Even with Zero beaten, there was still the cloud of darkness around them. While Sweetie recovered her breath, Kirby brandished the wand and, focusing on it, spread a giant wave of love all around them, destroying the whole cloud, ending the threat of the Dark Matters. They could see the wave spreading to the whole planet, reforming the destroyed rings, giving back the beauty of Popstar.

The world was saved.

But Sweetie didn't think about that. She was too busy looking at her hooves.

Her hooves covered in blood.

Chapter 28: After the Dark Storm

They returned to the fortress of Iceberg, victorious. When they landed, the wand, like the Rainbow Sword, disappeared, not needed anymore, giving Sweetie her normal appearance, her white coat now however drenched by Zero's blood. Kirby and Gooey also had some blood on them, but not as much as the filly who tried to shake it off in disgust. Knowing that this blood came from something she killed, for real this time, didn't help. It made her look like a murderer, when she simply did what had been expected: ending the threat, and for that, Zero had had to be killed. She had accepted that she would have to kill a bad guy to save Popstar, and she had prepared herself for such an eventuality. However, she couldn't deny the fact that deep down, she had really wanted to kill Zero, for everything he did and what he forced her through.

She killed him by duty, but she also killed him for her own reason. Vengeance, anger and hate.

Did that still make it right? Or did that make her no better than him?

She tried not to think about it as everyone was gathering around her, Kirby, and Gooey to congratulate them in saving Popstar. She turned toward Dedede and saluted at him, forcing a smile.

"Zero is dead, King Dedede. You should be happy to learn that I am the one who gave the finishing blow."

"Seeing the blood, I'm not surprised. I didn't even know they could bleed," Dedede said.

She laughed sheepishly. "One of Zero's attacks consisted of shooting his own blood at us, and his eye was literally made of blood so when it exploded... it was messy."

"That doesn't matter," Dedede replied, lifting Sweetie Belle of the floor so they could be face to face. "I'm proud of you. Even if it must have been hard, you have done it." He smiled widely at her. "I didn't expect any less from my trump card."

Sweetie giggled at his compliment. "Thank you." But soon, she stopped giggling and looked at herself, at her bloody coat, and remembered. Her attacking Zero's eye like a raged beast. The eye bleeding so much. The eye being expelled of the body in even more blood. The red hole in the body. The eye exploding with yet again more blood. Blood. Blood. All that blood. Caused by her own hooves.

Dedede saw her starting shaking and immediately put her against his chest before running toward the stairs to enter the fortress, shouting, "I must go! She needs a bath! Nago, you come with me! She will need a plush, and you are like an oversized one!"

"Meow!" the cat replied, following the king.

Kirby looked as they took the stairs to enter the tower, understanding what was going on. Even him was a little... disturbed by what happened up there. It was also his first time seeing blood in such a great quantity. But it must be worse for Sweetie. She hadn't been as prepared as him for so much violence.

He looked at his friends, Gooey and the animals, and said, "Poyo," before pointing at the stairs.

They all understood and nodded, ChuChu wanting nothing more than to hug the filly. She hadn't seen the fight, but seeing the blood and hearing what Sweetie said earlier, the poor dear will need all the comfort in the world.

They shouldn't have let her fight. She had already not been so good mentally after being possessed and forced to hurt innocents, Zero only worsened it.

"You are going after Sweetie Belle?" they heard someone ask. When they looked, they saw that it was a Waddle Dee alongside a familiar Broom Hatter with sunglasses and a Knuckle Joe. "Let us come with you. We also want to help her."

Kirby smiled at them and nodded. And together, they entered the tower.

---

A few minutes later, they found Sweetie on a big bed, in Dedede's personal chamber in the fortress, without her cape, kerchief, and headband, her coat without blood anymore, and her eyes closed, but not from sleeping. Right now, she was curled against Nago's belly, the cat putting as much of his small tail as he could around her, which was not much. Dedede was beside the bed, petting the filly.

ChuChu rapidly jumped on the bed to hug Sweetie, her motherly instinct taking over, and she was soon followed by all the others trying to give her some comfort one way or another, Broom Sunglasses taking off his sunglasses and hat before getting on the bed, not saying anything for once. Before long, Sweetie found herself in the middle of a pile, hugged from all sides. Dedede decided to just sit down beside the wall and watch.

Then Sweetie talked, not opening her eyes.

"Thank you, everyone..."

"You can count on us to be here for you!" Knuckle Joe said.

"Was it really that horrible?" Waddle Dee asked.

Gooey and Kirby nodded.

"You can't get out of a bloody fight without being disturbed if you aren't used to it," Broom Sunglasses said.

They could hear Sweetie sighs. "The blood is not the only reason why I'm like that..."

"It's because of the fact that you are the one that killed Zero?" Dedede asked. "Despite you telling me that you had accepted this, it must still be hard, knowing that you have killed."

"There is that..." Sweetie answered. "It's... I feel like a murderer..." At this, she could feel the hugs getting stronger.

Dedede shook his head. "You aren't a murderer. Are soldiers considered as murderers? They do their duty, like you have done yours."

"He is right, Sweetie," Waddle Dee said. "You saved Popstar."

"Was there anyway to spare Zero?" Broom Sunglasses asked.

"No... If he could have been given the capacity to dream, like Gooey, then maybe. But there was no way to do that right now."

"Then that's okay. Killing Zero was the only way to save everyone. If it wasn't you who finished him, then it would have been Kirby, or Gooey."

"It's just... I... I have not just killed Zero because I had to..."

Kirby looked at Sweetie, understanding what she meant, seeing how she had been violent against Zero in the fight.

Surprisingly, Dedede was the one nailing it. "You let your feelings get the best of you? You killed Zero in anger?"

Sweetie nodded slowly, tears appearing in her eyes. "I hated him... I... I wanted to kill him... I wanted to make him pay... Because of him... I... I..."

"I wanted to kill him too," Dedede suddenly said, stopping her, the filly looking at him in surprise. "You aren't the only one that wanted to tear him apart. Remember, I got the same treatment than you because of him, twice. If I could have gone up there and fight him, then I would have done everything to make him suffer. And I'm speaking about me, but I'm sure the majority of my army wanted the same thing, right you three?" he asked to Waddle Dee, Broom Sunglasses, and Knuckle Joe.

They nodded.

"See, Sweetie? Don't feel bad about letting your feelings talk for you. In this situation, it was only natural. We will not look down on you because of this. We would have done the same in your place."

"Because we aren't robots," she suddenly heard coming from the entrance. When she looked, she saw that it was Cape Knight who had joined them. "Only someone with a great mental training would have been able to fight Zero without losing control of their feelings after what happened. And you have only started fighting for a few months. You weren't prepared. At least..." He looked at Sweetie Belle in the eyes. "you can now use this fight to learn and get better. Telling yourself 'never again'."

"Never again..." Sweetie Belle repeated, closing her eyes. "Yes... Never again." She then felt someone pet her head. Opening her eyes again, she saw that it was Kirby, smiling at her.

"Poyo."

"Like Kirby says, you can count on us to help you," Broom Sunglasses said.

"That's right," Cape Knight continued, now sitting beside Dedede. "You will probably encounter other villains, and some of them may be even more horrible than Zero. Their action will probably anger you again, and you will want to make them pay. Again, this is natural, and that's ok if that happens. However, remember that you have friends at your side that can help you keep your emotions in check, and not do something you may personally regret, like what happened just now."

"Yes..." Sweetie said. "I'm so happy... to have you all. Thank you."

Dedede smiled warmly at her. "Also, even if you have killed Zero by vengeance, you still killed him to save the world, right?"

"Yes."

"Then it's okay! You still have done the job of a hero! You just put some personal feelings in the matter, that's all. I'm sure Kirby also wanted a piece of Zero for forcing him to fight some of his friends."

"Poyo!"

"See? Even Kirby! So stop feeling guilty about that. It makes everyone sad when you are sad."

Broom Sunglasses then talked. "You could say..." He took his sunglasses and put them on. "our moral is at zero."

...

ChuChu hit him on the back of the head.

"That was bad and you should feel bad!" Knuckle Joe added.

But then, they heard Sweetie Belle starting laughing.

Seeing this, Broom Sunglasses said, "No. I actually feel good."

---

They all pass the night in the bedroom, sleeping together on the bed, except Dedede and Cape Knight who slept against the wall. The next day, Dedede said to everyone that it was time for him to return to the castle with the army. At that, with signs and poyos, Kirby proposed that they all take a picnic together tomorrow, to relax and let these events in the past, and everyone accepted, Dedede with reluctance, but seeing Sweetie happy at the idea, he couldn't say no. Beside, he could put his grudge against Kirby aside to pass some good time. He needed that after the drama from the previous day.

They will just have to bring a LOT of food.

At that, the animals returned to their homes, and soon, everyone else returned in the mainland, Kirby taking a Warp Star to fly around Dream Land, probably to bring more friends to the picnic. As for Gooey, he just decided to wait the next day in the castle with Sweetie Belle.

While waiting for the picnic, Sweetie decided to test some... new skills that she picked up from the Dark Matter possessing her. And so, accompanied by Dedede, Waddle Dee, Broom Sunglasses, Cape Knight, Knuckle Joe, and Gooey, she went on the boxing ring.

"I'm surprised you want to return training so soon," the king said.

"I wouldn't call it training," Sweetie replied. "It's more like 'testing'. You see, the Dark Matter possessing me used my shields in a way that I didn't think before. And it gave me an idea to use them to... 'fly', so I don't have to always go on Kirby's back to pass paths that couldn't be passed on hooves, or feet. I think it would be a good alternative until I can self-levitate."

"You can already levitate stuff, why can't you self-levitate?" Waddle Dee asked.

"Probably too heavy. Maybe she should stop the cakes," Broom Sunglasses said.

The hatter suddenly found himself levitated before being thrown above one of the stands, and they could hear him hit a pile of stuffs, and for some reason, they heard a cat. Everyone raised a sign with a number at that:
Dedede: 9
Waddle Dee: 10
Cape Knight: 7
Knuckle Joe: 100!!! ("WOOOO!!!" he screamed)
Gooey : 10 (he lifted the sign upside down, making it look like 01)

This made Sweetie giggle before she said, "I'm definitely not too heavy. Thanks to my training, I could now levitate another filly or colt my size. It's just that it's harder to focus in levitating our own body."

"But you will be able to do it! I know it!" Knuckle Joe shouted.

"Of course I will do it! I will train hard for that! But until then, I may have found another solution with my shields."

"Now I'm curious to see how you can use shields to fly," Dedede said.

"Well, see?" She materialized a flat shield on the floor and made it go up. "The Dark Matter used this to..." She rubbed her head sheepishly. "to crush Kine against the ceiling. And with that, I understood two things. I can use my shields to attack, and I can use my shields as platforms for someone or something to go on."

"I think that I see where you are going with this," Cape Knight said.

Sweetie made the flat shield disappear before she materialize another one a few inches above the floor, a little bigger than her, and she jumped on it. With her on it, she then made the shield slowly go up, successfully lifting her. "It works!"

Everyone applauded her, including Broom Sunglasses who had come back with some scratches on his head.

"That's impressive, Sweetie Belle! I'm so jealous!" Waddle Dee shouted.

"I can lift you too, you know?"

At that, she materialized another shield in front of Waddle Dee. He screamed in joy before jumping on it, the shield lifting him up. However, they could see that the filly was starting to sweat.

"Seems like lifting two persons at the same time is a little too much for you," Cape Knight said. "You should go back on the floor before the shield disappears under your hooves."

"Yeah... Urg... Twilight could probably lift all of us at the same time..."

---

The rest of the day, wanting to remain beside her just in case, Dedede decided to play some chess with Sweetie until dinner, where he ordered his chef to cook for the filly their best Maxim Tomato Pie. Because of that, it was a very stuffed Sweetie Belle that went to sleep this night, letting Gooey sleep with her.

The next day, she, with Dedede, Waddle Dee, Broom Sunglasses, Cape Knight, Knuckle Joe, and Gooey, joined the location that had been decided for the picnic, at lunchtime. The place was none other than her picnic spot, with the tree and the lake, the blanket just beside the water, and she could see that they were the last to come, and was surprised by some of the friends that Kirby invited.

She easily recognized Whispy Woods and Adeleine, but she also saw a bipedal pudgy raccoon, a bipedal yellow fox, and in the lake beside them an orca. She also saw beside Rick a female hamster that looked like him, but with pink fur where he possessed brown fur, and she wore a red bow on her head. Beside Nago was a cat like him, but all white. With ChuChu was a similar yellow octopus with a white sailor hat with a pink band around it. Pitch was under the wing of a bird that looked like him, but bigger, and pink instead of green. And in the lake, she could see a pink fish beside Kine. After the greetings, it was Adeleine who presented the new ones.

"The pink hamster is Pick, and the white cat is Shiro, they are Rick and Nago's girlfriend. And Mine, the pink fish, is Kine's wife." She pointed at the yellow octopus. "This is Nyupun, ChuChu's best friend. And the bird is Pitch's mom, Twitch. The orca is Acro, the raccoon is Pon, and the fox is Con."

"Hello, nice to meet you all," the filly said. She suddenly found herself in a bear hug by the white cat while she was surrounded by all the other females, excluding Adeleine and ChuChu, awwing at her. ChuChu went beside Nyupun and bumped her while giggling.

"Told you she was adorable," she said in her animal talk.

"You were right! I just want to pinch those little cheeks!" Nyupun replied.

Sweetie was able to get out of Shiro's hug only to be tickled in the belly by Pick, her laugh making all the females awwing again.

"To think that she helped save the world!" Twitch exclaimed.

"I know right? It's hard to believe that such an adorable little thing has done so much!" Mine said.

Pick then took her bow. "I will put it on her mane! She will be even more adorable!"

"Ooh! Before, I wanna put my hat on her!" Nyupun said.

Shiro took a brush. "Girl time with the cutie!"

"Help! Someone!" Sweetie shouted.

Dedede guffawed. "Sorry Sweetie Belle! You are alone this time! The women must sate their thirst of cuteness!"

"Why aren't they after Kirby?! He is as adorable as me!"

"They have already done it!" Adeleine said, showing Kirby who had his back turned, sweating. "Actually... Let me join you girls! I wanna brush her mane!"

"NOOOOOOO!!!"

Waddle Dee could only watch the scene, sweating. "Being adorable can be a benediction... but it also can be a curse..." he said.

"No... truer... words..." Broom Sunglasses said, back on the floor, all red, with steam getting out of him, with Knuckle Joe waving a fan at him.

---

Sweetie Belle was now sitting close beside Dedede, a sailor hat on her head, a red bow attached to her tail, and eyes going from girl to girl, ready to bolt if one started to approach her with THAT look. At least, Adeleine looked at her with an expression that said, "Sorry, I couldn't resist."

"Eventually, the Dark Matter in me got angry, and I found myself chasing Kirby trying to eat him," she then heard Whispy Woods say.

"Wow, you too?" Dedede said.

Kirby, Gooey, and the animals got goosebumps at what they were saying.

"Wait, you two tried to eat Kirby?" Sweetie asked. "I tried to eat Pitch!"

"Tweeeeet?!" Twitch shouted in horror.

"Well... That is one way like any other to get rid of an enemy..." Waddle Dee said. "Kirby does it all the time."

"Excepted that when he eats someone, they just reappear elsewhere not far. I don't think the same thing would have happened here..." Broom Sunglasses said.

"Eheh... It would have been ironic for Kirby to be eaten," Cape Knight said.

Dedede laughed. "The eater eaten! It is hilarious!"

"Poyo!" the puffball exclaimed, outraged. This made some of the others chuckle.

"There is something that I don't understand," Knuckle Joe said. "Gooey told Sweetie about Zero's existence, but..." He turned to Gooey. "Why didn't you tell us earlier that he was coming?"

"Goo..." Gooey said, doing a shrug with his tongue.

"You didn't know?" Sweetie Belle asked.

He nodded.

"How could you not know?" Dedede asked.

"Goo... Scout."

"I think I see," Cape Knight said. "You were going from world to world, trying to find targets?"

"Goo!" He nodded.

"But what about the Dark Matter that possessed me the first time?" Dedede asked. "Surely he was a sign."

"Dark Matter... powerful... alone..."

"A Dark Matter powerful enough can attack a world by themself?" Waddle Dee said.

Gooey nodded.

"It's true that this Dark Matter was more powerful than the ones we fought in that dark cloud," Sweetie Belle said. "So you thought that he was just a lonely attacker, rather than a soldier sent to weaken Popstar for an invasion?"

He nodded.

They all sighed at that. Nothing could have been done...

"I... have one last question, Gooey," Sweetie then said. "When we were possessed, the Dark Matters were calling Kirby 'the Incarnation'..."

"Poyo?"

"Oh right..." Dedede said. "They named him that when they were talking about you and how you were pushing them back."

"Yes, I remember," Whispy Wood said. "The Dark Matter in me was warned that 'the Incarnation was coming'."

"Same," Adeleine said.

Acro, Pon, and Con confirmed it too with a nod.

Gooey only answered with a shrug of his tongue. "Zero old... Knew things... Gooey not told."

"He probably recognized Kirby as something and told the Dark Matters that were with him," Dedede said.

"So Kirby is the incarnation of something?" Sweetie Belle asked. "Now I wonder what."

"Probably gluttony," Broom Sunglasses said.

This made Pitch roll in laughter and Dedede guffawed, soon followed by giggles from all the others, even Kirby.

And so, the picnic continued, with more laugh, some games, and a really good ambience overall. They learned that Acro will go live in another world somehow, Sweetie recounted some of her crusadings, they swam a little in the lake, Adeleine made some drawings of everyone...

Sweetie really regretted that her friends and family from Equestria weren't here.

But one day... One day, she will be with them again, and she will have another picnic, this time really with everyone.

And it will be the best day ever.

But right now, she was glad to be with so many good friends. Already, it was almost like the events with the Dark Matters had never happened.

Almost...

Chapter 29: A Gift for the King

Sweetie Belle finished to put Adeleine's drawings in a drawer in her recently acquired desk. Recently, as in a few days before the incident with Marx. Dedede hated paperwork as much as any normal person, so he hadn't thought that she would need a desk, but she argued that she may need one to stow stuff, or if she needed to write something, so he reluctantly accepted to give her one. Right now, the desk was rather empty, with just a few books, a pen (why wasn't there something like that in Equestria?) and a pile of blank paper in one of the drawers. And now she could add Adeleine's drawings, which will make good souvenirs of this day with her friends.

She also got to keep the sailor hat and the red bow, Pick and Nyupun refusing to take them back. So she put them in her closet, not sure if she will use them one day. Well, she may actually use the sailor hat, thinking about trying to obtain a Cutie Mark in being a sailor. She would need to borrow one of Dedede's ships, and a few minions to be the crew.

Why not do it tomorrow?

---

"You are lucky that Cape Knight knows how to command a ship, or else, it would have ended very badly," Dedede said.

"I'm sorry..."

"You know, before trying something else to obtain your Cutie Mark, you should first learn how to do it. It doesn't matter to try to be a sailor, if you don't even know what is port or starboard."

Sweetie chuckled embarrassingly at that. Yeah, it was pretty stupid now that she thought about this. Wait...

"You don't know either what it means!"

"And that's why I let someone that know how to command a ship do the job at my place. I'm not a sailor, I'm a king. I say to the captain where I want to go, and he makes sure that the ship leads me where I want by ordering the crew, because I don't know anything about being a sailor. If I want to lead a ship, then I will have to learn first."

She giggled. "You? Learning? Impossible!"

"Exactly!" Dedede said, guffawing.

"So... Am I grounded?"

"Grounded? Why would I ground you?"

"Well... I almost destroyed one of your ships."

"I never grounded you until now, not even when you flooded half of the castle, I will not ground you now, especially with you being now my second in command. This castle has seen worse. As long as you don't destroy the whole castle, you can try anything you want. Just don't forget to ask for someone to help you in the future."

"Ok. Thank you, your majesty."

---

It wasn't in Equestria that this kind of thing could have happened. If she did something wrong, then she was grounded, end of the story. But here, no matter what she did, Dedede let it pass. Well, sometime he got angry, but even then, no 'No dessert at dinner!' or 'go to your room and don't get out!'. At worse, he lectured her, and that was all.

That was nice, but somehow, it made her feel even more guilty. Dedede was so nice to her, so when she screwed something and made him upset, only for him to let her go, it almost made her want to cry.

And so, she decided that she must do something for him.

But the problem was... What could she do for him?

---

"So, do you have any idea?" she asked to Waddle Dee and Cape Knight.

"Sorry Sweetie, but I have no idea," Waddle Dee answered. "He is a king, he can already have everything he wants."

"Not really everything," Cape Knight said. "Remember, if he goes too far, he will just have his butt kicked by Kirby again."

"Oh right... Well, the best thing we could do for him would be to beat Kirby, but..."

"I can't even expect yet to beat Dedede in a duel, so Kirby? No chance," Sweetie Belle said.

"Sorry Sweetie Belle," Cape Knight then said. "If you want to thank the king, you will have to find by yourself what you think will please him based on what you know of him. It will be the best way to show your gratitude."

"Mmh... I know! He loves to eat! I will make him the best cake ever!"

"Aren't you still banished from the kitchen?" Cape Knight asked.

"Then I will ask the cooks!"

---

"NO!" the Cook Waddle Dee screamed in front of the door.

"But please! I just want to cook something for King Dedede!"

"You would kill him!"

"I'm... I'm not that bad, right?"

The Waddle Dee just glared at her without saying anything.

"Then... Maybe you can help me learn?" she said, insure.

"What?" the Waddle Dee asked, slightly surprised.

"Dedede told me that when I try something new, I should learn with the help of others. And, well..." She rubbed her left foreleg with her right hoof. "He is right. I tried cooking by myself, and... that didn't work well, as you know. But with your help, maybe I can do at least something that can be eaten."

The Waddle Dee stared at her for a moment before his expression brightened.

"Then come!" he said, waving his arm to sign her to enter.

"Yay!" she shouted in happiness, bouncing once, before entering the kitchen.

---

"So, what do you want to bake for the king?" the cook Waddle Dee asked.

"I don't know..." Sweetie Belle answered. "He loves cakes, and he loves fruits too. So... a cake with some fruits?" She then gasped. "I think that I know what I will do!" And she said what she was thinking to the cook.

"That's a beautiful idea!" the cook said, clapping his tubby arms. "Alright, so we will need the basics, like eggs, milk, sugar, or flour, but we will also need strawberries, blueberries, and apples."

"Okay. Can I still try to do the cake by myself as much as possible? You will help me by telling me when I'm doing something wrong."

The cook sighed. "Very well," he said before calling a few other cooks. "We will keep a close eye on you, and make sure that you don't put the kitchen on fire."

---

Sweetie Belle looked at her creation with some doubts. Even with the help of the cooks telling her when she was starting to do something wrong, she still made a few small mistakes here and there. A little too much sugar, or getting the cake a little overcooked for example. The cake was also not fully uniform, being slightly smaller at one side than at the other. Finally, she tried to form Dedede's face with the fruits, blueberries for the blue head, strawberries for the red hat, apples peeled and cut in cubes to form the beak and the golden rim of the hat, and white chocolate for the pompom on the hat and for the eyes, alongside a single blackberry for each pupils. At least, she did that right, but it wasn't perfect. One eye was a little bigger than the other, and the beak and the hat weren't symmetrical.

At least, it seemed edible. But...

"Maybe I should do something else..."

"I don't know," Cape Knight said behind her. "You have done the best that you could to bake this cake, I'm sure he would like it."

"I still want to try to do something else that I could do better. Like... Like... I know! Dedede has a big ego, so I could do something about it!"

"And what will you do?" Cape Knight asked.

"I will create a small statuette of him!"

"Do you even know how to do?"

"No... But I can still try!"

---

Sweetie asked around the castle for someone to help her. After a few minutes, she was directed to a group of Waddle Dees, and when she met them, she found out that it was a group specialized in creating objects using clay.

"So you will help me?" she asked them after telling them what she wanted to do.

"Of course!" one of them answered. "We will help you learn how to use clay to create that statuette! However, we must warn you, it's messy, and it takes time."

"I don't mind getting messy, I will just take a bath after, and I'm ready to take the whole day if I have to."

"Good! Then take some clay, and we will start."

---

Sweetie looked at her new creation now beside the cake. She followed the instructions to the letters, but she learned that molding clay was definitely not as easy as she thought. She wanted to do a statuette of Dedede making a peace sign, his symbole, and at least she was able to give it the shape she had wanted. However, his beak looked like the fusion of his beak and the one of a duck, and the right foot was a little bigger and rounder than the left. The pompom was a little too big too. And of course, she missed the arm and the hand doing the peace sign. The right arm looked more like a small noodle with the head of a rabbit at the end. At least, she was able to paint it more or less correctly, even if she spilled the paint a little everywhere, so the white rims had a little red or blue here and there, for example.

At least it looked like Dedede. But...

"No..."

"Maybe you should try to do something that you know how to do, rather than doing something that you don't know anything about," Cape Knight said.

"Yeah... Maybe... The problem is, I'm not sure about what I am good at. I don't know what is my special talent yet, and everything I have tried until now has ended in failure." She sighed, then looked at the painted statuette. "Maybe... drawing? Yes... I like drawing, and it's not something that I should mess too badly. But it may be a little too childish..."

"You are a child," Cape Knight said. "If it's from you, it will not be too childish."

Sweetie giggled. "You are right. I will draw, then."

---

Using some colored pencils and a blank paper from her drawer in her desk, she started drawing, cake and statuette at her left and right, not knowing what to do with them. She already had an idea of what she wanted to draw, and so, it didn't take her long to end her drawing.

"You wanted to see me?" she suddenly heard behind her. Recognizing the voice, she turned around to see King Dedede at the entrance of her chamber.

"Dedede?! What are you doing here?" she asked in surprise.

The king raised an eyebrow at her question. "Waddle Dee told me that you needed me."

"What? But I never asked him to go find you."

A vein appeared on Dedede's forehead. "Really? Then why did he..." He suddenly stopped his rant when he saw what was on the deck. Again, he raised an eyebrow and asked, "Is this statuette representing me? And is this my head on this cake?"

At that, Sweetie's cheeks became red. "W-well..." She sighed. "They are gift that I created for you but... erh... Like you see, they aren't as good as I wanted them to be..."

"Gifts?"

"Yes..." she answered him before taking her drawing in her magic and giving it to him.

Dedede looked at the drawing. It was a drawing of him doing the peace sign with his right hand, a fierce look on his face, rather well done, but not perfect. His left arm was against his chest, Sweetie Belle sitting on it holding a scepter with Dedede's symbole at the top while giving the same fierce look than the king. Her cape was also wrapped around her, making sure to show the symbol on it.

Above the two of them, in big, red, yellow rimmed letters, was written "THANK YOU! BEST KING!"

Sweetie Belle then talked again. "I wanted to thank you for being so kind to me. I tried to do a cake with the help of the cooks, but I messed it a little. I then tried to do a statuette of you but..." Laughing sheepishly, she showed the statuette with a wave of her hoof. "I messed it too a little. And so, I decided to just do something that I know I'm rather good at: drawing." She then looked at him with hopeful eyes. "I... I hope that you like it. I understand if you find it a little too childish, but Cape Knight told me that from me, it would be alright."

Dedede smiled warmly at her. "Of course it is alright. It's even really good! Look at that! It's a great pose!" He then took Sweetie Belle and sat her on his left arm against his chest, before doing the peace sign with his right hand, like in the drawing. "Yeah! I look awesome like this! WE look awesome like this! Just... wrap your cape like in the drawing, to see..."

"Like that?" she asked, wrapping her cape around her, making sure that the symbol was showing.

"Yes! Like that! Now all we miss is the scepter, but as we are right now, we already look like the perfect duo! The best king and his wonderful second!"

She laughed. "Yay! We are... the Dededestroyers!"

"That's it!" he shouted, pointing at her, before guffawing. He then looked at the cake, took it, and ate it whole, to Sweetie's surprise. After swallowing it, he said, "Not bad. You may actually become a good cook in the future."

"Really?!"

"If I say it! As for the statuette..." He took it and studied it. "Even if it's not perfect, I will still keep it. It's a statuette of me after all. Perfect or not, it would be a waste to throw it. It will make my bedroom a little livelier. The drawing too." He suddenly felt Sweetie's hooves around his neck. Recognizing the now familiar hug, he put the statuette back on the desk before petting the filly.

Cape Knight and Waddle Dee watched the scene from the entrance, happy.

Author's Notes:

Little edit to say that the drawing is exactly what I would like to have for the cover of the story, without the "Thank you! Best king!" part of course. Too bad my drawing is not as good...

Chapter 30: It's Raining Crystals

Dinner time, the same day.

Sweetie Belle looked at her food, thoughtful. She hadn't eaten anything yet, and Dedede finally remarked that.

"Is there a problem?" he asked.

Sweetie looked at him before she sighed and finally asked, "Do... Do you know of any way to go into another dimension?"

Dedede raised an eyebrow. "Why the sudden interest?"

"Well... it's because..." She sighed again. "I think that I'm not just coming from another world, but from another dimension."

"Another dimension? Really?"

"I have been having doubts after exploring all those worlds in our quest to stop the sun and moon from fighting each other. And then, thanks to Gooey, the day before we went to hide in Iceberg, I learned that the stars symbolize the dreams. and they are everywhere! Heck, Popstar is a giant star-shaped planet! It's a literal world of dreams, and all those other worlds had the same logics as Popstar. But my world... There is none of that. In my world, stuffs like breathing underwater exist only in dreams or using magic. No black doors that transport you to a different place. No food popping in random in the wild. No stars representing dreams. Nothing... My world is so different from all the ones that I visited that I'm thinking that I'm not from this universe. This universe is an universe where dreams are real. Not in my world..."

"I see your point..." Dedede said while crossing his arms before sighing. "Sorry to say, but there is only one thing that I know which can transport you to another dimension."

"Really?!"

"Let me finish. We call that thing the Dimensional Mirror, and it can be found somewhere in the sky of Dream Land. However... It only transports to a mirror version of Popstar."

"Oh... Does this means... that I will never go home?"

"Don't say that. I only know of the mirror, that doesn't mean that there are no other ways out there in the universe. Like you say, in our universe, dreams are real, and that means that somewhere out there, dimensional travels are real. It will just be really hard to find..."

"Nova probably could have helped me. Too bad I had to destroy him to save the world."

Dedede didn't say anything to that, only watching Sweetie as she finally started eating slowly. After some thinking, he then said, "Nova was only one way. There will be others, and sooner or later, you will return to your home. Until then..." He made the peace sign. "enjoy basking in my sublime presence!"

She laughed.

---

The next week, Sweetie Belle ran toward Adeleine, the girl busy painting two rainbows crossing each other from the top of a hill. She had been searching her for a few days now, but it was like searching a needle in a haystack.

"Adeleine!" she shouted to get her attention.

Adeleine heard her and stopped her painting before looking in her direction. Seeing her approaching, she smiled before saying, "Sweetie Belle! It's nice to see you! You want something?"

Sweetie stopped beside the girl and said, "Yes. With your painting, can you create a portal to another dimension?"

"Eeeeh?!" Adeleine screamed. "A dimensional portal? I-I can't! It's too much for me! Well, I probably could try, but the portal would probably transport you to a random place! The chances for you to end up somewhere dangerous are too high!"

At that, Sweetie stopped smiling before sitting and sighing in sadness. "I see... Thank you Adeleine..."

"Hey..." Adeleine said, petting Sweetie to comfort her. "I'm sorry. Why do you want me to create a portal?"

"To go back home..."

"Oh..." Adeleine hugged the filly before saying. "I understand. I'm sorry that I can't help you."

"It's alright Adeleine. I will just continue to search."

"Well then..." Adeleine stopped the hug, before looking at her paint. "Do you want to paint something alongside me?"

This made Sweetie smile. "Yes!"

Her painting, of Rarity, was not as good as Adeleine's paintings, but she still put it on one of her wall in her chamber. She should do more painting, it was really relaxing.

---

Two days later.

"So you can't open portals with your powers?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Sorry Sweetie Belle. That's too much even for me," Marx replied.

Sweetie Belle and Marx were sitting on a log beside a path. Sweetie had found him sitting on it and took the occasion to ask him if he could open portals with his powers, only to be answered with a no.

She sighed before saying to him, "Ok... Thank you Marx. So... do you want to go pranking with me? I have seen Kirby sleeping in the way."

"Oooooh! Ohohohoh! This is perfect!"

They quickly found Kirby sleeping under a tree not far from a river, and Marx was already trying to hold his laughter.

"So, any idea Master Prankster?" Sweetie asked.

At that, Marx got out of... nowhere a jar full of red peppers. "He likes eating everything. Then let's see how he endures peppers."

It was now Sweetie's turn to hold her laughter. "Wow! There are so many he could breathe fire!"

"I know, right?!"

The two pranksters then slowly approached the sleeping puffball. Once they were just in front of him, they waited until Kirby yawned before Marx dropped the whole jar in his mouth before it closed. Immediately, Kirby woke up, turned red, and put his arms on his mouth, his cheeks bloating and sweat appearing everywhere on his head. But then, before Marx and Sweetie could start to laugh, Kirby spat fire right at them before he ran toward the river, spitting even more fire all the way.

He was quickly followed by the two pranksters now on fire, screaming, before they all jumped in the river almost at the same time, Kirby rapidly drinking as much water as he could, creating a whirlpool in front of him. Sweetie and Marx found themselves caught in it, and before long, despite trying to swim away, they found themselves stuck inside Kirby who was full of water, the puffball not swallowing them. Two seconds later, he spat them back, at the bottom of the river, Sweetie finding herself on Marx, the two of them with swirly eyes.

"Well... This didn't go as planned..." Marx said.

"You don't say..." Sweetie replied.

Just as they recovered their senses, they then heard Kirby starting to laugh. They looked at him, rolling on the floor, before they looked at each other, then they started laughing too.

---

The next day, not having any more ideas of what or who could create a portal, Sweetie came back to her initial idea: becoming powerful enough in magic to one day be able to create a portal to go back home, doubling her magical training. For the following month, she passed hours lifting bigger and bigger weights with her magic, or shooting various projectiles at dummies.

To help her train, Dedede would often join her to fight each other, this time in real fights until one of them couldn't move anymore (of course, it was always Sweetie Belle), improving their skills. Dedede revealed that he was starting to work in the creation of a new hammer that "will definitely clobber that Kirby!" but it may take a few more months before it is achieved. Now Sweetie was curious to see this hammer.

She was also starting to work on a new offensive spell based on the thing she loved: singing. She remembered the way the Walkys, those walking microphones, attacked by sending musical notes to their enemies, and she would like to reproduce something similar. The problem was that, contrary to fire, ice, or lightning, she hadn't experienced what it was like to shoot music notes from her horn, so it was far harder and longer to learn. She will have to ask Kirby to eat one of those Walkys before jumping on her back, to see if it will help.

Right now, she was in front of Dedede with all the soldiers and servants in the castle in the main hall, the king having something to say. He seemed angry.

"Alright everyone!" he started. "I just learned that that group of thieves, the Squeak Squad, has yet again stolen some treasures in one of my fortresses!"

"Them again?!" Sweetie shouted.

"Yes! It's a fortress a little further that I had kinda forgotten. So, what I'm gonna do is that I will go to that fortress to reinforce it, so I will not be present for a few days."

"Can I come?" the filly asked.

"No need," the king answered. "There is not much you will be able to do there. Instead, as my second, you will take my place in the castle until my return."

Sweetie gulped. "You are sure?"

"Hey! Don't worry Sweetie!" she suddenly heard. Looking in the direction of the voice, she saw that it was Waddle Dee. "Remember, you can count on me and Cape Knight to help you! Well... mostly Cape Knight..."

"Right..." Sweetie Belle replied, still insure.

"I'm sure you will have no problem," Dedede said. "Remember, it's only for a few days."

---

Surprisingly, Dedede was right. With the minions already knowing their work, she didn't have much to do, meaning that she could continue training without problem. That was, until the night after Dedede's departure, where her sleep was interrupted by a Waddle Dee shouting her name.

"What...?" she asked sleepily.

"There is something going on in the sky. Come look outside the castle."

Rubbing her eyes to get rid of the sleep, she said, "Okay, I'm following you," before they went on the roof of the castle where Sweetie looked at the sky alongside the guards on the walls. She saw two things. One: the sun was almost rising, the sky getting clearer at the horizon. Two: there were... not meteors or shooting stars, but things falling of the sky here and there. It was hard to see what they were, but it was clearly not natural. Something was happening, and it may be bad. She saw one of the things falling not too far of the castle, and said, "I'm going to see what they are. Can one of you go waking up Waddle Dee and Cape Knight?"

Two Waddle Dees saluted. "Yes madam!"

---

"Okay you two," Sweetie spoke to Waddle Dee and Cape Knight. "A few minutes ago, unknown things have fallen from the sky, and it may be bad. I saw one of them falling not far, and I'm going to see what it is. Waddle Dee, you are coming with me."

"What? Why me? If it's bad, then Cape Knight may be more useful!"

"Because he will take my place until I come back. He is better than you at leading the guards and the servants, so he will know what to do if something happens while I'm away dealing with whatever it is."

"I can't say anything against that..." Waddle Dee said, dropping his arms in resignation. "But wait... Why do I even need to come?"

At that, Sweetie smiled. "You may know what to do once we find whatever has fallen from the sky. And also, because we haven't spent much time together since almost two months."

Despite not having a mouth, she could swear she saw him smile. "Ok then."

Cape Knight then spoke. "Go on you two, leave the castle to me."

They nodded before leaving.

---

It didn't take them long to find whatever fell from the sky, in the middle of a small field surrounded by wooden barriers. They found out that it was some sort of small glowing crystal.

"That's it? A crystal?" Waddle Dee said.

"It's beautiful. But we must be careful, crystals can have nasty things in them."

Courageously, but carefully, Waddle Dee poked the crystal, only for nothing happening. Seeing that, he took the crystal, looking closely at it. "There doesn't seem to be anything." He didn't see however the shadow appearing behind him.

However, Sweetie saw it, seeing a familiar black ball with a single eye popping out of it. Shouting, "Watch out!" she immediately grabbed Waddle Dee before pulling him at her side.

Waddle Dee saw the ball and yelled in surprise, "A Dark Matter?!"

At that, the Dark Matter ascended to the sky before flying right at Sweetie Belle at great speed, using the light of the sun to blind her. Seeing that, Waddle Dee screamed, "No!" before jumping in the path of the dark ball just before he reached her, the Dark Matter disappearing instead inside him.

"Waddle Dee!"

"Poyo!" she heard a very familiar voice behind her.

"Kirby!" she shouted, turning around, seeing the puffball approaching with an adorable little winged human girl with long pink hairs, a red dress with white rims at the arms and two golden buttons, a red ribbon in her hair, a white collar, and brown shoes. The girl was holding a crystal similar than the one they found, but a little bigger. "Watch out! A Dark Matter took possession of Waddle Dee!"

"Oh no!" the girl shouted in a childlike voice.

"Poyo!" Kirby shouted, looking at the fallen Waddle Dee who started to wake up, Sweetie running beside him before looking at her possessed friend.

Waddle Dee woke up, his arms hiding his eyes.

And then...

He turned into a Waddle Doo.

...

"What?"

Chapter 31: Heroes Versus Dark Matters, Round 3!

Sweetie Belle looked at her friend in confusion. Getting possessed turned Waddle Dee into a Waddle Doo. She turned to Kirby, remarking that he was wearing the familiar cone-shaped hat indicating that he was actually using the Bomb Ability, and asked him, "Did this happen before?"

Kirby shook his head, a little confused too, before he pointed to Waddle Dee... Doo, indicating to her to focus.

When she looked back at their enemy, she saw that he was charging at them, and she readied her whip, grinding her teeth and silently apologizing to Waddle Dee. However, the charge was halted by Kirby rolling a bomb right at Waddle Doo's feet, the explosion sending him flying before he crashed on his head. A big, round bump appeared on his head as Waddle Doo fell on his back, his eye becoming swirly.

Yeah... Possessed or not, Waddle Dee was still Waddle Dee... Easy to knock out. That would have been different if the Dark Matter had been possessing her like he had been about to do before Waddle Dee jumped in his way. Rest now to find a way to force the Dark Matter out of him.

The little girl then approached him and pointed the crystal at his body, shouting, "Get out of him, you monster!" Following that, the crystal shot a laser at Waddle Dee, and not long after, the Dark Matter was forced out of him.

Sweetie stared in awe at that before she saw the Dark Matter charging at her. "Nope! Not this time!" she screamed, hitting the Dark Matter by throwing a shield at him, knocking him back. Of course, that did nothing to the Dark Matter who charged at her again, only for the girl to fly between him and Sweetie, crystal pointed at the black ball. The crystal then shot a few crystalized projectiles, hitting the Dark Matter in the eye. After taking three projectiles in rapid succession, the Dark Matter exploded.

Again, Sweetie was awed at that, until the girl talked to her, asking, "Are you alright?" in worry.

"Yes, I'm alright," the filly answered before looking in the direction of the still unconscious Waddle Dee, back to normal. "But we should help him."

"Aah! Right!" the girl shouted in panic before flying toward Waddle Dee. "What can we do?!"

But then, Waddle Dee started to wake up, groaning and rubbing his bump before he sat, his eyes opening. Sweetie immediately hugged him, almost knocking him on his back again, shouting, "Waddle Dee! Are you alright?!"

"Woah!" he shouted, trying to not fall. Once stable, he patted Sweetie on the back of the head, answering her. "Yes, I'm alright. My head hurts a little, and I can still feel the burns from the bomb, but it's not too bad."

Sweetie released him before stepping back, sighing in relief. "I'm glad..." she said before turning to the little girl. "Thank you for getting rid of this Dark Matter."

The girl smiled at her. "You are welcome. I'm glad he is alright," she said. She then put her right hand on her chest. "My name is Ribbon, nice meeting you."

"Nice meeting you too, Ribbon, my name is Sweetie Belle, and this is Waddle Dee," the filly replied, pointing at herself, then at Waddle Dee. She then turned to Kirby. "So, what is happening? I thought that we had eliminated the Dark Matters by killing Zero."

Kirby only shrugged at her, not knowing how they could be back.

"You killed Zero?!" Ribbon asked in surprise. "That's incredible! He was like one of the oldest evil beings in the universe! Created from the darkness of the Dark God himself!" She turned to Kirby. "Now I know that I can count on you to save my world and my people! If you have been able to eliminate Zero, then you can eliminate whatever is now controlling the Dark Matters!"

Putting her question about this Dark God in the back of her head, Sweetie asked to her, "You are from another world that is attacked by the Dark Matters?"

"Yes," Ribbon responded. "I come from a world named Ripple Star, the world of the fairies."

Sweetie gasped at that. Fairies?! She then shook her head. Focus Sweetie! It's not the time!

Meanwhile, Ribbon sighed. "We were suddenly attacked by the Dark Matters. Our queen quickly understood that they may be after the Crystal, which may be the most powerful weapon against them, and asked me to take it and escape Ripple Star to protect it. However, I was pursued by three Dark Matters, and they destroyed the Crystal, shattering it into many shards that scattered in space."

"And now, we must find these crystal shards to reform this Crystal and save your world," Sweetie Belle continued. She then took the crystal that had fallen from Waddle Dee's arm in her magic and levitated it to the fairy. "Is it one?"

"Yes!" Ribbon shouted in joy. She then touched the crystal with her bigger crystal, getting the two to fuse into a slightly bigger crystal. "Thank you, Sweetie Belle! Wait, you said 'we', you want to join us?"

"Of course! I fought the Dark Matters alongside Kirby two times, so I'm ready for a third!" She then showed her whip. "You can count on me to help you!"

"Poyo!" Kirby shouted in joy.

Waddle Dee looked at Sweetie Belle, then at Ribbon. He closed his eyes, and after some time, took a big breath and said, "I'm coming too!"

"What? Really?" Sweetie asked in surprise.

"Yes! I'm not a fighter like you or Kirby but at least, I have the occasion to do something, and I want to help! M-maybe I can be useful."

Sweetie smiled at him and said "It will be nice to have you with us Waddle Dee." She then turned to Kirby. "You will not mind?"

Kirby shook his head, smiling, before he started walking, waving at everyone to follow him.

And so, Sweetie started a new adventure alongside Kirby, this time with her friend Waddle Dee, and a fairy named Ribbon. But before long, she stopped and shouted, "Wait a minute! How are we gonna find the shards? They can be everywhere on Popstar!"

"Oh! Don't worry," Ribbon replied, showing the crystal to her. "The crystal can guide us to the closest shard. Here, look." She then pointed the crystal toward the sky, and a small light appeared on the surface, pointing at a direction, a little at the left.

Seeing that, Sweetie and Waddle Dee sighed in relief, glad that they will not have to search each bushes and behind each rocks of Popstar.

---

Following the light, they reached a forest that seemed to be in the middle of Autumn, the leaves of the trees being red, orange, or yellow. After knocking out some of the locals attacking them for some reason, they ended up entering a rather big tree with an entry at the bottom. In the tree, they had to climb a few wooden platforms, Kirby however being surprised in the way by a bunch of Pupas, tear shaped insects with a black face and red and yellow stripes, not seeing them before he touched one, making it explode like a Scarfy.

They reached a wooden bridge inside the tree leading to an exit. Outside the tree, they found themselves on an extension where they saw a wooden lift linking the tree to another one. When they got on the lift, Ribbon saw that the light on the crystal was pointing a little down.

"Poyo!" Kirby shouted, pointing slightly down under the path of the lift.

Waddle Dee came to his left and put an arm above his eyes to have a better look. "Yes! I see a shard floating a little further down."

"I see it! I'm gonna get it!" Ribbon said, flying to the floating shard.

"How can it float?" Sweetie asked, confused.

"It's a magical crystal. Do you have to ask?" Waddle Dee said.

"Right..."

At this moment, Ribbon came back and pointed at the other tree linked by the lift. "The crystal says that the next shard is this way."

"Well then, let's use this lift."

Once he finished talking, Waddle Dee jumped on the log on the cables connected to the platform of the lift, and started walking on it, making the lift advance.

Sweetie used this moment of calm to ask something. "Ribbon. Earlier, you said something about a Dark God, and Zero being created from his darkness. Who is this Dark God?"

"I don't know that much about this God. All I know is that he comes from the origin of the universe, and that he is responsible of the creation of the Darkness, including Zero. I think he also created or helped create a few other stuffs, but I don't remember. There was also something about an ancient civilization, but I never really was interested by this, you would have to ask the queen."

"Ok."

Not long after, they reached the other tree, they entered it, and found a strawberry shortcake that Kirby ate to heal his burn from the Pupa. This made Sweetie remember that she didn't have breakfast today. Well lucky her, after some rather long jump toward the bottom of the tree, they found a Maxim Tomato that Kirby happily let Sweetie take. The filly however cut it in two, giving the second half to Waddle Dee who hadn't eaten too this morning. The Maxim Tomato eaten, they jumped in a hole in the middle of the floor.

This led them to a room with a giant Bouncy guarding the exit door. However, even if she was a giant, she was still just a Bouncy, and so, with some cracks of Sweetie's whip and some of Kirby's bombs, it didn't take them long to knock her out. That made her release a crystal shard that Ribbon immediately took before they passed the door.

Following the light to the next shard, they followed a small path until they found someone unexpected. Lying down on a tree stump was Adeleine, her easel at her feet. As they approached, they saw that she had a crystal shard in her right hand.

"Adeleine!" Sweetie Belle shouted to get her attention.

The girl got up and turned toward them, eyes closed, making them stop in confusion. And then, she opened her eyes, and seeing how she looked at them, something was definitely wrong. She then turned to her canvas and started painting on it, forming some black rounded creature with two pointed black ears, two black dots as eyes, and two white feet. Once finished, the black thing jumped from the canvas and charged at them only to be destroyed by one of Kirby's bombs.

"She must be possessed by a Dark Matter," Ribbon said.

"Then I'm gonna watch the fight from over there. Good luck," Waddle Dee said before receding just as Adeleine finished painting a Bronto Burt that got destroyed by a beam from Sweetie.

Adeleine then painted a big, black spider with long legs and two white eyes, quickly followed by a Mumbies, the floating creepy mummy head, only for the two of them to be destroyed by another bomb and another beam.

"Does this Dark Matter really think that he can beat us by throwing those small fries?" Sweetie asked.

As she talked, Adeleine painted... something that was easily destroyed too. Seemed like the Dark Matter was losing patience, and Sweetie's comment probably hadn't helped, because Adeleine then painted nothing else than the Ice Dragon that they fought in Iceberg.

This may be a little harder to beat.

Once out of the canvas, the dragon immediately used his tail as a propeller to get closer to them while he breathed his ice, trying to freeze them, while they saw Adeleine hiding behind the easel, shouting at the dragon to kill them. Sweetie and Kirby avoided the ice breath by running in opposite directions, forcing the dragon to choose who will be his target. At the same time, the two started attacking him, Sweetie using fireballs alongside her whip. The dragon then jumped in her direction only for a last fireball making him explode in midair, surprising Sweetie.

"Already? Seems like Adeleine's creations aren't as strong as the real ones."

The destruction of the dragon caused Adeleine to make a tantrum before she started to paint something else on her canvas, the something being a Dark Matter.

A Dark Matter painting a Dark Matter to attack them. He must really be getting desperate.

Once out of the canvas, the Dark Matter shot his dark lightning at them only for Sweetie to use a shield to stop the projectiles while she and Kirby counterattacked with actual lightning and bombs. The Dark Matter then charged at them but they easily dodged him before he was destroyed by a bomb.

That was the last straw for Adeleine who made another tantrum before jumping from the stump and charging at Kirby, swinging her brush in fury, eyes closed. Kirby exchanged a look with Sweetie, not even moving, before the filly sighed and shot a beam at Adeleine's back, knocking her on her belly, the girl stopping moving after that.

Knowing it was her cue, Ribbon approached Adeleine and shot a small laser from the crystal at the girl, forcing the Dark Matter out of her. Before the Dark Matter could go far, Sweetie trapped him in a shield, giving an opening for Ribbon to shoot the crystal projectiles to destroy him.

The fight finished, Waddle Dee came back, saying, "Maybe I could have helped for that one."

"Yeah, you probably could have," Sweetie said.

Adeleine then woke up, groaning, before they could hear her say, "Again..."

Sweetie approached her. "Are you alright?"

"Yes. I'm alright," Adeleine answered as she sat up. "I thought that the Dark Matters were destroyed."

"We all thought, but they are apparently stubborn," Waddle Dee said.

Adeleine giggled. "So, back again to save the world?" she asked to Sweetie and Kirby.

"For once, it's not Popstar that must be saved," Sweetie said, pointing at Ribbon. "but her world. Her name is Ribbon, and the Dark Matters are invading her world."

"And we need those crystals like the one that you have," Waddle Dee added.

Adeleine took the crystal shard and showed it. "You mean this one?"

They nodded.

"Then take it," she said, as she tended the crystal for Ribbon to take, the fairy thanking her. "Say, can I come with you in your adventure? I have enough of those Dark Matters, and I want to do something to help get rid of them once and for all."

"Of course!" Ribbon shouted. "Any help is welcome!"

"And I'm sure that your painting will greatly help us in our journey!" Sweetie Belle said.

"Poyo!"

"Thanks! You will see, you will not regret taking me with you!"

Ribbon then took the crystal and looked at the light. "The next shard is this way. Let's go, everyone."

"Yeah/Poyo!"

---

The light led them beyond the forest, approaching an imposing structure composed of three circular levels, the superior levels smaller than the inferiors. The walls were made of stone bricks with parts made of smooth grey stone protruding at regular interval. On the wall of the second level, they could see entrances placed above the grey stone parts of the first level.

"What is this?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"It's one of the king's fortresses!" Waddle Dee answered happily.

"So there are shards inside it?" Adeleine asked.

Ribbons looked at the light on the crystal before answering. "Maybe. It could simply be in the way. We will have to go around it to verify."

"We are not in front of the entrance," Waddle Dee said. "so we will have the occasion while we look for it."

"Wait, I see something," Sweetie said, looking at the path around the fortress. On the path, among other creatures, like living white rockets with a red top named Skuds or Bronto Burts, she saw one of those black things like Adeleine painted in their fight. She pointed at it. "What is that? I have never seen a creature like that one in Dream Land before."

"Yes, I remember painting it at our fight," Adeleine said. "I think it's some sort of minion of the Dark Matters."

"That's it," Ribbon confirmed. "When the Dark Matters invaded Ripple Star, I saw some of them drop those things. I'm not sure what they are, but I think they are created from their darkness. The ones following me probably created them to help them find the crystal shards."

"Then let's get rid of it! Tayooo!" Waddle Dee shouted, charging at the black creature. Reaching it, he used the momentum to give a powerful punch that knocked the creature on its back before it poofed into a small cloud of darkness. At that, Waddle Dee raised his arms, yelling, "Victory!"

Sweetie giggled, but before she was able to congrats Waddle Dee, she saw a Sir kibble approaching.

Understanding that he was a soldier of Dedede's army, probably patrolling around the fortress, she approached him and talked to him. "Sorry for the trouble, Waddle Dee was beating an enemy minion that had gotten too close of the fortress."

The Sir Kibble saluted at her, but remained silent

"Hey now, no need saluting," Sweetie said, gesturing him to stop with an embarrassed smile. "We are here because we are in search of crystal shards, and we were led here. We need them to stop the Dark Matters."

The Sir Kibble stepped back in shock, as if to shout, "They are back?"

"Yes, they are back."

At that, the Sir Kibble signed at her to follow him. He then bowed before he pointed at the fortress.

That surprised Sweetie Belle who immediately understood. "Dedede is in the fortress?" she asked. "This fortress is the one that has been raided by the Squeak Squad?"

The Sir Kibble nodded and pointed at th highest part of the fortress, the roof of the top section.

"On the upper roof?"

The Sir Kibble nodded again.

"Oh my gosh!" she shouted in joy before she turned to the others. "You hear that everyone? Dedede is here! I'm sure he will help us!" She turned back to the Sir Kibble. "Where is he?"

The Sir Kibble pointed at the roof.

"Then let's go!"

At that, she started running, quickly followed by the others, with Adeleine yelling, "Wait for us!", leaving a sweating Sir Kibble behind. Following the path around the castle, they found the entrance, with a lowered drawbridge as a door. Inside, the entrance hall was a giant room with a red carpet starting from the entrance and going on a stair right in front. The stairs led to a passage all around the room with doors. Sweetie was then stopped at seeing the first soldier in the way, or rather, at seeing what he was: a one-eyed smiling ghost with a lance and a shield.

She looked at him. He looked back.

...

"We have ghosts in our army?" she eventually asked with a raised eyebrow.

The ghost bowed at her at that, laughing.

She shrugged, saying, "Well, alright then. Can you show us the quickest way to the roof? We want to see King Dedede."

The ghost answered her by turning around, pointing his lance at a door just at the top of the stairs.

"Thank you."

She passed the ghost, waving at him, before climbing the stairs followed by the others, with Sweetie thinking, Talk to a ghost, check! In the next room, they followed the path passing by their left, passing beside stained glasses, before reaching the exit, leading to a small vertical room with floating platforms to go up. Gordos were in the way, but once they saw Sweetie, they got out of it, letting them pass.

It was so good to be the second of the king!

At the top of the room, they passed a hole in the ceiling, which led them outside the castle, on the roof of the first level, revealing that the earlier room had been one of these sections made of smooth grey stone. Walking on the roof, they found themselves back at the entrance of the castle, where the drawbridge had been raised, helping them to reach the other side.

They then heard Ribbon say, "I think there is a shard close! The light is pointing down slightly at the left! Right inside this tower!" before she pointed at one of the sections of the first level made of smooth stone. They could see a hole on the roof of it, leading inside.

"Sweet!" the filly shouted in joy, jumping in the hole followed by the fairy. The rest of the group remained on the roof, waiting. Soon, they heard her again. "Found it! There is also a door here, and Ribbon says that there is another shard in the same direction!"

Adeleine rubbed her head. "Does this lead us at least to the roof where the king is?"

"We will find out," Waddle Dee replied before he jumped.

Adeleine sighed before she said, "I don't understand this fortress... Why are we even on the roof of the first level?"

"Poyo," Kirby answered her with a shrug before jumping too, followed by the girl.

Once everyone was at the bottom of the tower, they passed the door, traversed a small empty room, and eventually reached a big room with a spiral staircase made of really big stairs. In the middle of the room was a beautiful fountain. Ribbon then looked at the light of the crystal, turned around, and looked above the entrance by where they came from. And here it was, a crystal shard that she immediately took.

After that, they took the stairs until they reached a dead end with a chain linking the staircase to the ceiling. They saw that above there was a circular passage with more chains leading to the ceiling, with one of them passing through a hole in the ceiling.

"Oh no... Don't tell me we have to climb those chains..." Adeleine complained.

"I... I never learned how to climb ropes, or chains..." Sweetie said.

"Oh don't worry, it's not that hard!" Waddle Dee claimed, approaching the chain. "Look at me." At that, he grabbed the chain before putting a foot on one of the links. He raised the other foot, put one of his arms higher, making him go up a little, before he put the foot on a second link, and repeated the process with the first foot. "See?"

After he climbed the chain enough, Kirby jumped on it and started to climb it too, having no problems. Sweetie gulped before approaching the chain and she started to do like Waddle Dee showed, successfully climbing it, followed by an insure Adeleine, while Ribbon simply flew beside them. Once they reached the circular path, they went to the chain leading to the hole and climbed it the same way.

The hole led them on the upper roof of the fortress, where as they were said, they found Dedede actually looking at one of the crystal shards that he was holding in his left hand.

"Dedede!"

"My king!"

"Mmh?" Dedede raised his head and saw the group approaching, getting confused. "Sweetie Belle? Waddle Dee? Kirby? Adeleine? What are you doing here?"

Kirby then tried to take the crystal, only for Dedede to raise it out of his reach.

"Hey! Hands off! It's mine!"

"Dedede, we need this crystal," Sweetie pleaded beside him.

The king raised an eyebrow at her, and asked, "Why?"

"Well you see-"

But before she could say more, something fell from the sky between them, throwing them away, shocking Adeleine and Ribbon. Just as Sweetie, Kirby, and Dedede got back up and looked at what threw them, the thing, which was actually a Dark Matter, charged at the king before they could do anything to stop him. The next instant, Dedede found himself possessed, getting back into his sleepwalking state, and turned toward the group, readying his hammer.

"Oh come on! Again?!"

"Poyo..."

"Quick Adeleine! Let's go away of here to let them fight!"

"Uh... Yeah..."

As Waddle Dee, Adeleine, and Ribbon went away, Kirby and Sweetie Belle readied themselves to fight the possessed king, the filly cursing the Dark Matter for forcing her to fight Dedede.

They will pay so much for that.

Dedede charged at them, hammer raised above his head, and Sweetie answered by charging at him. She dodged the hammer and got around him, getting behind him where she shot a beam. With great speed, Dedede turned around and swung his hammer, forcing the filly to jump back, only to be jabbed by the hammer, throwing her a few meters away. Behind him, Kirby threw at him his bombs, getting his attention. After being hit by the first few bombs, Dedede then swung his hammer to send them away, eventually sending one back at Kirby to his surprise, the bomb exploding on the puffball before he could do anything.

That was when Sweetie Belle jumped on Dedede's back, clinging to his head, before she punched him again and again and again, until he grabbed her. Knowing it would happen, Sweetie shot a big fireball at his face, causing him to release her as he stepped back. Rapidly, Kirby came back and ran around him, dropping bombs all around him before he ran away with Sweetie Belle. Just as Dedede stopped rubbing his face, the bombs exploded, heavily hurting him. Angry, he then jumped to try to crush them under his weight, only for them to dodge. However, he was able to grab Kirby before throwing him at Sweetie Belle, causing them to roll a few meters. He followed that by another jump, this time successfully falling on them.

Hurt, Sweetie turned her head and shot fire at him from under, forcing him to jump away. As they got up however, Dedede charged back at them, and they were forced to run. Kirby dropped a bomb in the way, only for Dedede to use his hammer like a croquet mallet, throwing the ball at the puffball, but Sweetie used a shield to make it bounce back toward the king where it exploded. Kirby then changed direction and started to run around Dedede, throwing bombs at him all the way while Sweetie finally decided to use her whip to attack Dedede once he had his back turned.

That was when Dedede dropped his hammer and lowered his arms, as if losing consciousness, only for him to start floating without even inhaling air. Sweetie quickly joined Kirby in front of the penguin before she asked, "What is going on?"

"Poyo..." Kirby said while taking a step back.

Then, Dedede's belly opened, letting appear the Dark Matter, his eye looking at them. Sweetie's fur somehow became more white at that. She could see Waddle Dee, Adeleine, and Ribbon becoming pale too.

The Dark Matter then threw dark projectiles homing at them, and they were forced to run to avoid them until they stopped chasing them, Sweetie shooting a few beams at the king.

But then, the eye closed and let place to a giant mouth with sharp teeth. And now, Dedede charged at them, the belly mouth opening and closing back and forth. And now, Kirby and Sweetie were running away again, shouting "POYOOOOOOOO!!!" and "HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!! NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE!"

The spectators looked at the chase with both horror and fascination.

"I don't know if I must find King Dedede's belly chasing Kirby and Sweetie to eat them horrifying, or amusing..." Waddle Dee commented.

"Why not both?" Adeleine said.

That was when the Dark Matter stopped chasing Sweetie and Kirby, only to turn toward Waddle Dee, Adeleine, and Ribbon, to their horror.

And he charged at them.

"WAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!"

They ran (or flew) away from the apparently hungry Dark Matter, Waddle Dee shouting, "WHY UUUUUS?!"

"SHUT UP AND RUN!"

"I DON'T WANNA BE EATEN!"

Sweetie and Kirby remarked that the Dark Matter was now chasing the others, and Sweetie shouted, "Oh no! We must help them!" She followed that by shooting beams at the flying penguin, while Kirby ran toward them so he could throw his bombs.

Adeleine saw the bomb in Kirby's hands as he approached and got an idea. While still running, she took a blank paper and her brush and quickly painted a Bomber. When the Bomber jumped out of the paper, Adeleine took it and threw it right into the mouth in Dedede's belly. When the Dark Matter chomped on the Bomber, it exploded inside him, stopping the penguin from chasing them as smoke escape from the belly and from Dedede's beak. Kirby finally got close enough to throw his bombs, and Sweetie also started shooting explosive balls, eventually causing the king to fall on the floor, the belly getting back to normal.

Ribbon then used the crystal to force the Dark Matter out. Like last time, Sweetie trapped him with her shield, letting Ribbon kill him with the crystal. After that, everyone sat down, taking back their breath.

"Is it what Dedede meant when he said that he tried to eat you?" Sweetie asked Kirby.

"Poyo..." Kirby confirmed.

"Some warning could have been nice," Adeleine said.

"That was so scary," Ribbon commented.

At this moment, Dedede started to wake up, Waddle Dee quickly helping him to get back on his feet.

"Urg... This is starting to become a habit..." the king said.

"Are you alright Dedede?" Sweetie asked.

"I will be better once I eat something..."

"I can help with that!" Adeleine shouted. Soon enough, she used her painting skills to create enough food for all of them, meat for the king, a strawberry shortcake for Kirby, an onigiri for Waddle Dee, a chocolate ice cream for Sweetie, an apple for Ribbon, and a sandwich for herself.

As they started eating, Dedede said, "So the Dark Matters are back?"

"Yes, this is what I was about to say. They survived Zero's death, and they are invading Ribbon's world," Sweetie said.

"Ribbon is the fairy, by the way," Waddle Dee added.

"Hi!"

"Mmh. And what does the crystal have to do in all this?"

"It's a powerful relic of my world that can destroy the Dark Matters, but it has been shattered by them."

"And now, we are looking everywhere for the shards to reform the crystal," Sweetie continued.

"Well, if it's to destroy those cursed Dark Matters, then I suppose that I can give this crystal. Here." At that, Dedede tossed the shard at the fairy, who fused it with her crystal.

Sweetie, once her ice cream finished, approached Dedede and sat beside him, rubbing her head at his side. "Thank you Dedede."

The penguin looked at her, smiled, and petted her gently.

"My king," Waddle Dee then said. "We were wondering if you would accept to join us."

"Join you?" At that, he looked at Kirby. "Join him?"

"Please Dedede, it will be so fun to have an adventure together," Sweetie pleaded, giving him puppy dog eyes.

Dedede crossed his arms, and after a moment, he sighed. "Alright. I'm coming. Beside, I'm starting to get tired of being possessed by those Dark Matter. Time to make them pay."

"Yay!" Sweetie shouted in joy, hugging him. "Welcome to the team!"

"Poyo!" Kirby said while raising an arm to welcome him.

"Don't push it, you oversized living chewing gum!"

---

Later, as they walked.

"So, how much of those shards do we have to find?" Dedede asked.

"I don't know," Ribbon answered. "We will just follow the light until the crystal is back to its normal size. It's all I can think that we can do."

"And I think that I see where is the next one," Sweetie Belle said, pointing before her. "Look."

It turned out that following the light led them to Whispy Woods, a crystal visible in his branches.

"Yes!" Adeleine shouted before she started running toward the tree followed by Kirby, Ribbon, and Waddle Dee. However, when Whispy saw them approaching, he started shaking his branches.

"Ah no!" Sweetie yelled. She then materialized a shield as a platform and jumped on it before making it fly with her on it to the tree. She stopped herself just in front of his eyes. "Don't think about it, Whispy! We have no time for a fight!"

"What? Why?" the tree asked in confusion.

"Because the Dark Matters are back, and we must stop them!"

"Really?"

"Yes. Long story short..." she pointed to Ribbon. "This poor girl's world is attacked by the Dark Matters, and we need the crystal in your branches to destroy them."

Whispy frowned. "Then let me give it to you." After saying that, he shook his branches, making the crystal fall, Sweetie catching it. "I hope that this time, those monsters will be exterminated for good. I'm still angry just thinking about getting possessed by them."

"Thank you Whispy. Don't worry, I don't know how they came back, but we will eliminate them. And if they come back again, then we will eliminate them again, and again, until they stop coming back."

"Poyo!" Kirby confirmed behind her.

As Whispy nodded to them, Sweetie jumped down from her shield before giving the crystal to Ribbon who fused it. The fairy then looked at it to see where they had to go next, only for the crystal to start floating, to everyone's surprise.

"What now?" Dedede asked.

"I don't know!" Ribbon answered, looking at the crystal in worry.

The crystal flew away from them before it started glowing brighter and brighter. Soon after, at the emplacement of the crystal, a star-shaped portal opened, and they could see that it was leading to another world. The portal gave them a view from space of the world in question, which seemed to be a world made entirely of rock. A particularity of this world was that it was in pieces that were constantly pulled together and pushed apart by gravity.

"This world seems bad news..." Dedede commented.

"So this means that we have found all the shards of Popstar?" Adeleine asked.

"It looks like it," Waddle Dee answered. "And it means that this world is our next destination. But I don't know, this world is destroyed. Look at the pieces."

"But we have to go," Ribbon replied. "We have to get the shards in this world." At that, she flew into the portal, disappearing in it.

"She is right," Sweetie Belle said. "Beside, Kirby and I have visited much more dangerous worlds back in our journey to invoke Nova. Come on everyone!"

After that, the members of the group looked at each other, nodded with determination, Waddle Dee still gulping, before they jumped into the portal, which closed behind them.

Chapter 32: A Dying World

The star-shaped portal opened on the new world, showing Popstar in the other side. A couple seconds later, Ribbon flew out of it, followed soon by the others. The portal then disappeared, and the crystal reappeared, Ribbon quickly taking it. After that, the group looked around at the new world, finding out that they were actually on a flat rock surrounded by an immense desert littered with cacti made of rounded parts, more rocks, and the ever present stars. The sun hit hard, already making them sweat, and there was not a single cloud visible in the sky.

"Alright, this world already sucks. Let's hurry to find those shards before I melt," Dedede said while he wiped his forehead from the sweat.

Ribbon let herself fall on the head of the closest group member, Adeleine, not feeling like flying under the heat. The human girl took the fairy, then her red beret, before she put Ribbon on her head, and the beret on Ribbon, partially hiding her under it.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now can you tell us the direction we must take to find the shards?"

"Of course," Ribbon replied, looking at her crystal. She then pointed at a direction, and said, "This way."

Looking at the direction she pointed, they could see further a big structure where the front looked like a giant Kabu, partly hidden by rocks in the way.

Sweetie sighed in relief. "Thank Celestia, it's not far."

"Hopefully, it will be cooler inside," Waddle Dee said as he started walking toward the structure, quickly followed by the rest of the group.

With no real obstacles in the way to stop them beside some of this world's inhabitants, it didn't take long for them to reach their destination, Kirby giving up the bombs in the way to eat a Bobo, a walking fireball with eyes, to gain the Fire Ability, giving him better resistance to the sun's heat. Following that, he jumped on Sweetie's back to share the Ability and the resistance to the heat with her, the filly thanking him. This made both Dedede and Waddle Dee jealous to not have such an Ability.

And then, before entering the structure, they heard someone drinking something through a straw, and discovered that it was Adeleine and Ribbon, in the back, both of them drinking some cold fruit juice. The girls saw that they were being stared at, and Adeleine asked, "What?"

Dedede pointed at the glass of fruit juice in her hand and asked, "Did you create this from your painting?"

"Yes."

A vein became visible on his temple. "And why haven't you created more for us?"

Adeleine giggled before answering. "Because you didn't ask." She then stuck out her tongue mockingly. "You know about my ability, so you have no excuse."

Dedede opened his mouth, closed it, opened it, closed it, before letting his tamper get the better and starting chasing Adeleine in anger, his arms stretched before him to try to grab her, followed by Waddle Dee, the girls laughing all the while.

Sweetie and Kirby both giggled too before the filly said to the pink ball, "Let's wait them inside."

"Poyo."

So they passed the entrance, finding that the structure was a giant ruin. Seeing that, Sweetie smiled and shouted, "Cutie Mark Crusader Archeologist, yeah!" before she started running in the ruins, Kirby still on her back. When she reached a strange green floating block with an eye that was under another block, this time metallic with moons and stars motifs, she slowly approached it until the block suddenly fell, almost crushing her and Kirby, before the block floated back up to fall again. She just decided to walk around it.

Kirby then shouted, "Poyo!" and pointed up toward the ceiling, above a second metallic block with another one of these green blocks under it. When Sweetie looked, she saw a crystal shard floating there. Smiling in joy, she used her magic to levitate it back to them, and Kirby took it in his arms.

They continued their way until reaching the end of the room, the only way to continue being a hole in the ceiling with sand falling from it. Using a shield as a platform, she flew up to it with Kirby still on her back, and they both entered the next room, only to have a bad surprise, the door closing behind them. They didn't have time to be alarmed by that, because they were then assaulted by these plus-shaped cactus-like enemies, including a bigger one guarding the room on top of a pile of sand.

Kirby jumped from Sweetie's back and covered himself in flames before charging at the big cactus, letting Sweetie deal with the small ones. Between Kirby burning the big cactus, and Sweetie rapidly knocking out the small ones, the fight didn't last long, and the big cactus released another shard that Kirby took. Beating the big cactus also opened a door in the wall on top of the pile of sand.

"What do we do," Sweetie Belle then asked. "Should we wait for them?"

Kirby answered by shaking his head before pointing at the now open passage.

"We should exit the ruins to find them?"

He nodded.

"Well, I suppose you are right. It should be quicker this way."

At that, they entered the next room, the door closing behind them, finding themselves in a giant vertical room with many Kabu-like heads poking out of the walls. The closest to them then started to pour sand out of its mouth, slowly filling the room with it. As they looked everywhere, even up at the, for now, far ceiling, they found out that there were no exits.

This room was a trap with seemingly no escape.

"Kirby, please, tell me that you have an idea to get us out of here."

Rapidly, Kirby covered himself in flames and charged at the still visible door, but he was not able to destroy it. Sweetie shot an explosive ball at the head pouring sand, hoping to make it stop, but they revealed themselves to be more solid that she thought. Before long, the door disappeared under the sand, and a second head started to pour more.

They gulped.

---

A few minutes earlier.

The second part of the group composed of Dedede, Waddle Dee, Adeleine, and Ribbon entered the ruins, only to see Kirby and Sweetie Belle disappear into a hole in the ceiling at the end of the room. As they started following them, the hole closed, blocking the way.

"Great!" Dedede shouted. "What now?"

"Maybe we should try to find another entrance," Waddle Dee proposed.

"I think they have a shard," Ribbon said. "I see the light in the crystal move in the direction they took. So we will know where they are."

"At least there is that," Dedede said.

They exited the ruins from where they came, and started to walk around it, Ribbon keeping an eye on the light of the crystal. So far, no new entrance, not even a window. Ribbon then saw the light change direction and said, "I think we are going near another shard, the light is not pointing to Kirby and Sweetie Belle anymore."

"Then let's quickly find it so it shows them to us again," Dedede said.

Not long after, they reached the other side of the ruin where they found a sphinx with a Kabu-like head like the entrance of the ruin, half buried in the sand, with the light pointing at its nose.

"So we have to destroy the nose?" Adeleine asked.

"How will we do it?" Waddle Dee asked.

"Leave it to me," Dedede said, taking his hammer. He took some steps back, then charged at the nose, destroying it with a big swing of his hammer, freeing the shard that Ribbon immediately took.

The fairy then looked at the light of the crystal and said, "Yes! It shows them again! And they are going up!"

"Of course! Maybe there is an exit by the roof!" Waddle Dee shouted.

"But it's too high to jump..." Adeleine said.

At that, Dedede sighed. "Just go on my back, I will lift you up."

Waddle Dee and Adeleine did so while Dedede inhaled air to inflate. Soon, thanks to his ability to fly this way, they reached the roof, only to find that there was no exit.

"They are just bellow us," Ribbon said.

"But how will they go out?" Waddle Dee asked.

"Easy. If there are no exits, we will create one," Dedede answered. Yet again, he took his hammer and readied it above his head.

---

They were almost at the ceiling, and still no exit. Sweetie was able to slow the sand by blocking the mouths of the head with her shield, but now, the end seemed near. Right now, they were holding each other in comfort, the filly scared of the impending doom.

But then, something smashed the ceiling above them, creating a big hole. They then could see Waddle Dee poking his head before yelling, "They are there! And... Oh my gosh! Is this room being filled with sand? Seems like we are right in time!"

"Waddle Dee!" Sweetie shouted in relief and joy. "I'm so happy to see you!"

"Poyo poyo poyo!" Kirby shouted as he bounced in joy.

As the room continued to fill with sand, Sweetie and Kirby placed themselves under the hole, waiting to reach it thanks to the sand. Soon, they passed it, the sand stopping filling more. They saw that the rest of the group was here, looking at them in relief, and Sweetie immediately jumped in Dedede's arms to hug him.

The king chuckled while petting her. "Maybe in the future, you should wait for everyone before exploring unknown ruins."

"I will!"

---

"Twiliiiight! I bear some news! Mmh?" Discord shouted as he opened a door in a wall while waving a newspaper, only to stop in curiosity at seeing that Twilight was not alone, but was currently having a tea party with her five friends, Spike, and most surprising of all, Celestia and Luna. As everypony turned to look at him, he crossed his arms and pouted, saying, "You are all having a tea party, and I wasn't invited? Oh! Unless the postsmare got lost in my chaotic dimension! If that's the case, then I will gladly join you!"

"Sorry Discord," Celestia then said. "We are having this tea party as a thanks for Twilight and her friends helping Luna with her guilt and stopping her rampaging creation to bring nightmares to everypony. I didn't think to invite you."

"That you weren't here to help didn't arrange," Luna said.

Discord looked at Luna for a couple seconds with a raised eyebrow before saying, "Remind me to remind you to tell me this story. Seems interesting."

"You will love it," Fluttershy said.

"Yeah, the moment where princess Luna merged the dreams of everypony in Ponyville into a single dreamscape will totally be in your tastes! That was crazy!" Pinkie shouted.

"Oooh! Now I definitively want to hear it!"

"Anyway Discord, you were saying about having news for me?" Twilight asked, only to get the newspaper on her face

"Here it is! Read the frontline!"

Twilight looked at Discord in annoyance with the newspaper in her hooves before reading, ""Sweetie Belle almost killed in a deathtrap." Wait what?!"

"WHAT?!" her friends yelled, especially Rarity, who took the newspaper from Twilight's hooves with her magic and read it. ""The young filly named Sweetie Belle and her friend Kirby were exploring some ruins in a vast desert when they got themselves trapped in a room that was slowly filling with sand. They were saved at the last minute by their friends creating a hole in the ceiling"?!" She then glared at Discord. "I hope that you had your paw or claw ready to snap to save her!"

"Of course!"

"And how did this happens?!"

"I'm not sure, they were already in this room half filled with sand when I opened the portal. I should really put some alarm to tell me when she starts something interesting."

"So you think she is in another adventure?" Applejack asked.

"Seeing as she was with Kirby, very probably. Or else, they were just exploring some ruins for the fun. You know, children."

"Knowing the Crusaders, I wouldn't be surprised," Rainbow Dash said. "Still! Escaping a deathtrap in a ruin! This makes me think of Daring Do! Again, she is the one having all the fun!"

"I wouldn't call 'barely escaping a deathtrap' having fun!" Rarity shouted harshly to her friend.

"Excuse me," they all suddenly heard from Celestia. "Isn't Sweetie Belle the filly that has been displaced to another dimension? Is something happening to her?" she asked in worry.

Discord answered her. "After escaping this trap, she is alright. Right now, I'm not sure. Wait a minute."

He then snapped his paw, making a portal appear on one of the walls. The portal showed Sweetie Belle with her mane and tail on fire, Kirby on her back with his head on fire, and the two of them among a group constituted of that penguin named Dedede, that creature named Waddle Dee, and a new one.

"Is that a human?!" Twilight shouted.

"Why is Sweetie's mane and tail on fire?!" Rarity shouted.

"Yes, it's a human, and for the fire, remember when her hooves turned into wheels thanks to Kirby? Same thing there, but with fire," Discord answered.

"She looks awesome!"

"Woah! So this is how a human looks?"

"Hey look! There is a little human poking out of the big human's hat!" Pinkie shouted while pointing at the human's head, showing a smaller human head with pink hair and a red ribbon poking out from under the human's red beret. They could see that she was also carrying some crystal.

"Aww... She looks adorable," Fluttershy commented.

"So they are crossing a desert?" Luna asked, remarking them walking on a vast expanse of sand with round cacti and rocks. The penguin, the big human girl, and the red creature were also carrying parasols to protect themselves from the sun, but for some reason, the filly and the pink ball on her back didn't have one.

"The newspaper did say that they were exploring some ruin in a desert," Celestia said. "Now, we must ask why."

"No idea," Discord answered as they saw the group starting to climb a big sand dune. "This is the problem when we miss the start of a story, we have no idea why whatever is happening is happening. That's frustrating. And after seeing her previous adventures, it may be for anything."

"This is not the first time?" Celestia asked in curiosity.

At that, Discord raised an eyebrow and looked at Twilight. "You didn't tell her?"

"I thought it would be irrelevant in our research of a way to bring her back."

And so, Discord looked back at Celestia to answer her, making a list appear in his claw and putting it in front of his eyes. "It definitively is the first time that she explores a ruin in a desert, unless I missed something. But before that, in this order, she has helped destroy a being made of darkness possessing her friend..." At that, Luna recoiled. "She destroyed a technologically advanced flying battleship. She explored a few worlds before fighting someone who possessed powers more or less at the level of an alicorn and sending him crashing into a planet-sized wish-granting clockwork comet, making it explode-don't worry, the guy survived, and they are now friend-. And just last month, she fought a literal army of the same beings made of darkness as the first one, and their leader, an abomination in the scale of the universe. In her first adventure, she had to collect objects made of rainbow, and in the most recent one, there was something about collecting love to use it to fight said leader." He threw away the list. "See? Collecting rainbow or love, fighting abominations, destroying a battleship... Like I said it can be anything. But it may have something to do with those crystals that Kirby-the pink puffball on her back-was holding. The same ones that this little human is looking at actually."

"You know, Discord, when you list these exploits, you make us look lame," Rainbow Dash said while she rubbed her hoof to the back of her head. "I mean, "destroying a battleship", "fighting a galactic abomination and his army of darkness", "blowing up a thing the size of a planet powerful enough to grant wishes"... What is the biggest exploit we have ever made? Shooting a rainbow at you to turn you to stone? Sending Tirek, a centaur that can absorb magic, back to Tartarus?"

That made Pinkie giggle. "So true. And she only started a few months ago! Oh! And you forgot that she was a ninja!"

Spike continued. "Oh yes, and she turned into Cadance when she fought that abomination. That's what you said Discord?"

"Oh boy! Yes! That was hilarious! Seeing a filly love princess giving the beat down of his life at that thing! So worth it!"

The princess sisters looked at all of them with round eyes. Meanwhile, they could hear Waddle Dee shouting, "Everyone! Look! I see grass!"

"Yes, I see it too. So this world isn't fully a desert?" Dedede said.

"Wait, "this world"?" Applejack asked. "They are in another world?"

Pinkie gasped. "Oh my gosh!" She took her chair and placed it in front of the portal. "Now I'm definitively not missing this one! Who knows what kind of world they are exploring! Maybe they will explore one made of cake!"

"Pinkie, I don't think..." Twilight began before stopping herself. "No, scrap that. Knowing how crazy this dimension is, there may be a world made of cake."

"Good, Twilight! You finally get it! It only took you three meltdowns!" Discord shouted, clapping.

By now, Sweetie's group reached the grassed area with some patches of sand, pink flowers, and various ruins composed of columns and walls, while fighting various creatures attacking them, including a flying cute orange creature that suddenly turned into a one-eyed monster once it was approached, much to Fluttershy's horror. For some reason, there was also a walking axe, as in a real axe with orange rounded feet, making Luna sputter in confusion. And let's not forget those pink things on spring wearing a red bow... And was that blue thing with a lance and shield a ghost?!

"Eep! G-g-g-ghost!" Fluttershy shouted in fright, hiding behind her chair while most of the others freaked out, particularly Twilight at seeing a real ghost. But then the ghost was bonked on the head by the parasol of Waddle Dee, beating it, much to everypony's surprise. How could he hit a ghost?

"That is certainly a curious dimension..." Celestia said, eyeing platforms made of stone floating without reasons apparent. "Now, I'm eager to see where this is going. Why don't we continue our tea party while watching?"

They recoil at seeing Dedede getting hit on the head by a falling living stone as the group approached a succession of arches. The human girl then made an easel appear and painted a big cloud with an eye in the center on it and spikes around it, Twilight and her friends recognizing it as one of the enemies that Sweetie fought the first time and that Discord showed them. Then, before their eyes, the painting came to life, flying out of the canvas, and the girl jumped on it. After that, the painted cloud flew up above the arches and shot lightning at the living rocks still on them.

"And now we have a human girl that can give life to what she paints..." Twilight groaned while rubbing her forehead. "That's not something that I would see in the Mirror World. Humans can't use magic, normally."

"I like that power! All I would have to do is paint cake, and I would have cake for everypony!" Pinkie said.

"And that's pretty over powered," Spike commented. "All she would have to do is paint Discord, and with him, she would be almost invincible."

Now the group reached a big structure made of five levels supported by columns similar to the ones around in the area, where yet again, Fluttershy, and most of everypony, were freaked out by some floating mummy head with a single eye charging at Waddle Dee, only again for the human girl to deal with it with her cloud. They then went around the structure, the small pink haired human suddenly getting out of the big one's beret, showing that she possessed nearly translucent insect-like wings on her back.

Fluttershy gaspd. "A breezie! She is a human breezie!"

"The more exact term would be a fairy, like the flutterponies in our legends," Celestia corrected her.

"After ghosts and mummies, now fairies?" Rainbow Dash asked. "Is there even something that doesn't exist in this dimension?"

As they talked, the fairy approached a crystal on the ground under the structure and touched it with her own crystal, merging the two of them before she came back to the human girl, using in the way the crystal to shoot crystal projectiles to another ghost.

"So that's it," Discord said. "They are collecting those crystals. Now, I wonder why."

"We will see," Applejack replied.

"Nopony comments on the fact that we just saw a human fairy shoot crystals at a ghost?" Spike asked.

"This is certainly not something we see everyday, but at this point, with this dimension, it's almost normal," Rarity answered.

After the structure, the group reached the entrance of an old building, Sweetie using her magic to take a strawberry shortcake on the arch in front of it before giving it to Dedede, while the human girl jumped from the back of the cloud before it disappeared. Dedede eating the shortcake healed the bump that he got from the falling rock. That caused Celestia to raise an eyebrow, but she didn't ask anything, and Luna just rubbed her eyes to reassure herself that she saw right.

Inside the building, the group ended up in a room with no floor, a giant pit in its place. Instead, there were six rectangular platforms sticking out of the wall in a triangular pattern, forcing them to jump on them to make it to the other side. There were also squared hole in this same wall from where some round pale ghosts came out to throw some blue and purple fireball at them, only for Sweetie to use a shield to protect them. Finally, there were also five cubic lanterns on this wall in an unversed triangular pattern, the lower lantern just between the two upper platforms.

The fairy flew out to go catch a floating crystal while the others jumped on the platforms, avoiding the fireballs from the ghosts. Sweetie Belle counterattacked by shooting her own fireballs, only stunning them. As they reached the exit, the fairy came back, and Sweetie used her magic to take one of those big tomatoes with a M on it, before they got out of this room.

In the next room, as Sweetie shared the tomato with everyone, they saw that this was a very large room with a giant pool, with some emerged floor in the center. On this floor, they could see that there were square-shaped gray stones, just under similar squared pillars sticking out from the ceiling. Dedede went first, jumping on floating blocks to get to the floor in the center of the pool, quickly followed by Sweetie and Kirby. Waddle Dee decided to just swim, and the fairy gave her crystal to the human before wrapping her arms around her chest as much as she could before flying, lifting her above the water.

"Thank you Ribbon," the human said. "But, am I not too heavy?"

"Don't worry, I may be small, but I can be really strong. I was lifting this crystal while it was about your size. Meanwhile, you can use it to attack anything that comes too close."

"Alright."

At the same time, Dedede walked on the grey squared, only for the square to suddenly go up, lifting him to the pillar above him. Acting quickly, he jumped back just before being crushed between the two actual pillars. This made everyone jump in fright at the close call and the suddenness of the event.

"Oh my gosh!" Sweetie Belle shouted behind the penguin. "Dedede! Are you alright?!"

"My king!" Waddle Dee shouted as he came beside him in panic.

"Don't worry you two, I have nothing," Dedede said while he put a hand on his heart. "By the stars, that took me by surprise! I don't know what the guys building these ruins were thinking to put a trap just here!"

"Yeah! This is in the middle of a pool! What the heck?!" Waddle Dee shouted.

"At least, we now know to not walk on the gray squares," Sweetie said.

"I'm with Waddle Dee there. What is this trap?!" Rainbow Dash shouted.

"Easy. Who would suspect a trap in the middle of a pool? And it almost worked," Pinkie Pie answered.

"That's smart, but weird..." Twilight commented.

"At least, they are alright," Fluttershy said.

At the end of the pool, the group saw that the exit was high up, at the top of a small stair too high to reach by a jump. They could use a crushing pillar under the water beside it, but it would be too risky. The human and Ribbon easily reached it thanks to the fairy, and she said, "I can lift all of you too!"

"No need!" Dedede said back before he put Waddle Dee on his back, inhaled air to inflate, and flew up. At the same time, Sweetie used a shield as a platform to lift both her and Kirby. With that, the whole group reached the stairs and passed the exit.

"It's an interesting way to use the shields," Luna commented. "I never thought to use them this way."

"You didn't need to," Celestia replied, poking at her sister's wings with a smile.

"I have to tell this to Shiny, he will love it! Why didn't we think of it?" Twilight said.

The exit led them outside of the ruins, on a big, damaged wall with cannons shooting in the way. Thanks to a matter of timing, they were able to go to the other side of the wall without being hit, and they entered the second part of the ruins, only to reach a small hallway leading to a dead end.

"Uh? Where do we go now?" Sweetie asked.

"The crystal shows that there is a shard above us," Ribbon said.

Kirby then jumped from Sweetie's back, reverting her to her normal appearance, and went toward the wall at the end of the hallway before pointing at small cracks in it with a "Poyo!"

"Yeah..." Dedede confirmed, looking closer. "The wall seems fragile. Maybe I can break it. Step back Kirby."

The puffball did so while Dedede took his hammer and approached the wall. Hitting it violently with the hammer, he was able to destroy it, successfully opening the way and revealing that it had actually been a door looking like a wall, only to show that to continue, they will have to climb a small chain, making Sweetie groan.

"This chain is smaller than the ones in Dedede's fortress, I don't know if I will be able to climb it."

"Then get on my back," Dedede said to her.

With the filly on his back, the penguin climbed the chain and discovered another door-wall to smash in front, and another chain to climb behind. Beyond the second chain, they could see two other ways, one going down with another chain, and one going up with a ladder sculpted from the wall. Smashing the wall, they discovered yet another chain to climb, and behind the chain, another door-wall .

"Oh no..." Sweetie said.

"It's a maze..." Dedede said, rubbing between his eyes in annoyance.

"I hate mazes."

"Me too."

Thankfully, with the help of the crystal, they didn't take long to find the shard by climbing the second chain, then the ladder, smashing a door-wall at the top, climbing another ladder while avoiding some fire-breathing round red lizard, jumping above a hole, and smashing a last door-wall.

Now came the hardest part: finding the exit. The human decided to help searching the way, using bombs that she painted to explode the door-walls before separating from Sweetie and Dedede, followed by Kirby just in case.

Discord chuckled. "It makes me remember when I 'played' with you in that maze back then," Discord said.

"You mean that time where you brainwashed us?" Rarity asked with a frown at the memories. "Because of this, I'm not really fond of mazes too."

"I don't think anypony like getting in a maze in the middle of an adventure," Applejack remarked. "It only makes us lose time."

"At least, they make great hiding spots for hide and seek!" Pinkie said.

After some minutes of exploring the maze in search of the exit, finding some food, the group finally got out of it.

---

They finally left the ruins, only for the crystal to rapidly lead them to a big hole in the ground, the light pointing down.

"So we have to jump in?" Adeleine asked.

"We can't even see the bottom," Sweetie Belle said.

"This is not a problem," Waddle Dee said, showing his parasol. "I can use it to float down, the king can inflate, Kirby too, Sweetie can use a shield, and you can let Ribbon transport you down."

"Eh, you really love that parasol that I painted, right? Why didn't you take one until now?"

"I didn't think about that..." Waddle Dee answered. "Maybe I should try to train using it as a weapon."

"Mmh... Beside bonking enemies on the head and floating down, I don't see many uses with a parasol," Sweetie Belle said. "Maybe you should try another weapon."

"Good point. I wonder which one..."

"You will decide once we return to the castle," Dedede said. "Right now, we have a hole to explore, crystal shards to find, a world to save, and an army of darkness to destroy, again. You can think about this until then." At that, he inflated and jumped in the hole.

"Of course Great King."

"Like this, Waddle Dee, you will be able to fight to save the world with us!" Sweetie Belle shouted in joy. "This will be so wonderful to have you fighting with us!"

"Yes... I wouldn't mind joining you in your adventures, like now."

"Hey!" they heard Dedede shout from the hole. "You can all jump! There is nothing dangerous down here beside some bat skulls!"

"Let's go," Sweetie Belle said, before forming a platform, jumping on it, and getting in the hole, followed by the others.

"One moment, did he just say 'bat skulls'?" Adeleine asked.

"After floating mummy heads and knight ghosts, I'm not surprised anymore," Sweetie answered.

"Poyo," Kirby said, nodding.

The hole led to an immense cave with metal blocks similar to the ones they saw before littered here and there with what seemed to be rock trees. However, they couldn't see too far because of the lack of light, so Sweetie lit her horn to illuminate the way. Thanks to Sweetie's light, and after climbing a nearby dune, they spotted the fossil of an immense creature whose the head reminded Sweetie of a dragon, and they could see something glowing in its mouth. It wasn't hard to guess that it was a shard, especially seeing that the light of the crystal led them to it. After easily taking it, they continued their way, and reached another hole in the sand, the light of the crystal pointing down again.

"I hope we will not fall through the bottom of this part of this world," Waddle Dee said.

"Don't worry," Ribbon said. "There must be still miles of rocks between us and the bottom."

"Of course," Dedede said. "Even if it's just a floating rock, it's still a giant floating rock. We will not go from top to bottom in just five minutes."

Sweetie then put a hoof under her chin. "Actually, this makes me wonder. What does happen if we traverse Popstar from top to bottom? Do we fall, or is there an other side where we would walk upside down?"

The others looked at her with raised eyebrows before Kirby also put an arm under his chin in wonder. "Poyo..."

"That's a good question. Is there an other side to Popstar?" Adeleine asked.

"You live in Popstar, and you don't know it?" Sweetie Belle asked.

At her question, everyone excepted Kirby and Ribbon rubbed their head in embarrassment.

"Well, why don't you go look with Kirby and your Warp Star once we have dealt with the Dark Matters?"

---

"Oh... They are fighting those guys again?" Discord asked with a gulp, hoping that this will not be like last time. The others looked at him in curiosity.

---

"Of course! What do you think Kirby?"

The puffball nodded at her.

With nothing more to say, the group jumped in the hole, falling in a smaller room of the cave with two other holes. at the left and at the right. Ribbon pointed at the left hole.

"The crystal says that there is another shard in that hole."

Following her direction, they jumped in the hole, only to end in a small room with flying fishbones composed of three triangles, a big red as the head, a smaller orange one behind, and an even smaller yellow one as the tail, including a big one floating just above another closed hole. The fishbones immediately threw their heads at them, new ones appearing in their place, and Waddle Dee found himself hit as he was floating down from the ceiling with his parasol while the others dodged or shielded. Fire, whip, and hammer quickly had reason of the big fishbone, opening the hole under it.

The hole led them to an underground river, to everyone's surprise.

"There are still sources of water in this world?" Sweetie asked.

Ribbon spotted a shard behind them and took it before saying, "With the sun not reaching this place, it's not surprising that there is still water underground." She then pointed at another hole a little farther beside the river. "There is another shard down this way."

"It's the only way we can go now anyway," Dedede said.

They jumped again in the hole, ending in a bigger room with more water. On the way, they had to either walk around a sand pit or use platforms to pass above it. Dedede decided to use the platforms, only to be almost bitten by a small yellow insect with a big jaw jumping out of the bottom of the pit. The insect was stopped in the middle of the jump by a beam of Sweetie, knocking it out.

Once the pit passed, they also passed another pit full of water with a couple of glunks at the bottom, then a third sand pit with another insect that ate Dedede's hammer in the face. They finally reached a lake with another hole leading to a room with three more sand pits, this time with no platforms to pass above them, forcing them to walk around. Kirby just decided to pass above the pits with his comet charge, gaining time and dealing with the few creatures in this room. A fourth pit, this time full of water, led them to an underwater tunnel with currents going down.

"There is a shard behind this wall," Ribbon said, pointing at the wall in front of them.

"It means that we have to find a way around it," Adeleine commented.

The way down was full of those fishbones hidden in the wall shooting their heads at them, but it was not a big deal for the group. They eventually reached a smaller tunnel going forward, leading them to another bigger tunnel with another current going down, and they spotted the shard further up, forcing them to swim against the current. Adeleine painted Kine, gave life to him, and used him to help her swim up against the current, Ribbon using the crystal to knock out the fishbones in the way. They however had to avoid in the way fossils falling, carried by the current, including a big one near the shard taking most of the tunnel, forcing them to use the holes of the fishbones in the wall to avoid it. With the fossil gone, Adeleine and Ribbon reached the shard and waited the others near the exit, before a big fossilized fanged maw. Beyond it, the tunnel went up and they reached the end of the underwater tunnel, emerging.

Looking around, they saw that they were now in an oasis at the surface, with grass all around. Once out of the water, Sweetie asked Ribbon, "Are there more shards?"

The fairy looked at the crystal and answered with a nod before pointing at their right. "This way."

They looked in the direction she pointed, and Dedede asked, "Is that a pyramid that I see in the distance?"

"I bet my dinner that it's our destination," Waddle Dee said.

"So we are going to explore a pyramid?" Sweetie Belle asked, bouncing in joy. "This is awesome! Best journey ever! I always dreamed to see a pyramid!"

"You know, pyramids are known to have big mazes," Adeleine said with a smirk.

The filly stopped bouncing at that. "Oh... right... Alright, I take it back."

---

"And now they are going to explore a pyramid..." Rainbow Dash said. "Daring Do would be so jealous." She sighed. "I know I am."

"This pyramid is strange. It's black. I have never heard of a black pyramid before," Rarity commented.

"It's a pyramid in an alien world," Spike said. "Who knows with what they built it."

They saw the group approach the area around the pyramid, area littered by blue pillars either tilted or fallen, and there were some parts of the ground without sand showing a floor sculpted in what seemed to be dark stones in a shape like a checkerboard, clear traces of an old civilisation that seemed different from the ones building the earlier ruins. They also remarked that the base of the pyramid seemed to be made of an unknown purple material at the arrises. The purple parts were actually smaller pyramids with flat backs disconnected from the big black one, making everypony look in wonder.

And then, after a few more minutes, once the group got close enough of the pyramid, which was at the other side of a crack, the whole structure suddenly started to rise, revealing that there was more to it under the ground.

That was not a pyramid, it was an octahedron, and the purple pyramids were actually pyramids with five surfaces, the 'flat backs' being actually the bases.

And it was floating.

And they saw a similar purple pyramid at the bottom floating down, ready to lift the group inside the structure.

They all looked in awe at that, both the group and the spectators, until they heard Sweetie ask, "Is... Is that a spaceship?"

"M-m-maybe?" Dedede answered.

Sweetie Belle and Waddle Dee looked at each other, starting to shake, before they screamed in joy with stars in their eyes. "We are going to explore a spaceship!"

Sweetie then turned to the others. "What are we waiting for?! Let's go! Quick!" And after that, the two of them ran toward the floating structure that flashed every few seconds, repeating, "We are going to explore a spaceship!" all the way, quickly followed by the others shouting vainly at the two to wait them.

"A BUCKING SPACESHIP?!!" Twilight suddenly yelled. "Discord! Send me there! I want to explore it too!"

"Twilight, hold yourself. Remember who is here," Discord said, pointing at Celestia and Luna who look at her with amusement.

"You are the one saying that?" Applejack asked.

"Touché."

"I want to go in too! This is like the most awesome thing to explore!" Rainbow Dash shouted.

"Me too!" Spike said.

"Hush! They are about to enter the spaceship!" Pinkie shouted.

"But spaceship!" Twilight, Rainbow, and Spike replied.

"Another time," Rarity said. "When you find a way to open a portal to this dimension, you will have the occasion to explore it," she continued to Twilight.

"Aaaww..."

Celestia giggled.

---

The group jumped on the unversed pyramid that was the platform that will lift them inside the spaceship. As soon as their feet touched it, the pyramid started to float up, soon entering the structure by a square hole at the bottom, Sweetie Belle and Waddle Dee smiling all the while. Inside, they were however attacked by cannons in the walls, probably some system against intruders. Luckily, their projectiles made of energy were rather slow, and so, easy to avoid, the main problem being the number of projectiles and the lack of space for everyone to move out of the way. Sweetie's shield and Dedede's hammer were of great help to protect themselves of the projectiles.

Eventually, the platform reached another squared hole in the ceiling, stopping once entering the next room. Here, the group had to climb a series of red and yellow platforms moving left and right, entering or exiting the walls at different speeds, forcing them to time their jumps to pass through the holes between the platforms. Or they just flew beside them, like Sweetie did with her shield, taking in the way a shard inside a small area between two walls and a floor at the center of the room. In the end, they all decided to follow her example, Ribbon lifting Adeleine while Kirby and Dedede inflated, Waddle Dee on the king's back. They still had to watch out at the top of the room for a couple of blue balls protecting themselves inside a shell in a similar shape to the spaceship and shooting electric balls.

Passing through another hole in the ceiling, they were now in a dark room with three black squares on one of the walls. That made Sweetie remember a room similar in Dark Castle, and she lit her horn, making symbols appear on the squares: a star, a crescent moon, and a sun. Adeleine drew them on a blank paper before they passed the exit, entering another room with big buttons with symboles on them. Looking at Adeleine's drawing just in case, Waddle Dee then pressed the button with a star, Sweetie pressed the one with a crescent moon, and Kirby pressed the one with a sun, making a shard appear on a pedestal at the end. After that, they climbed a ladder.

They entered an immense space with dozens of floating cubes, some of them forming a path for them to walk on. The walls were formed of... parts that sometime illuminated, showing the sky and the world outside like windows, before going back. They recognized that they were now in the center of the spaceship, and it was beyond anything that Sweetie imagined. Looking around in awe, they followed the path of the cubes, sometime having to go on a cube that floated back and forth to join the next part of it, until there were almost only these cubes to advance. At the end, they reached an octagonal prism that lifted them through a hole in the ceiling, entering a room guarded by a bigger version of those blue spheres easily eliminated with its companions, rewarding them with a new shard.

They exited the room by climbing another ladder, finding themselves now in a giant cylindrical room. They were on a plus-shaped black walkway protruding of the floor, the walkways going to the walls and going up as columns. Between them, there were four more columns starting the same way from the floor, and they were all flashing like the exterior of the spaceship. All the columns were joining under the ceiling in the same way as on the floor, and there were two yellow bars going from the floor to the ceiling, with some purple platforms floating between them above their head. Walking away from the center of the floor, they spotted a hole in the center of the ceiling that had been hidden by the platforms. They will have to climb the bars to reach it.

Or fly.

Adeleine still tried to climb the bar, only for some electrical living ball to suddenly appear on it and charge at her, electrifying her and making her fall from the bar. Thankfully, Ribbon had time to fly away before the hit.

"So, we fly?" Waddle Dee asked.

"We fly," Dedede answered.

"I agree..." Adeleine said after groaning from pain.

---

Passing the hole, they were now at the base of a spiral black slope leading them toward a ringed structure around something made of the same purple element as the floating pyramids outside. On the center of the purple thing rose a really tall pillar going all the way to the top of the spaceship. Suddenly, the pyramid roof of the ship opened and parts of it separated and floated up to create various forms like a holed tower, the central pillar gained in size, and the ringed structure started to rise, a purple forcefield appearing once the purple thing let place to a hole. Then, just as they reached the top of what remained of the roof before the 'tower', inside the forcefield, a red octahedron appeared from the cental pillar. The octahedron put itself beside the forcefield, and it formed a red laser blade through it, threatening to cut Sweetie and the others while protected behind the field.

"Hey! That's cheating!" Dedede yelled, hitting the forcefield with his hammer, without result, before jumping above the laser blade while the others ran on the ring to escape it. Sweetie Belle shot a beam at the blade, only for the beam to pass through it, not damaging the blade at all. She then shot another beam at the forcefield, without result too.

"Maybe if we continue to attack the forcefield, it will eventually break?" Waddle Dee proposed while hitting the forcefield with the parasol.

"Poyo!" Kirby nodded, spitting fire without stopping at the forcefield while jumping above the passing red blade.

That was when a green octahedron appeared from the pillar and joined the other in attacking them with a green laser blade, each one turning around the pillar in opposite sides while they also turned on themselves vertically. Sometime, they suddenly stopped advancing before moving the other way, trying to surprise the group with unpredictability, and Waddle Dee and Adeleine found themselves slightly cut because of that.

After a moment of jumping and running to avoid the two blades, a blue octahedron suddenly appeared from the pillar, formed its own blue laser blade, and joined the others in trying to slice them, the three going up and down back and forth in tandem at equal distance from each others. Dedede found himself almost beheaded by the red blade, ducking at the last second, and Sweetie got a cut on one of her legs while jumping because of the octahedrons changing way at the same time. All the while, they attacked the forcefield, trying to destroy it, but no matter how much they hit it, it didn't seem to even start to crack, frustrating everyone.

But then, they reached the top of the pillar, and by the same occasion, the end of the 'holed tower' made of the parts of the ship around them. They were now far up in the sky, but they didn't have time to admire the view, because by reaching the end of the pillar, they also reached the end of the forcefield! And that meant that the three octahedrons weren't protected anymore! The octahedrons seemed to understand that because they stopped attacking and they grouped together at the top of the pillar. Just then, strange things made of white lines and red, green, or blue balls popped out of the ring, and the three octahedrons came back on the offensive, starting to spin with their blades, each in a different axe: the red spun the blade perpendicularly to the ring from the inside to the outside, the green in parallel, making it risky to jump above, and the blue like the red, but following the floor of the ring, making it the most tricky to avoid.

The group quickly learned to avoid the things that popped out of the ring, the things hurting them in contact as Dedede and Kirby painfully learned, but thankfully, they could be easily destroyed by a single attack. Of course, with the three octahedrons not protected anymore by the forcefield, they unleashed everything they had on them, Sweetie shooting her beams and cracking her whip, Kirby charging at them with fire, Dedede either using his hammer or inhaling the things and spitting them back, Waddle Dee using the parasol even if it wasn't really effective, Adeleine painting one of the ninjas from the Rainbow Island and jumping on his head before letting him throw his cutter blades, and Ribbon using the crystal. Sweetie and Kirby teamed up on the blue one, Dedede and Waddle Dee on the red one, and it left the green one for Adeleine and Ribbon.

The ninja slid under the green blade as it passed above him, Adeleine clinging to him with difficulty while she bonked the octahedron with her brush. Once outside the range of the blade, the ninja jumped, and fell on the octahedron, giving it a powerful kick before bouncing back up. This got Adeleine close to Ribbon who continued to shoot crystals at it. Having an idea, Adeleine quickly told it to Ribbon and they both nodded. Then, Adeleine took Ribbon by the arm, and the ninja spun around himself, giving the fairy some momentum, before he jumped and Adeleine threw her to the octahedron at the apex of the jump. Ribbon took the crystal, and once close enough, rammed the octahedron with its point in a great shock, before she shot projectiles just at this moment, effectively destroying the octahedron, only leaving the still floating arrises. At their victory, Adeleine and Ribbon high-fived, screaming in joy.

Dedede had to constantly step back to avoid the red blade passing again, and again, and again before him like the hands of a clock, swinging his hammer to attack the octahedron. Waddle Dee was on his back, hitting the white things with colored spheres when they were approaching behind Dedede. Not surprisingly, it didn't take long for them to destroy the red octahedron, leaving the red arrises.

"Ah! Take that!" Dedede shouted, putting his hammer on his shoulder proudly.

"Wonderful, Great King!"

Sweetie passed under the blue octahedron after the passage of the blade and bucked the octahedron while Kirby charged at it covered in flames. The filly then wrapped her whip around Kirby who covered himself in fire again, and like the ball of a flail, Sweetie swung him to the octahedron from the side where the blade didn't spin. She stepped back to avoid the blade, getting her muzzle cut, and turned on herself, swinging Kirby at the octahedron from the opposite side with great force. She then swung up Kirby, released him, used a shield to join him, and wrapped the two of them in a round shield that they wrapped in fire before finally spinning around each other, falling on the blue octahedron like a comet, the impact creating a big shockwave of fire that destroyed the octahedron, leaving the blue arrises. Once landing, they raised their arm/forehoof in victory.

"Yay/Poyo!"

Defeated, the remains of the three octahedrons started to spin around each other, getting closer and closer to the center of the ring above the pillar, before finally colliding together and exploding, releasing a shard that Ribbon caught.

"Ah ah! Advanced technology is nothing against us!" Dedede shouted.

"Yeah!" Sweetie Belle and Waddle Dee shouted.

"Aliens are zeros! We are champions!" Waddle Dee continued.

"Time for some delicious reward," Adeleine said, taking her brush. "We still got hurt, we need towhoaah!"

The ringed structure suddenly started to fall, alongside the parts of the ship forming the holed tower around them, interrupting her as they fell too. Ribbon quickly caught Adeleine while Waddle Dee opened his parasol to float down. Kirby caught Sweetie before inflating, slowing down their fall, and Dedede did the same. As they floated down and away from the ship, they could see it, bellow them, falling to the ground and not flashing anymore, first impacting at the point where they entered the ship before tilting on its side, the purple pyramids falling separately with the various pieces that had been floating. The ship finally falling with all its weight on the desert caused tons of sand to be displaced around it in a formidable spectacle, leaving only a wreck with a field of remains.

"You know..." Sweetie Belle then began. "my friends and I are known in Ponyville for accidentally destroying things. But I never thought that I would accidentally destroy a spaceship." She giggled. "Twilight would be horrified."

---

Twilight's eye twitched. Discord guffawed.

"Dude..." Spike said. "That was... wow..."

"You said it..." Rainbow Dash said in awe.

Pinkie bounced beside Twilight. "Don't worry Twilight, the ship is still there! It's just a little broken, nothing too bad."

"But whatever was making the ship working doesn't work anymore! It will not be the same thing!"

"Sorry Twilight," Celestia then said. "But from what I could see, it needed to be done to accomplish their quest. Nothing can be done about that."

"Breathe Twilight. At least, there are remains. the ship could have exploded, and nothing could have been left," Luna said.

"So what do the both of you think of this adventure until now?" Discord asked.

"It's entertaining," Luna answered. "I love the action."

"It's nice to see young Sweetie Belle not only alright, but also becoming a hero with her friends. That reminds me of a certain mare," Celestia answered before smiling at Twilight. "However, I can't help but worry. A filly of her age shouldn't fight life-threatening foes like they just fought."

"That was nothing for her, she has fought worse. Trust me," Discord said. He turned to the portal, seeing the group landing as they watched the remains of the spaceship. He gulped. "And who knows what she will fight at the end of this journey... It... may be ugly."

They saw the crystal float from Ribbon's hands before forming a star-shaped portal showing a rain drop-shaped mass of water with a core made of rock floating in space. After eating a quick meal painted by the human, they jumped in the portal that closed behind, going in their next step in their adventure.

Author's Notes:

Finally ! It sure took some time !
For the ones that haven't seen my blog post, does any of you know of a My Little Pony remix that could fit to be Sweetie Belle's battle theme ? I'm also searching a theme that could be the "Masked Dedede" equivalent.

Chapter 33: Waterworld

The portal dropped the group not in water as they thought, but on land, showing that this world was not just made of water. They actually seemed to be on an elongated island in the middle of an archipelago. That reminded Sweetie of the water world that she and Kirby had visited to invoke Nova, and she wondered if it was a common type of world in this universe. They could see a big cliff a little farther that they could join if they followed the island, and they already started to think that it was their destination.

"This way Ribbon?" Adeleine asked.

After a quick look at the crystal, the fairy answered with a "Yup!" followed by, "For now, no shards in the water around us."

Waddle Dee took a big breath. "Aah... After this arid world, it's nice to be here. The air is refreshing."

Dedede and Kirby followed his example and took a big breath of fresh air too, Dedede saying, "Yeah... It makes me want to just rest here and not do anything."

"As nice as it would be, we can't," Sweetie Belle said before sighing. "We still have to save Ribbon's world." She then smiled at them. "But we can try to come back here once it is over. Thanks to the Warp Star, we can go to other worlds. We will just have to find where this world is..."

This made the others sigh in disappointment before nodding. And at that, they started walking toward the cliff, rapidly beating some volcano-like creature that had been approaching them with clear bad intentions. They had to jump above or walk around a few hole in the way, with fishes that weren't Blippers jumping out of them. After them, Kirby saw one of these duck-like green round enemies with a bald top with a dark green spiked hollow hat around it. These creatures attacked by throwing their hat, trying to cut them with it. Kirby understood that it will give him another Ability and decided to give up the Fire, wanting to change, before eating the duck, effectively giving him the Cutter Ability that should be more useful than the fire.

Soon after Kirby getting the Cutter Ability, they reached the end of the island, where they saw a bridge leading to the island with the cliff while passing by two islets with Glunks on them. At the base of the cliff, they found out that there was a tunnel and entered it.

The tunnel led to a big cave where they will have to climb, having no other way to continue, and after battling a Glunk and some red crab, they found some floating, green, living spherical blob smiling at them without moving. Dedede was about to smash it with his hammer, only for Kirby to get in the way shouting "Poyo!" and stopping him.

Dedede raised an eyebrow, but before he could ask anything, Sweetie beat him by asking, "This is not an enemy?"

Kirby nodded, smiled, and jumped in the blob. The face of the blob then turned up toward a platform before Kirby was suddenly propelled toward it.

"So they propel us like cannons?" Waddle Dee asked.

"At least, this is not as risky. I remember the first cannon that I tried to use blowing up with me and Kirby inside. And the second turned into a rocket. I don't think these blobs will ever explode," Sweetie Belle said, giggling at the end.

"Yeah, I know what you mean..." Waddle Dee replied. "I hate defective cannons. I stopped counting the number of times me and the others complained about this to the Cannonmakers."

"Oh? You mean those cannons aren't there from the start?" Sweetie Belle asked. "I thought that that was just another weird thing of this universe, having cannons everywhere to transport us. With the food popping anywhere, that wouldn't have been surprising."

"Oh no, there are actually people creating those cannons. It's a galactic organisation with many subsidiary companies, including one in Popstar, creating and installing cannons to make travelling easier, because it can be hard, with all those walls and platforms and holes."

Sweetie Belle looked at Waddle Dee for a few seconds and said, "O...kay..."

---

"Hey! That's not a bad idea! I take it! This will make Equus more fun to travel!" Discord shouted, taking note.

"All of my yes!" Pinkie shouted.

"I think I will keep the normal way," Twilight said.

---

After using a few of these blobs to climb up, finding a shard along the way, they reached the top of the cavern only to traverse a small passage leading to an even bigger room with some bridges passing above a small lake not deep as they saw that the ground was only a few inches below the surface of the water, so they could simply walk through the lake. Anyway, when Kirby decided to pass by the bridges, the first one collapsed under him, making him fall into the water, making the others giggle.

Dedede had the glorious idea to simply jump above the bridges before spotting some meat on Star Blocks in front of a hole in the wall beside them. Not saying no to some meat, he jumped on them to take it only for some giant lizard with a frog-like head to pop out of the hole and gobble him before getting back in the hole.

"Dedede!"

"Great King!"

"Poyo!"

Before they had time to rescue him, they heard a loud noise coming from the hole, as if something was violently hitting the wall, followed by some Wham! Bam! Paf! Vlan! with some dust coming out of the hole. Not long after the noises ended, Dedede got out of the hole, unscathed, getting rid of some dust on his clothes before eating the meat. He was quickly joined by the others.

"My king! Are you alright?" Waddle Dee asked.

"Of course!" Dedede answered proudly.

"You scared us!" Sweetie Belle shouted.

"Ha! As if I would let myself get eaten by some oversized frog or whatever that would normally end on my plate!"

After this small fright, no incident happened the rest of the way, except Kirby changing his Ability from Cutter to Bomb by eating a Poppy before they entered a small passage. At the other end, Sweetie was almost speared by some human-like creature with red hairs attached by a yellow bow and wearing a brown piece of cloth. The filly barely avoided the spear thrown at her by jumping back before Waddle Dee took the spear and charged at the creature screaming, "Yaaaah!". He was able to knock away his, or her spear, before cutting her, then bonking her on the head with the back end of his new weapon, beating her.

"Good job, Waddle Dee," Dedede congratulated.

"Thank you, Great King."

"You seem to be good with that spear. You should keep it for now, just in case," Sweetie Belle said.

"This could be the weapon you needed," Adeleine said.

Waddle Dee looked at the spear. "Maybe? I wasn't really thinking when I attacked."

Kirby put an arm on him and nodded to encourage him before resuming the journey, Ribbon, Adeleine, and Dedede following him. "We will quickly see if you like the spear," Sweetie Belle said beside Waddle Dee. "Let's go." She then followed the others.

After a few more seconds of looking at the spear, Waddle Dee nodded while saying, "Yes," and followed them.

They passed beside many waterfalls before reaching the end of the room, Waddle Dee testing his skills with the spear on the creatures in the way, including another human-like being at the end, and he thought that this may not be a bad weapon to use. It had a good range and he could easily attack the enemies with it, dealing some great damage, unlike the parasol from earlier.

Maybe with some training, he could become a good Spear Waddle Dee.

After the small passage at the end, they ended up in a small room guarded by a big Tick, a drop-shaped creature with a white body and a red top that could turn into an extending spike with a really big range that could pass through platforms. The group was actually on a bridge linking the two ends of the room, the passages closing once they were all there. The bridge not being large, they were forced to be in a single file with Kirby first, followed by Dedede, Sweetie Belle, Waddle Dee, and Adeleine at the end, Ribbon flying above them.

A red spike suddenly poke out from under Adeleine, poking her on the butt and making her jump in pain toward the ceiling.

"There are other Ticks under the bridge!" Sweetie Belle shouted.

"Then while Kirby and the king deal with the big one, let's deal with them," Waddle Dee said.

At that, the two of them jumped from the bridge to eliminate the Ticks under it, just in time to avoid Adeleine being poked again as she fell back. Meanwhile, the teamwork of Kirby's bombs and Dedede's hammer rapidly had reason of the big Tick, opening the exit and a small hole under the bridge with a shard. Taking it, and after seeing if Adeleine was alright ("I will not be able to sit until I find something to eat!"), they exited the room, and following the passage, they exited the cave.

After another series of small holes with fishes or those ducks jumping out of them, they got to a big bridge that seemed to lead to a wall. The bridge was above a giant waterfall that made it look like there was a hole in the ocean, an unique spectacle in Sweetie's eyes. At the same time, Ribbon, after shooting some projectiles at an enemy that looked like lightning on a black cloud, looked at the crystal and started to fly left and right, finding that the wall was actually a big pillar.

She said, "There is a shard inside it," pointing at the pillar.

"Seems like it's hammer time!" Dedede shouted.

"No, wait!" Ribbon shouted back, having flown a little further down beside the pillar. "There is a hole, and I can see the shard! I can reach it!" She then pointed under the bridge. "There are other bridges under this one! With a big one made of wooden planks at the bottom passing under the pillar! You can use it to pass! Just watch out! There are many Ticks!"

"Why go under the pillar when we can go around it?" Sweetie Belle asked, making a shield platform and jumping on it with a giggle.

Adeleine took the occasion to repaint Kracko before jumping on him, and the whole group flew around the pillar, Waddle Dee going on Dedede's back. After the bridge, they had to pass a few more holes with ducks jumping out of them before taking another bridge that led them to what seemed to be a giant forested island.

---

After some minutes, they reached a river that they had to follow until entering an old structure, the entrance being a big passage by where the river passed. Not long after entering, they were stopped by a precipice, with what seemed to be a very old and unstable bridge made of rock the only way to traverse it. Waddle Dee slowly put a foot on it, only for the part of the bridge on which he put it to collapse, but not making the whole thing fall.

After nodding at each other, they jumped above the small hole in the bridge and ran on it, quickly crossing it before it collapsed. Once done, they sighed in relief before continuing, having to jump on an elevated floor where the exit was. That led to a pyramid-shaped room with a bridge above them, the entrance closing behind them, and Ribbon pointed up. They jumped on the bridge where they got rid of a crab, then on another bridge above it with another crab, and finally on a third bridge with a big crab that didn't last much longer than the others. Ribbon pointed at the ceiling above the third bridge, and Kirby threw a bomb at it, blowing it and opening a hole, revealing a shard.

They exited the room through a big crack in the wall, leading them outside of the structure where there was a pile of logs. Jumping on the logs to get down, they landed back in the water of the river, seeing that they were nearing rapids, and found three rafts that looked like small square boats. Waddle Dee gasped and rushed to the rafts before taking one and putting it in the water, waving at Dedede.

"Great King! Let's go!"

"Ohoh! I like your idea!" Dedede said. He jumped on the raft behind Waddle Dee, and the raft started to advance, quickly gaining speed. "Yeeeeehaaaw!!!"

Watching them go, Sweetie quickly took the last two rafts, put them in the water, and jumped on one. "Come on! Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!" she shouted excitedly.

Kirby jumped behind her while Adeleine jumped n the other, Ribbon getting on her lap. Soon, they were gone, hurtling through the rapids with Sweetie yelling "WIIIIIIIIII!!!" and rapidly catching up to Waddle Dee and Dedede, Kirby and Sweetie's raft taking the lead.

"Hey! What do you think you are doing? I was first!" Dedede shouted.

Kirby turned to Dedede, pulled is eyelid, and stuck out his tongue. "Bweeeh!"

"Ah yeah?! This is on! Come on Waddle Dee!"

"Yes! My king!"

"Don't forget about us!" Adeleine shouted while Ribbon laughed.

At this moment, the descent through the rapids became a race between the three rafts, sometime one of theme having to jump above an obstacle or eliminating a creature in the way, often crabs. Team Dedede got back the lead only to be stolen the place by team Adeleine before they reached a big waterfall with a shard floating. Adeleine made the raft jump and caught the shard, giving it to Ribbon once they landed in the water at the bottom. Team Dedede's raft landed behind them, and to everyone's surprise, Team Kirby's raft fell just in front, Sweetie Belle using her tail like a propeller to gain speed.

"Cheater!" Dedede shouted.

"There are no rules!" Sweetie Belle shouted back.

"Oh! So they take it this way?" Adeleine said with a smile before taking a blank paper and drawing a mast with sail, putting it in the middle of the raft, then drawing a big electric fan, using it on the sail to gain speed, leaving behind Team Dedede.

"Oh no! What do we do my king?" Waddle Dee said in panic.

"Don't worry, I got it!" the king reassured before turning around, putting the head of his hammer in the water, and making it turn like a propeller. Waddle Dee decided to help him by rowing with his arms, not doing much difference. They were still able to pass Adeleine and Ribbon after jumping another waterfall, only for Kirby and Sweetie to put their raft in front of them, not wanting to let them pass. "Waddle Dee! Take my place and use your spear to propel us!"

"Yes, Great King!" Waddle Dee shouted, doing so while Dedede got in the front of the raft.

Dedede smirked and said, "There are no rules, right? Then it's alright if I do this!" He then put his head in the water, took a big breath, inhaling a great quantity, before spitting it right toward Team Kirby, causing Sweetie to stop propelling them.

"Hey!"

"Poyo!"

"AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Did you like it?!" Dedede shouted as they got the lead, only for something to fall in the water in front of his raft, causing a wave to appear. They found themselves pushed by it as they heard Adeleine laugh.

"Did you like it?!" she shouted, a big cannon at the front of her raft, maned by Ribbon. Adeleine now wore a tricorne on her head and a black eyepatch on her left eye. Ribbon simply wore a red bandana. Adeleine took her brush and pointed at both other teams now side by side in front of their raft, shouting, "Fire!"

Ribbon saluted her, shouting back, "Yes my captain!" and fired the cannon.

"Poyo!" Kirby took a bomb and threw it at the cannonball, destroying it.

"Fire!" Adeleine shouted again.

"Nope!" Dedede swung his hammer at the cannonball, deflecting it back at Adeleine and Ribbon.

The cannonball fell behind their raft, creating a wave that propelled them closer to the two other teams, eventually ending at Team Dedede's right, while Team Kirby was at their left. A problem appeared however as they approached another waterfall, a giant one this time. The problem?

"Captain!" Ribbon shouted in panic. "We are sinking!"

"Aaaah! Us too!" Waddle Dee shouted.

"Quick! We must drain the raft!" Dedede shouted, starting to use his hands to get the water out of the raft.

"It's no use! There are holes in all our rafts!" Sweetie Belle shouted.

Kirby waved his arms around in panic, yelling, "Poyo!" again and again.

In their panic, they didn't see that they reached the waterfall, and the three rafts fell, everyone screaming in fear. They quickly used all the means they had to slow their fall, Ribbon grabbing Adeleine before flying and Dedede grabbing Waddle Dee, the rafts breaking into pieces when they crashed at the bottom. They landed in the river in the middle of the broken pieces that started to be carried by the current.

They looked at each other before Sweetie and Ribbon started to laugh.

"That was fun!" the fairy shouted. "You make a good pirate Adeleine!"

"Thanks," Adeleine said as she started laughing with the rest.

"And you!" Dedede said, nogging Sweetie Belle, making her squeal. "You are one sneaky filly, trying to pull a fast one on us using that trick with your tail!"

"We will SO do it again back at Popstar!" Waddle Dee shouted.

"And this time, there will be a winner!" Dedede said.

"We will invite more people, then! It will be even funnier!" Sweetie Belle proposed.

"Of course!" the king confirmed. "I can feel that this will be a big competition!"

Kirby jumped in excitement. "Poyo! Poyo!"

They started walk while discussing the details of a potential boat race in Popstar, when they suddenly stopped at seeing what was in front of them.

Waddle Dee gasped. "An Invincibility Candy!"

"Poyo!" Kirby shouted in joy before running to the candy. Before taking it, he watched Sweetie Belle with some doubts.

"Erh... Go on... But I don't know if they know..."

"About what?" Adeleine asked.

"That if we all want to profit of the candy's power, then Kirby must give it through mouth to mouth."

"Oh yes. We know. What is the problem?" Dedede asked.

"Isn't this... weird?"

"No. Why?" Waddle Dee asked.

"Uh... Because this is the case in my world..." she said with an embarrassed smile.

"Ohh... Poyo," Kirby said, bumping his right arm on the left.

"I see..." Dedede said. "Well, news flash for you, this is a common thing in Popstar. Using mouth to mouth to share the healing properties of food, or in this case, the invincibility of the candy, is absolutely not weird." He smirked. "Of course, this explains this scene that I was told about that happened in Grass Land. Your first kiss, right?"

"Eep! P-please! Dedede!" Sweetie Belle shouted, her face all red, making Dedede guffaw.

Adeleine giggled before petting the filly. "So Kirby did some mouth to mouth with you, and you thought of it as your first kiss, right?" she guessed.

She nodded.

"Then knowing that this is a normal thing in Popstar, you can now stop thinking of it this way. That was just... a mouth to mouth to heal you."

"M-maybe... This will take time... Besides..." She turned to Dedede, smirking. "You know that this means that you will have to do a mouth to mouth with Kirby?"

Dedede stopped laughing and looked at Kirby in horror, before sighing. "I few months ago, I would have screamed 'no'. But now, I suppose that I can accept it."

Sweetie smiled at that. Yeah, at first, Dedede really hated Kirby, but now, after Kirby saving him two times, after having started to know him, having passed some time with him, having competitions with him in the Gourmet Races, and now, teaming up to fight a common foe, this hate had pretty much disappeared to let place to some 'friendly' rivalry. She could sees that Dedede still had a big grudge against Kirby, but not to the point anymore of wanting to murder him. Now, again, it was just rivalry, Dedede wanting to best Kirby, one way, or another, while respecting him.

She was then kissed given a mouth to mouth by Kirby, receiving the invincibility of the candy. Once the whole group was given the invincibility, they rushed along the river, ramming everything that got in the way without being hurt by anything. In the way, they took a shard at the bottom of one of the small waterfalls just when the invincibility disappeared. Following the light, they continued further down the river before leaving it. A few seconds of walking later, they reached another river, walking beside it as they climbed a hill. They did well, because this river revealed to be full of spiked logs rolling in it carried by the water, so they didn't have to jump to avoid them. After having to climb many small and less small cliffs, they reached the top of the hill, and they continued following the river.

---

Following the river, they reached a beach in which it ended. This beach was surprisingly full of enemies, including even those yellows insects jumping out of sand pits.

"I wouldn't pass my vacation here," Waddle Dee commented.

Dedede huffed. "Bah! We just eliminate all the pests, and no problems anymore!"

"This wouldn't stop them from coming back," Ribbon said.

"Then we will build a big sand wall, and they will not be able to pass!"

"What about the ones that can dig under the sand?" she asked.

"If I see their head pop out of the sand, then I will just play whack-a-mole. I already have a hammer, and this may actually be fun."

She giggled. "And the flying ones?"

"Target practice for Sweetie Belle."

They all giggled at that just as they reached two small towers made of sand, with small walls starting from them, delimiting a round area behind with the sculpture of an elephant. They exited this area by passing two other towers behind the elephant, reaching a section with Shotzos at the end of the beach, before they had to swim in the water to reach a rock with many corals. Behind the rock was a wooden bridge passing through a small rock mountain, some of the planks being regularly pushed up by geysers. Ribbon flew around the mountain rock, looking both at it and at the light of the crystal.

"There is a shard inside it?" Sweetie asked, screaming a little to be heard.

"Yes!" Ribbon shouted back. "And I see a way to enter it at the top!"

So they all flew to the top of the rock, seeing a hole leading inside it. Jumping in it, they entered a small circular round room with a Star Block in the center, a Maxim Tomato that was quickly gobbled, and some water. Ribbon quickly pointed at some big rock beside the wall. "Inside it."

"It's a big rock," Waddle Dee commented.

"We just need a big boom," Dedede said.

"Leave this to me!" Adeleine said, taking her blank paper.

"Me too!" Sweetie Belle said, preparing her magic.

"Poyo!" Kirby said, putting a dozen bombs around the rock.

Adeleine drew a Bomber and threw it at the rock, Sweetie Belle shooting a big explosive ball at the same time. All these bombs created a big explosion that effectively destroyed the rock, freeing the shard that Ribbon took. "Good job you three!"

"Okay, now let's fly out of here to continue," Dedede said.

"Wait, I don't think we need to," Adeleine said, approaching the Star Block in the center. "Something tells me that it is not here for nothing."

"We will see." Waddle Dee destroyed the block, and a big rock that was under it started to shake, with some water coming out. "Quick! All on the rock!"

They all came on the rock, Waddle Dee having to jump on Dedede, Kirby on Sweetie Belle, and Ribbon having to go on Adeleine. Almost immediately, the rock was propelled up by a big geyser, ascending them until they were out of the room, back outside. They rapidly jumped from the top, landing back on the bridge at the other side of the rock.

"That was good thinking, Adeleine," Sweetie Belle said.

"It was not hard to guess. A single block in the middle of a room, there had to be something."

"Yeah, it is obvious now that you say it," Dedede said. "I feel stupid not thinking about it."

Kirby giggled and nodded with a, "Poyo," before starting to continue walking on the bridge. But then, a geyser pusheed up the plank on which he was, right into a Gordo, getting him badly poked on the head.

"Those darn Gordos! Always at the wrong place!" Dedede shouted.

"Are you alright, Kirby?" Sweetie Belle asked in worry.

The puffball rubbed his head, then nodded. "Poyo."

Adeleine painted a strawberry shortcake for him, enough to heal him, before they continued, watching out for the geysers until they reached the end of the bridge, getting back on another rock. However, to continue, they had to swim in the sea for a few minutes to join their next destination, which was another rock at the start of a path composed of big vertical logs with some platforms and other rocks, leading to a tall island that was presumed to contain another shard. But when they jumped on the logs, they sunk in the floor, so for the ones wanting to continue this way, they had to jump quickly. Thankfully, the logs went back up after a second or two. Sweetie Belle, Waddle Dee, and Adeleine simply decided to swim in the sea to reach the tall island.

Once on top of the island, they jumped in a hole leading inside it, in a room guarded by a big version of those green ducks with a few smaller ones. Once the duck beaten, it released a shard while another hole appeared. The hole led to an underground lake, right into the water. Ribbon rapidly got out of the water before flying up, getting a shard near the ceiling hidden between two walls. Meanwhile, the others jumped of a big rock platform made of rock bricks with a spiked wooden log. Jumping on it caused the platform to tilt under their weight, the log starting to roll toward them. They jumped above it, the platform not getting back into normal once they reached the other end, and they had to climb some other platforms protruding from a wall.

As Ribbon came back, the following path was a succession of these platforms made of bricks with logs on them tilting under their weight, and the normal ones protruding of the walls, until they reached the top of the room. They then had to jump above one of the walls, falling back into water, with a hole in another wall just above the surface. The hole got them outside of the tall island, in front of another one.

"The light points down," Ribbon said. "I think the next shard will be in the ocean."

"I was wondering when we would get under the sea. All we have done until now is swimming at the surface," Dedede said.

Sweetie Belle nodded. "Yes. It was obvious that there would be shards in the ocean. That would have been weird if some of them didn't fall in, seeing how the majority of this planet is made of water."

"Well then..." Adeleine painted Kine, the painted fish jumping in the water. Adeleine then jumped in the water after him, gripping the fish. "Time for some underwater exploration!"

The others nodded and jumped in the water after her. But as they started to go deeper between the two islands, they were attacked all the way by transparent beings using hair-like tentacles, and living green torpedoes shooting out of holes in the walls, not giving them any time to take a breath, until they reached the sea floor where there were Glunks shooting their projectiles as they approached. They discovered at the bottom of the second island a tunnel going through it, and Ribbon pointed at it. So they entered the tunnel and exited it at the other side of the island, finally going into the depth of the ocean, without any islands in the way. Instead, they could see giant corals, big pillars of stone or small mountains, and the sea floor was full of holes glowing in different colors, from blue to pink passing by purple.

"It's beautiful..." Sweetie Belle said in awe. "I will never get tired of exploring the oceans."

Kirby nodded. "Poyo."

Dedede looked at the holes. "I wonder what is in th-Bonk! Arg!"

As he had been talking, a rock suddenly fell on his head, and they spotted a few others falling here and there for some reason.

"It's the second time that I get a rock on the head!" the king complained angrily, smashing the rock with his hammer.

Sweetie shot an explosive ball at another falling rock, destroying it. "I will keep an eye on them."

"Thank you Sweetie Belle. We will take care of the fishes," Ribbon said as she shot with the crystal one of the red fishes.

After a few minutes of swimming, Sweetie destroying the rocks, they reached a wall with a tunnel near the base. The tunnel led to a section in the wall full of water with currents going back or forth. To continue, they had to go up, having to choose between many passages that were sometime hard to reach because of the currents, Adeleine being the less annoyed by them thanks to the painted Kine. There were many Gordos in the way, after turning around rocks or going back and forth in some passages, and, again because of the currents, avoiding them was hard, and Waddle Dee got poked halfway through this section. At the top, another current pushed them into a tunnel, Adeleine taking a shard just under the ceiling.

The tunnel was full of Glunks with some crabs and explosive fishes, and with the current pushing them, they had to constantly be on alert to deal with them. Further in the tunnel, they reached a small room with a pole, a shard being at the bottom corner behind it. Again, Adeleine was the one taking it thanks to paint Kine. In the tunnel after the pole, they encountered fishbones and Gordos, the last ones making the way much harder to pass without getting hurt.

They eventually ended in a tunnel going in a circle, the exits closing, with a bigger version of those explosive fishes, round, green back, white belly, and yellow fins and tail, swimming in it, its size making avoiding it almost impossible, so they had to swim away chased by it. There were also Glunks in the way, Ribbon shooting at them so they didn't slow them down while Sweetie Belle attacked the fish from a distance with beams. Like all the other fights against the bigger versions of their enemies, it didn't take long before they knocked out the fish, opening the way.

Out of the circled tunnel, they reached another, bigger tunnel with strong currents pushing them from behind, rocks carried by it, threatening to ram them. Again, Sweetie Belle was the one dealing with the rocks with her explosive balls, the others warning her when there were Gordos in the way. Adeleine found a third shard in a small hole in the floor, and not long after it, they reached the end of this section of the tunnel, a small passage without currents above it getting them out of it.

---

A few minutes of swimming in the passage later, they ended up in a large cave with another tunnel going up, where they encountered a familiar orca. The killer whale looked at them in the middle of the cave, not doing anything except raising an eyebrow.

Sweetie Belle and Adeleine gasped once they saw him. "Acro, is that you?" the filly asked with a big smile.

"Poyo!" Kirby waved at him.

Acro closed his eyes in happiness, swimming up and down while nodding.

"So this is this world that you moved in?" Dedede asked.

He nodded.

"Well now, we have one more reason to come back to this world," Adeleine said.

"Who is he?" Ribbon asked.

"A friend," Sweetie Belle answered as she hugged Acro, the whale licking her, making her giggle.

"His name is Acro, and he was living in Popstar before he moved away," Waddle Dee said. "We befriended him after the incident with Zero. He... he was one of the possessed."

"Oh..." Ribbon approached Acro, petting him. "That must have been horrible... I can see that you are a good whale."

Acro nuzzled her.

"Speaking of... Acro, do you have some small crystal like the one that she has?" Dedede asked, pointing at Ribbon's crystal.

Acro tilted his head before he spat a shard, letting it land on his head.

"Yes! That's it!" Dedede shouted in happiness.

"Acro, is it alright if with take it?" Adeleine asked.

The whale tilted his head again to show his curiosity.

It was Sweetie Belle who answered him. "The Dark Matters are back, and this crystal is our best way to deal with them."

At that, Acro frowned before nodding and showing the crystal to Ribbon, the fairy taking it. "Thank you. I will try to come back to play with you after we have beaten the Dark Matters."

"And when we will come back to pass some good time in this world, we will invite you," Sweetie Belle said.

He smiled and nodded.

At this moment, the crystal flashed and opened a portal to the next world. The new world looked more like a normal planet, round with jungles and volcanoes visible on the surface.

"Volcanoes?" the filly asked before she sighed. "We will have to go in one of them, right?"

"I hope not," Waddle Dee said. "I don't like the thought of walking surrounded by magma."

"As long as you don't fall in it, you will be alright," Dedede said. "Now come." He then took Waddle Dee and threw him through the portal before going in too.

"Goodbye Acro, see you soon!" Sweetie Belle said, waving at Acro with Kirby, Adeleine, and Ribbon, the whale nodding at them. She then crossed the portal with the others, the portal closing behind them.

---

"The more I hear about the Dark Matters, the less I like them. Why did they possess this poor orca?" Fluttershy asked.

"Weeeell..." Discord said, uncertain. "Dark Matters spread hate and pain to make worlds easier to plunge into darkness... What do you think they could do to make others suffer with an orca?"

Celestia frowned. "An orca is a powerful predator... I can easily guess. Whatever those Dark Matters are, they must be some of the most horrible creatures that I have heard about."

Discords turned to her. "And you haven't seen their leader. Zero was nightmare fuel. Even for me, he was disturbing. I just hope that whatever took his place will not be like that."

Author's Notes:

I present you "Super Kirby Rafts"!

I always wondered myself why Acro fights Kirby in The Crystal Shards, despite the both of them becoming friend at the end of Dreamland 3. Well, I can ask the same thing about Pon & Con. Why the heck were they guarding the door of the Jambastion?

By the way, I had to retain myself from making Sweetie Belle singing Under the sea.

Chapter 34: In the Wild World

The portal opened in a vast jungle and disappeared once everyone got out of it. Sweetie Belle looked around at the new environment, the jungle reminding her of the Everfree Forest, but far less scary. The trees, while tall, were spaced enough to let the light come, and it was much more colored. Of course, it was a jungle, she knew that there must be many dangers, predators roaming around, toxic plants, maybe even natural traps. At least, she now knew how to defend herself, and she was among powerful fighters, and thanks to the light of the crystal guiding them, they will not get lost. They will just have to avoid suspicious plants,and keep an eye on the bushes, weapons always ready. Ribbon still decided to fly closer in the middle of the group, beside Adeleine.

"At least, we are not in a volcano," Waddle Dee said as they started advancing in the direction pointed by Ribbon.

"Don't talk yet. We are starting in a jungle, but something tells me that we will not remain in one too long," Dedede replied.

"Drats..."

"I'm not that scared of going in a volcano," Sweetie Belle said. "After exploring that world full of fire and lava, a volcano sounds lame. And as crazy as it is, the world of fire isn't the most dangerous I have explored. The one with a city covering the whole surface, and the one with the wind and the stars were far more perilous, even if the guardian in the last one was weird. That video game thingy was the most weird fight ever."

Adeleine stared at her. "You fought a video game?"

"Yeah... There was those three windows, and that was all like "The monster appears", "Sweetie Belle and Kirby attack", "Sweetie Belle and Kirby deal whatever how many damage"... There was even a window showing the health points, and the fight was by turns, like it was first us, then the monster, then us again, then the monster again... Really, it was like I was in a video game."

---

Discord snorted and whispered, "Oh, the irony."

"What have you said?" Luna said.

"Oh, I was just thinking that it could be fun to have a video game in real life. I could arrange that if anypony want to try."

Pinkie raised her hoof, shouting, "Me! Mememememe!"

They then heard Ribbon ask, "What is the strongest enemy you have ever fought?"

"I would say... Marx? Maybe Zero. Without counting the beings with godlike powers, clearly Meta Knight, with Dedede being a close second, even if he was possessed. Some other powerful enemies that come to mind and that were impressive to fight are Kracko, both Heavy Lobsters-big mecha lobsters-, and a giant in that world full of caves. I could only see his head in the dark, but he was easily over one hundred time my size. Even his eyes were bigger than me."

Everypony looked at the filly in awe. Then, Discord snapped his paw to make a glass of chocolate milk appear, drank it, and did a spit-take. "She fought what?!"

"A giant over one hundred time her size," Celestia said. "That is certainly an impressive feat."

Luna looked at Celestia and raised an eyebrow. ""Impressive"? You are kidding, right? Winning a fight against a thing this size would be like winning a fight against an Ursa Major. It's a miracle. Only us, among the ponies, are normally powerful enough to win such a fight." She pointed at the filly walking around a pit full of spikes. "In the space of a few months, this filly has gone from an innocent, harmless child to a warrior that could give even us a hard time in a duel. And if I understand well the chronology that I have been told, that fight dates from a few months ago. She has probably gotten even stronger since then."

Discord raised a finger. "If I can reassure you, she was very certainly with Kirby, and that puffball is no small fry. And when they work together, they are able to accomplish, to repeat your term, miracles. Like winning a fight against a giant over one hundred time their size. Or a mad jester that gained powers about equal to an alicorn. Or even against both you and Celestia together."

The floor under Waddle Dee suddenly broke apart, revealing a pitfall, thankfully only a few inches deep and without anything harmful. They learned however to watch their steps, because the next pitfall may not be as merciful.

After a minute of watching in worry if they fall in any other trap, Luna talked. "Even so, she has still become stronger than the majority of the Royal Guard, maybe even Shining Armor himself. I don't know how this is possible. Is it this universe? Or is she a prodigy? Or something else?"

"Or fate?" Discord proposed. "You ponies love that fate thing, I'm surprised you didn't propose it."

"Fate?" Celestia asked, as she watched the filly obtain a crystal shard in a pitfall between two tree trunks cut. She smiled. "Maybe..."

---

Passing a legged axe, they entered a small tunnel in a wall leading them in a cliff, high above a part of the jungle but not at the top, just between the two walls of what seemed to be a crack. Ribbon found another shard further down before she said, "The next shard is up. We have to climb."

"Using these vines?" Adeleine asked.

"Or we fly," Dedede said. "But I don't mind climbing."

So Sweetie climbed on Dedede's back and he jumped, clinging to a vine before he started climbing it. Adeleine decided instead to paint Kracko again and jumped on him, using him to fly up while knocking away all the creatures in the way so the others could climb in peace. Every now and then, they reached the top of a vine, and they had to jump on another to go further up, until they reached a hole in the opposite wall, Ribbon pointing at it.

Passing the hole, they could already see another wall with a tunnel in it. The problem? The wall was far away, nothing separating them but some vegetation with vines hanging from it.

They will have to jump from vine to vine to reach the other wall, a missed jump meaning a big fall right to the jungle below.

Kirby was the first one to go, jumping to a vine, then jumping to another. Waddle Dee followed him, and Adeleine simply continued to fly with the painted Kracko. Dedede waited for Sweetie to go on his shoulder again, then took a big breath, making a vine go toward them. He took it, stepped back a little, and smiled.

He ran... and jumped.

"OOOOOOOHUOHUOOOOOOHUOHUOOOOOOO!!!!!"

Once everyone reached the other wall, as Dedede landed, he took back his breath for a moment, and he guffawed, holding his belly. "I always dreamed of doing that!"

"Darn... I missed an occasion," Adeleine said.

"How could I not think of it?" Waddle Dee said, tears in his eyes.

Kirby looked down in sadness, disappointed too for not having thought of it.

Sweetie jumped from Dedede's shoulder, shaking. "That was scary... But it was so fun! Maybe I should learn to climb ropes so I can do the same?"

Dedede slapped her on the back, knocking her on her belly while still laughing. "I will make sure that one day, you can!"

"Y-yay..."

---

After fighting a big version of these red reptiles with a white belly that can breathe fire, they reached another cliff at the start of a succession of logs held up by vines, some of them balancing. Thankfully, the logs were big enough so they could walk on them without too much risks of falling, and Adeleine had kept Kracko. However, as Ribbon found another shard almost hidden by the leaves above them, they discovered that there were some logs that fell as they landed on them, so they had to hurry on these ones.

Passing another tunnel at the end of the path with the logs, they reached this time a path made of natural pillars, with an Invincibility Candy at the start. A mouth to mouth session later, and they were rushing on the pillars, knocking away blocks and enemies that blocked their path until the invincibility disappeared just before they entered another tunnel.

At the end of the tunnel, they were back in the jungle, only they were now beside a big crack in the ground.

"We have to jump in it," Ribbon said.

Sweetie Belle looked at her and the crystal, seeing that it was now as big as Kirby. "Is it becoming heavy? It has gotten much bigger thanks to all those shards."

"Don't worry. Like I said, I'm stronger than I look."

"If you say so," Adeleine said. "But remember that if it starts to be heavy, then you can give it to one of us so we can hold it for you."

Ribbon simply nodded.

After that, everyone flew down the crack, quickly finding another shard floating in the way, before Ribbon pointed at another crack in the floor of this place, where they reached a bunch of minecarts, making Sweetie Belle smile widely. The filly immediately jumped in the minecart at the front, lighting her horn so they could see in the dark, Dedede joining her behind. So Kirby went in another minecart behind with Waddle Dee, and Adeleine and Ribbon went to a third. Sweetie's minecart being the first, she was the first to go, using her magic to push it. When it reached the start of the slope, the minecart gained speed, making the filly scream in joy. Waddle Dee and Adeleine had to push their cart to start it.

Many creatures got the bad idea to be on the track, and were knocked away by the minecart. Sweetie and Dedede still had to jump above some giant gems or holes, but it didn't matter much for the laughing filly. In the way, after the railroad split into two tracks and they took the track above, they caught another shard that Dedede firmly gripped in his hand so he didn't accidentally dropped it into the chasm below.

Dedede then said, "Oh oh..."

"What?"

The penguin pointed in front, showing that the railroad suddenly ended just before another hole.

"Oh horsefeather!"

Using her magic on the wheels, Sweetie Belle tried to make the minecart stop. With the sudden brake, it slowed down, creating a high pitched noise while making sparks appear behind, until it finally stopped just at the end, the front bumping the curved up rail delimiting it.

They sighed in relief.

Only to be collided from behind, the sudden shock making their card bounces, go upside down, and fall in the hole. Dedede quickly grabbed Sweetie Belle before inflating his belly, only for the card to fall on him, deflating him and making them fall all the way until they crashed on the floor, the minecart on them. A few seconds later, after groaning, Dedede started to get up, lifting the minecart on him, only for Kirby and Waddle Dee's minecart to fall on it, making his minecart hit his head and knocking him back on the floor, Sweetie Belle crushed under his belly. It was in the middle of more groaning from Sweetie Belle, Dedede, Kirby, and Waddle Dee that Adeleine and Ribbon came, the fairy carrying the human girl.

As they landed beside the two minecarts and the four groaning beings, Adeleine shouted, "We are sorry! We couldn't stop the cart!"

"Urg... I should say the same thing... Sorry my king. Sorry Sweetie," Waddle Dee said.

"It's okay Waddle Dee... Dedede, can you get up please? You are crushing me."

"I... I don't... wanna get up... mommy... My head hurts..."

"Poyooooo..."

---

After a few minutes, everyone was back up and back to their senses, Dedede rubbing a big bump on his head. Sweetie lit again her horn and looked around, nothing much to see in the darkness beside some stalagmites and small ponds. They looked at Ribbon for a direction and followed the one that she pointed, this place having not much obstacles beside a greater quantity of creatures than normal, including these one-eyed green blocks from the desert world, these lezard-frog creatures jumping out of holes in a wall to gobble them, Gordos, or even a Shotzos on a Star Block.

After a small tunnel, the next room revealed to contain a path composed only of rock pillars rising from a chasm, a waterfall falling on all the pillars, with Shotzos and blobs of water with a red core suspending from the ceiling. Normally, jumping from pillar to pillar was nothing new, but between the water slowing them, the blobs of water trying to fall on them to hurt them, and the many Shotzos constantly shooting at them, the difficulty was much higher, and it was only through teamwork, Sweetie, Adeleine on a ninja, and Ribbon shooting the water blobs, Kirby, Dedede, and Waddle Dee using bombs, hammer, and spear to destroy the projectiles of the Shotzos, that they reached the end of this path without being hit.

Another small tunnel, another giant room, only this time, no holes, just a flat floor with stalagmites, a pillar going all the way to the ceiling here and there, and water in some parts lower than the rest. Of course, no obstacles didn't mean that there was nothing, the various creatures still here to try their luck at stopping them. Actually, after a moment walking in water, they reached a small cliff with a waterfall, revealing that this room was not as flat as they had thought, and there were some small pits, some in the water, others not, some of them with food, others with an enemy.

Another small cliff later, Ribbon suddenly said, "Wait!" making everyone stop before she pointed back at the wall of the cliff they just jumped from. "There is a shard behind this wall!"

"Seems like you are doing well holding the Bomb, Kirby," Dedede said.

Kirby nodded with a "Poyo," and approached the wall, placing a pile of bombs in front of it before stepping back. The bombs exploded, blowing up a big hole in the wall, and revealing the shard. Not long after getting it, they reached a small room where they found themselves face to face with a small army of these water blobs.

Dedede smiled and took his hammer. "Now they are trying to get us by number? Bring it on!"

However, before they could charge in, Sweetie shot lightning at the water blobs, the lightning spreading from a blob to another until the whole army was hit, and beaten. As the blobs stopped moving and the exit opened, Dedede and the others looked at the filly, the penguin crossing his arms in annoyance.

"You could have at least left some for me."

She stuck out her tongue at him. "You will have to be faster." She giggled.

Dedede's frown became deeper before he suddenly started laughing. "I think I'm rubbing off on you a little too much."

She huffed. "At least, I'm not as hot head as you."

"Yet."

"Never. My friend Scootaloo is already the hot head in my group."

"A group of friend can very well have more than one hot head."

"But then, who will make sure that the hot head doesn't lead us to the hospital with her ideas?"

"After everything you have gone through in the last few months, I'm sure you could handle those ideas."

"You may be right, but I still have to keep a level head to make sure that my friends don't get hurt." She then wrapped her cape around her, masking her muzzle and below, and started talking in a deep voice. "I will be like Meta Knight, strong, but calm, thinking before acting."

"Like Meta Knight, uh? Hopefully, you will not try to conquer Dream Land too."

She smirked. "Well, maybe once I finally surpass you in a duel, I could become queen of Dream Land."

"In your dreams."

"Isn't this universe an universe where dreams can become reality?"

Dedede took his hammer. "Then you wanna try right now?"

"I would like to, but we have a world to save, remember."

"Are you scared?"

"Not walking in that trap."

He pouted. "You are not funny."

"Sorry. Being fun is not my special talent."

Slap! Slap!

"Alright you two, enough of your bickering. Like said earlier, we have a world to save," Adeleine said, arms crossed, a drawn fan in her right hand, and a penguin and a filly rubbing their head in pain in front of her.

"Sorry..." Sweetie Belle said.

Dedede crossed his arms, grumbling, "Next time she uses a fan..."

"How would she use me?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Wait what?"

...

...

Waddle Dee suddenly facepalmed. "Urg... Because she is a fan of Adeleine's drawing... That was horrible Sweetie. Leave the bad jokes to Broom Sunglasses, please." However, he then heard Kirby and Ribbon laughing, and saw the two on their back. He raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

"I thought you said that being funny wasn't your special talent," Dedede said.

"I can still try to be funny when I want."

"Hum hum!" they then heard, and they saw Adeleine slamming the fan on her left palm.

Sweetie Belle suddenly ran toward the exit. "Gotta go!"

Adeleine giggled. "Finally. I thought you two would never stop, even with my fan."

"It has slowly become a thing between us since a few weeks after I have started to test her in real fights. Must be some rival thing. I'm sure that if Kirby could talk, then we would bicker all the time."

"And then I would have to slap you two to get you back on track."

They suddenly heard Sweetie shout, "Hey! I found a Maxim Tomato! Hurry up, or I will eat it by myself!"

"Poyo!" In panic, Kirby started to run to join the filly.

"Wait for me!" Waddle Dee shouted, running after him.

Dedede sighed. "I'm definitely rubbing off on her..."

Adeleine and Ribbon giggled, and the fairy said, "I wonder if she is rubbing off on you too."

"I don't know."

"You are more friendly!" Adeleine said. "You are not the same Dedede as the one that stole all the food of Dream Land!"

He huffed, and started to walk to the exit. "Maybe. Or maybe I am just waiting to be able to beat Kirby."

"Yeah, right." She giggled.

---

The next room was clearly a different part of the cave. The rocks were not the same, and there were square-shaped pillars coming from the chasm below and the ceiling above everywhere, some of them moving up and down. These pillars were easily the most dangerous obstacles, because if Sweetie and the others didn't watch out, they could end up turned into pancakes.

There was one of these pillars just in front of them, but only a quarter of it was hitting another pillar above it, so at least, this one was not too dangerous. However, there was another pillar just after it, and they will have to time well their passage. Just to be sure, they decided to go one at a time so they had enough place to move without bothering the others. Kirby was the first to go, followed by Dedede.

Sweetie was the third, and she waited for the first pillar to go all the way down before going on it. She made sure to go on the part where she will not risk to be crushed, and she let the pillar lift her while she could see the second one go down until half of it hit another pillar below. Once the second pillar started to get back up, she jumped from the first, ran, and stopped just before reaching a third pillar that she passed with a jump once it was all the way down. She reached what seemed to be a dead end, only for the pillar above her to go up, revealing the way, and she quickly moved before the pillar went back down.

She had to wait for another pillar to go down before passing it, and she did the same thing for the one following it, jumping above it just as it started to go back up. The next one was harder to pass, because there were actually two pillars moving and hitting each other, threatening to crush her between the two if she didn't go at the right time. So she waited for the two pillars to slam into each other, then just as they separated, she jumped on the one going down, and jumped again to the immobile pillar following it. Passing a last pillar, she finally reached the end of the area and joined Kirby and Dedede, waiting with them Waddle Dee, Adeleine, and Ribbon. Two minutes later, Waddle Dee reached them, almost getting crushed between the two pillars before the last one, and Adeleine, Ribbon on her shoulder with the crystal, joined them two more minutes later with some careful jumps.

From here, it was a simple tunnel tilting up, just a big slope that seemed to go up, and up, and up forever, until they saw light. They exited the tunnel, finally back at the surface, only to look in awe at where they now were. There were mountains everywhere, made of giant columns of rocks of different colors. They were on a narrow path starting from one and passing between them, above the clouds that were like a white sea, hiding everything below. At least, to be above the clouds, they could tell that they were very high.

Waddle Dee placed his arms before his mouth and yelled, "YODELIHOOOO!!!"

YODELIHOOOO!!!

As Waddle Dee started to laugh, Sweetie joined him and yelled, "CUTIE MARK CRUSADER MOUNTAINEER, YEAH!!!"

-SADER MOUNTAINEER, YEAH!!!

"I'M THE KING OF THE WORLD!!!" Dedede shouted.

-KING OF THE WORLD!!!

"POYOOOO!!!"

POYOOOO!!!

---

"Classic. Too bad the echo isn't answering back, it would be more fun," Discord commented.

Applejack giggled. "Powerful fighters, and yet childish. I'm not surprised that Sweetie Belle would do that, or Kirby, but Dedede?"

Pinkie suddenly popped beside her and wrap a hoof around her. "Silly! It's not because he is a king that he can't have some fun every now and then. Right, princesses?"

"Of course," Celestia answered, giggling. "I remember when I did it the first time. I passed a whole hour yelling silly things."

"One hour, or one day?" Luna asked.

Celestia smirked at her sister. "That was you who passed a whole day yelling at the echo. I remember, you were so young, and you thought that it was somepony else repeating what you said, and you wouldn't give up yelling at them to stop."

Rarity put a hoof on her mouth to hide a smile. "Oh... That's adorable."

Luna's cheeks became pink. "Celestia!" She then saw Discord wearing a shirt with written on it "Trollestia is best troll!" and blasted him, only for him to open a hole in the air for the beam to disappear in, the draconequus smiling smugly at her. She grumbled, "One day..."

---

Sweetie Belle and the others walked on the path, nothing much happening at first except the discovering of another shard, but after a moment, things started to become a little harder, with more enemies appearing, and the path sometime breaking up into small platforms, forcing them to jump above bottomless holes. At a moment, the path was nothing more than a succession of very small pillars, only big enough for someone to stand on them, forcing them to carefully jump one at a time until the path returned to a more larger one.

Things got more interesting once they encountered one of the human-like creatures with a spear, only this one wasn't attacking them, and had the particularity of wearing a blue top hat, for some reason. Instead, she looked at the crystal in Ribbon's hands and said, "Wow! Big crystal! Beautiful!"

This surprised everyone, and Ribbon answered, "Uh... Thank you."

"Me has gotten small crystal like that. Me has hidden it with puzzle. Me likes puzzle. Me doesn't want losing crystal. You giving big crystal to me?"

"Sorry, but we need this crystal to save my world and the ones I love."

"Oh..."

"And we also need the crystal you got. It's actually a part of this big crystal, and thanks to it, it will be easier to save my world. You don't mind giving it to us?"

"Me giving crystal to you. But you solve puzzle first! You follow me!"

The human-like creature led them a little further, until they reached a group of Star Blocks forming a big square of 7x7 blocks, but there was a block missing in the center.

The creature then pointed at the blocks and said, "Destroy blocks, form object! Form good object, and crystal appears!"

"And which object must we form?" Waddle Dee asked.

"Me not telling you. But you already seeing object needed."

"We already see it?" Sweetie Belle asked. She started looking up and down at the creature, and quickly got an idea. She signed the others to approach and whispered to them, "I think it's the top hat."

"Yes, I think so too," Adeleine replied. "She is the only one that we have seen wearing a top hat."

"How did she get her hands on a top hat ?" Dedede asked.

"She probably found it," Sweetie Belle answered. "Now let's destroy these blocks and hope that we are right."

Adeleine nodded. "Yes. And to make the right shape, we just have to destroy the blocks of the first and last columns, excepted the ones of the bottom line. We will have to be careful to not accidentally destroy one we shouldn't. So no bombs!" she said to Kirby.

The puffball looked down in disappointment.

"Let me do it," Sweetie Belle said. "With my beams, I can target the right blocks and destroy them one at a time."

"Then do it," Dedede said to her.

She nodded and turned to the blocks, going in front of them so she could see all of them. She then targeted the block at the upper-left corner and destroyed it with a beam, before destroying the one below it, and repeating for the four following ones under. She then did the same thing at the opposite side, effectively turning the square into a top hat. Once done, the crystal appeared in the hole in the center, and Ribbon quickly took it while the creature congratulated them.

"You quick! Impressive! You love puzzles too?"

"I like doing a puzzle sometime," Adeleine answered. "it's so satisfying to solve one."

"If it counts, I play chess," Dedede said. "Otherwise, I'm not too much into puzzles."

"Chess? What is chess?"

"Sorry, it would be too long to explain," Waddle Dee said.

Sweetie came back at his side. "Puzzles are nice. I could give you some examples of puzzles that I have done. If you tell me where you live, I could come back to tell you."

"Of course!"

---

Leaving the creature, Barbara, behind, they continued their journey, the path now almost only constituted of pillars more or less big, and there were now floating platforms that fell about one second after someone landed on them, sometime forcing the ones left behind to fly. In the way, between two pillars, they found another shard not long before reaching a series of pillars forming Kirby's name, to the group's confusion.

"How is this possible?" Sweetie Belle asked.

Dedede turned to Kirby. "Anything to say?"

The puffball only shrugged, as confused as the others, before deciding to just forget about this for now and continue, waving at the others to follow.

As they continued to follow the path, they could see that they were nearing a volcano, lava flowing from it. Ribbon looked at the light of the crystal and said, "The light points at the direction of the volcano..."

"Oh stars..." Waddle Dee groaned.

They reached the area around the volcano, with lakes and rivers of lava. They followed the path going right into the volcano, some rivers of lava passing through it while it rained small rocks that Sweetie destroyed with her beams. The sky was now black with the ash expelled from the volcano, and the lava gave it a red tint, while the temperature made the hot days of summer look cold by comparison.

Entering the volcano itself, the cave inside was half full of lava. There was still a floor for the group to walk on, but some of it moved because of the current of the lava, and there were many fire creatures trying to burn them. After a small passage, they entered another room where they could see small hills of rock in the middle of the lava, with cracked pillars at their top, and more pillars after them. They found another shard in one of these pillars, a little before reaching the end of the room, but they had had to take a dangerous path before Dedede could destroy it with his hammer.

In the next room, the only way beside flying was a small suspended path of rock above a big lake of lava, the path having a couple of Gordos in the way. The path was however broken at a few places, so they had to jump more than once before they reached a big rock in the middle of the lake where they could rest a little without risking of falling in the lava. The path restarted at the other side of the rock, Bronto Burts waiting to charge at them on some pillars beside it, and with a small section made of pillars after the Burts. A third section of the path was against a wall expelling streams of lava that they had to jump above before reaching the small passage leading to the next room, which was just a small room with a cracked rock in the middle. Ribbons pointed at it, and the rock was easily broken, letting the fairy obtain another shard without touching the lava below it.

They exited the room by another passage where they had to follow again a path on a lake of lava, thankfully much larger than the previous one. However, not long after entering it, the area started to shake, and lava suddenly rose behind them, forming a wall of lava advancing toward them, making the group panic.

"I knew something like that would happen!" Waddle Dee shouted.

Kirby started to run, yelling, "Poyo!" rapidly followed by the others.

They ran and jumped and ran and jumped, not looking back, not stopping to eat the food or to fight the creatures in the way. Some of the creatures were anyway too busy to run or fly away from the lava too. There were still some parts where they had to take more time, most of the time because it was too narrow. It was especially the case when the path turned into series of small platforms only large enough for one of two of them to jump on. It was worse where there were creatures on said platforms, forcing them to attack them to open the way.

They ran through the passage at the end of the room only to discover that the only way to continue in the next room was up, either flying or jumping on floating platform, while the lava was rising below them. Dedede grabbed Waddle Dee and inflated, Kirby doing the same, while Sweetie Belle jumped on a shield that she created and Ribbon grabbed Adeleine to lift her. Sweetie spotted a shard floating above one of these creatures that looked like a Kabu made of sand and took it in her magic before making it fuse with the crystal in Adeleine's hands.

The more they went up, the more the room got smaller, and after a moment, they decided to give up flying to simply jump from platform to platform, finally leaving the room not long before the lava. They ended up in a cave with a big crack in the ceiling, the rock around it red hot. They didn't have long however to look around, because soon, they saw the lava getting out of the hole where they came from, and they were forced to jump on a bunch of rocks that thankfully floated on it. They looked around as the lava filled the cave, until it stopped.

But when they started thinking that this was the end, they saw lava rise further from them, two black eyes and a big mouth appearing on it. The creature literally made of lava now looked at them, and seemed to press himself, causing lava to rise and move toward them. Luckily, there were more floating rocks around, so it was not hard for them to jump on other rocks to avoid them, Sweetie meanwhile shooting ice balls at the creature.

"You know, I'm not that surprised to fight something made of lava. I mean, I fought something made of clouds."

"Yeah... But how are we going to hurt it?" Dedede asked. "It's too far for us to reach! Only you can attack it! And Ribbon with her crystal!"

The fairy gasped. "Oh right! I'm going!" And so, she went toward the creature of lava and shot at it.

At this instant, the creature pressed itself again, causing columns of lava to rise beside their platforms. On a hunch, they jumped on platforms where there were no columns of lava beside them, just as the columns started to fall on the platforms they had been.

"Wait..." Adeleine suddenly said. "Is this lava part of its body? If that's the case, then maybe we can attack them to damage it."

"We can try," Dedede said. "But isn't attacking the lava like that a risk to burn and melt our weapons?"

The creature then pressed itself again, making more lava to flow toward them, only for it to disappear under their platforms. It was not hard for them to guess that this was bad, and so, they jumped on other platforms. One by one, the platform they had been on were then lifted by columns of lava toward the hot ceiling. Just at this instant, Kirby threw a bomb at one of the columns, and they could see the creature flinch.

Kirby turned to the others and nodded. "Poyo!"

"So it works," Waddle Dee said. "But can we attack it without burning our weapons?"

Dedede frowned while looking at the creature. "Only one way to know."

The creature made columns of lava appear beside their platforms while sending more lava toward them. Because of the columns, they had more difficulties to jump on other platforms, but they still managed to do it. Dedede made sure to jump on a platform beside one of the columns, and attack it with his hammer. Surprisingly, the hammer didn't burn, and the creature was hurt.

"We can attack it!"

"Then it's time to get serious!" Waddle Dee shouted in determination, using his spear to attack another column before it disappeared.

Sweetie Belle and Ribbon continued to attack the main body without stopping expecting to jump for the filly. Adeleine joined the assault on the columns by painting the Ice Dragon, his ice breath doing big damage to them. At that, the creature multiplied the attacks, giving them more brutality, and making combinations to try to trap them, only for Sweetie to cheat, using shields so they always had a platform to jump on, even when all the others were threatened by lava.

Between that and the now almost constant pain, the creature entered into a great rage, and suddenly went into the lava before the whole cave started shaking, and the creature emerged back beside them and charged at them. They were forced to run, or rather jump away to escape it, jumping on many platforms all the while avoiding its attacks and attacking back. After a few minutes, they reached the end of the lake of lava, getting on an upper area where there was none of it. The creature still followed them, sliding on the ground outside of the lava, before stopping. Not in its element anymore, the creature changed tactic, and instead breathed fire at them.

Dedede got himself in front of the group and started inhaling, sucking up the fire into his mouth. Once the creature stopped breathing fire, Dedede finished inhaling it, and after a second, spat it back at the creature, surprisingly hurting it. Once Dedede was done, Kirby jumpped above him and threw many bombs in the creature's mouth, hurting it even more. Irritated, the creature slammed the top of its head to the ceiling, causing rocks to fall on them. Sweetie however used a shield to protect everyone, the rocks accumulating on it. Once the rocks stopped falling, she looked at Adeleine still on the Ice Dragon and nodded. The human girl nodded back and the dragon readied its tail. Sweetie then dropped the rocks around her and used her magic to throw one at the Ice Dragon. The Ice Dragon then turned around and used its tail to send the rock toward the creature of lava, the rock hitting it between the eyes. Quickly, Sweetie threw the other rocks one after another at the Ice Dragon, and the big reptile sent them back at the creature thanks to his tail, never missing, until the creature went into the floor, forming a puddle of lava that charged that them.

They either jumped above or ran around it, and the creature eventually emerged, only to hit the ceiling again to make more rocks raining before breathing his fire. While Sweetie and Adeleine used ice on the fire to stop it, Kirby gave up the Bomb Ability and inhaled some of the rocks, gaining the Stone Ability. Once Dedede and Waddle Dee were done using their weapons to swat the rest of the rocks away, Kirby nodded at Dedede, miming him opening his mouth wide. Dedede smirked and inhaled Kirby, then spat him at the creature. While flying, Kirby turned into stone and crashed right in the forehead of the creature. He bounced up while turning back into normal went right above it, and turned back into stone, falling on its head. Dedede then inhaled Waddle Dee and spat him above the creature. Waddle Dee landed on Kirby still in his rock form and prepared his spear.

Adeleine looked at Sweetie Belle and made a small movement of the head toward the Ice Dragon. Sweetie nodded and readied herself, wrapping herself into a spherical shield. The Ice Dragon then breathed ice at her, turning her into a big ice ball, and used its tail to throw her at the creature's forehead. The impact caused the creature to tilt its head back, making Kirby fall. Before that, Waddle Dee jumped, and Sweetie Belle broke her ice shield, using it to bounce up beside Waddle Dee. She then shot ice at Waddle Dee's spear, wrapping it in ice, surprising him, before Waddle Dee nodded as he fell back toward the creature. He then pointed the ice spear down and impaled it in its forehead.

After that, the creature started to get smaller, and smaller, and also colder, its body turning into stone, and its face disappearing. In the end, the creature looked like the rest of the cave before crumbling into boulders of different sizes, releasing a shard. At their victory, the members of the group exchanged high fives and fist bumps, screaming in joy, sometime with a hug, and the Ice Dragon got some petting, to its pleasure.

---

Everypony looked in awe at the fight they just witnessed, even the princesses.

Rainbow was the first to comment about it. "Okay... That was awesome."

Rarity then took a big breath. "I can finally breathe. I was so scared that Sweetie would get burned to death by the lava. And when she was used as a projectile wrapped in ice... I... I think that I have gained some gray hair."

"Did they have to kill this... living lava?" Fluttershy asked.

Celestia sighed. "This creature could have stopped anytime... It was being hurt, and it could see that it was at a disadvantage. And yet, it continued the fight. And they needed the shard inside it, so they couldn't stop. The outcome could only be this. I'm sorry, Fluttershy, but not every fights can end with the enemy being knocked unconscious. You who love animals, you know that it is often the case."

"Yes... For some species of animals, the males often fight each others for the females, and sometime, it ends with one of the males getting killed, frequently because they refuse to stop before it is too late." She sighed sadly. "Why didn't it stop?"

"We can only guess," Luna said.

They then saw that the volcano started to shake violently, and the lava rose, forcing the group to run. A portal was quickly opened, showing a white, spherical world, with a moon, a real moon, turning around it. They could see shapes at the surface, and Twilight could swear she saw them before. One by one, they jumped in the portal before it closed just as the lava reached it.

Twilight quickly teleported to her personal library, took a book, and teleported back before opening it, revealing a map. It was a special book, because she got it in the Mirror World with a few others, so this map showed nothing on Equus. It was actually a map of the whole Mirror World, showing all the continents and the oceans. And the shapes of the continents... They were exactly the same as the ones in that white world!

This white world, it was not just any world.

It was Earth.

Frozen.

Chapter 35: The Fallen World

They jumped out of the portal and landed on snow, the temperature going from the extreme heat of the volcano to really cold. Barely they took their first step on the snow and they were already shaking, some of them even having their teeth clacking. Dedede and Sweetie Belle were the less affected by the cold, the king thanks to his clothes and the fact that he was a penguin, and so was naturally resistant to the cold, and the filly thanks to both her fur and her cape, that she still wrapped around herself.

Waddle Dee crossed his arms, trying to warm himself. "Brrrr... I don't know what is worse. Almost melting in the heat, or freezing in the cold. Sweetie Belle, can I borrow your fur?"

The filly gave him a deadpan look. "I'm not sure if you are trying to be funny, or if you really think that I can give you my fur just like that. And no, even if I had a mean to shave my fur, I would not give it to you, or to anyone."

"Besides, I don't think I want to see how Sweetie would look without her fur," Adeleine said. "It would probably be no better than seeing a naked Mr. Frosty."

"Ugh... Please, don't give us images like that," Dedede said in disgust. "Let's just go and find the shards in this world as quickly as possible, so we can go to a warmer place."

They all nodded and looked at Ribbon for a direction. Once she gave it, they started to walk, Kirby eating in the way some bird made of ice to gain the Ice Ability, giving him a greater resistance to the cold, to Waddle Dee's envy. After a small and rather uneventful trek, they reached the base of a small cliff that they could climb with the help of ladders installed on the wall. They just had to watch out for the flying enemies while climbing them, and they found some food in small holes. At the top, they found nothing else then bobsleds, all in range, ready to be taken and used to slide!

Adeleine was the first to take one and to start making it slide, Ribbon jumping in it with her. Dedede took another one and jumped in it, Kirby going with him, to his displeasure. This left Sweetie and Waddle Dee to take a third one before following the others.

During the ride, while they had fun, they still had to avoid many obstacles, like tree trunks, or holes. At a moment, they even passed through an igloo, and they saw Adeleine and Ribbon jump on another where they caught the first crystal shard of this world. Sweetie and Waddle Dee prefered to slide around it, and after a few more holes, they reached the end of the slope, Kirby and Dedede crashing into a big rock while the others were able to avoid it. Kirby found himself propelled above the rock and right inside a big igloo that was just behind it, and the others quickly followed him.

Inside the igloo, they discovered another shard trapped in ice under the ceiling. However, there was also a big Chilly with a few ice birds that they had to eliminate first so they could melt the ice in peace. While Sweetie shot at the birds with fireballs, Kirby, Dedede, and Waddle Dee knocked out the Chilly in a few seconds. Once done, Sweetie used a shield to go closer to the trapped shard and shot fire at the ice, melting it. Once the ice melted enough, the shard fell, and Ribbon caught it and nodded at the filly. The shard obtained, they exited the igloo by a second entrance that the Chilly had been guarding, finding themselves in front of a frozen lake.

Ribbon pointed at the lake. "I think that the next shard is under the water."

...

"So... Someone will have to jump in this certainly extremely cold water?" Waddle Dee asked.

"Seems like it," Sweetie Belle said. "But I'm sure it will be nothing for Kirby thanks to his Ice Ability."

"And I could go in too. Cold water is nothing to me," Dedede said.

But Kirby decided to go in first. He spotted a hole in the ice at the surface and ran toward it before jumping in. Dedede simply huffed at that before he decided to continue their journey, thinking that Kirby will rapidly join them. So he went on the lake, having no problem to walk on it, followed by Sweetie Belle who knew how to keep her balance on it. However, Waddle Dee and Adeleine decided to walk around the lake, not wanting to risk a few painful faceplants. As for Ribbon, she flew above the lake, beside Sweetie and Dedede.

After about one minute, Kirby jumped out of another hole in the ice, holding a shard that he gave to Ribbon, and not long after, they reached the other side of the lake where they waited for Waddle Dee and Adeleine to join them. Once they were all back together, Ribbon looked at the light in the crystal and raised an eyebrow.

"Is there a problem, Ribbon?" Waddle Dee asked.

The fairy looked up. "It says that the next shard is up there, in the sky."

"So, in the clouds, I guess," Dedede said, crossing his arms. "Now, how are we going to get up there?"

Sweetie put a hoof under her chin. "We can try to fly."

Adeleine nodded. "We can try. But... We should try at first to find if there is not a way to get up. We will fly if there is nothing."

"I can search around," Ribbon proposed.

Kirby nodded. "Poyo."

At that, Ribbons flew away, scouting in hope of finding something that could help them go to the clouds. She prioritised searching in the direction pointed by the light. A few minutes later, she came back to the group with a big smile and pointed in the direction she came from.

"Over there. I found one of those floating green balls that can propel us like cannons. I asked it if it could propel us to the clouds and it accepted. Now it is waiting us at the top of that mountain."

"That mountain?" Adeleine asked, pointing at a mountain in the direction shown by Ribbon.

"Yes. However, in the way, we will have to pass a field full of small mounts of ice, and there are some small cracks and cliffs too."

Dedede chuckled. "That's nothing new."

This made Sweetie giggle. "That's true. Let's go, everyone."

As Ribbon warned, the way was full of small mounts of ice that they either climbed or walked around, with a few small cracks and cliffs to jump. The problem with the mounts of ice was that all of them had at the top some sort of green worm with a big head and a yellow horn that pushed boulders at them if they got too close. In these cases, Dedede was always here to break the boulders with his hammers so they didn't have to jump out of the way constantly.

Soon, they passed the field, and after a small walk, started to climb the mountain. Thankfully, the flank of the mountain was just a big slope, so they just had to walk on it to reach the top, with a few big crystals in the way that were, sadly, not the ones that they searched. At the top, they found a hole with the green blob waiting for them inside. Once it saw them, the blob nodded, indicating that it was ready.

Ribbon bowed her head. "Thank you."

Kirby was the first one to jump in, and they watched him being propelled toward the sky, until he reached a hole in the clouds. Sweetie was the next one to jump, joining Kirby on the clouds. She landed just beside him, and remarked that the clouds here had more of these crystals on them, without counting the stars patterned everywhere. She remained beside him to wait the others, just as she saw Dedede come.

---

"That's strange. They walk on a cloud, and yet, I haven't seen her cast the cloudwalking spell. I don't think she even knows how to cast this spell," Twilight said in confusion.

Discord turned toward her to answer. "They can walk on clouds for the same reason they can breathe underwater. It's just a thing in this dimension."

"Is there even something in this dimension that is impossible?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Good question. Mmh... Surviving a bath of lava, maybe?"

"Yeah, probably. Clearly, they didn't want to fall in it."

"Or maybe they can survive falling in it for a time, but it still hurts," Pinkie said.

"I don't think we will even know unless we see somepony fall in it," Applejack said.

Spike looked unsure. "I don't think I want to see what would happen if Pinkie is wrong... This actually makes me think of all those creatures that were in the volcano when the lava started to rise. The majority of them must be dead now..."

Celestia sighed. "That is the risk with volcanoes. They are deadly. How about we stop thinking about this and we go back to watching Sweetie Belle and her friends? They have started their journey on the clouds, and I think they found another shard."

They all looked back at the portal, and could see that Celestia was right. The whole group was now on the clouds, and Ribbon was flying under one, just catching a shard floating under it. At the same time, the rest of the group reached a series of small flat clouds with strong currents going up, helping them to jump higher and further. After those clouds, they reached a really big cloud with a tunnel going through it. After the tunnel, at the other side of the cloud, they found another one of the green blobs, and one by one, they used it to go up through three clouds toward another green blob, and from there, even more blobs until reaching another cloud, finding a second shard in the way.

Now they were in a very cloudy area of the sky, with some round clouds of different colors like pink or green that shrink and grow back and forth.

This made Rainbow giggles. "Colored clouds. They must be made of fruit juice."

Pinkie licked her lips. "Fruit juice flavored clouds? This needs to happen! It would be the best thing ever for summer!"

"Hum... I don't think it's possible, unless using magic..." Fluttershy said in a small voice.

Rainbow looked at her. "Actually, it would be possible. We create a normal cloud, and we put in the fruit juice of our choice. It would just have to be a lot of fruit juice for it to propagate to the whole cloud."

"Or I just have to snap my finger and tadaa!" Discord snapped his claw and made two colored clouds appear, one yellow, and one purple. "Lemon, or grapes? Unless..." He snapped again, making a brown cloud appear. "you want the classic chocolate milk?"

"Chocolate milk!" Pinkie shouted.

Discord put a straw in the cloud and gave it to Pinkie. "Maybe I could open a business with that stuff."

"I would be your first customer!"

Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle and her friends jumped on a few small clouds to reach the layer of clouds just above them. On this layer, after a small walk, Waddle Dee almost got eaten by a blue enemy constituted of a round body with a big crocodile-like mouth, and an eye on each sides. He had been jumping above a hole when one of those things had suddenly jumped out of it to trap him in his mouth. Sweetie Belle had saved him just in time, shooting a beam at the creature to force it to spit her friend before sending it flying through the clouds to who knew where. They encountered some more of these creatures, alongside many spherical white beings that jumped out of the clouds at the approach of the group, before they reached an entrance leading inside the cloud.

Surprisingly, the inside of the cloud was pink, and they had to fight one of those white balls, but bigger, with these enemies flying thanks to a propeller. Of course, they didn't last long against the full power of the heroes, who left the cloud with a new shard after breaking some big cube that had been trapping it. Outside the cloud, they walked a little before reaching the edge, and everyone had their mouth opening in awe at what they now saw beyond the edge, back at the surface: a city. A city with skyscrapers, like Manehattan, and totally covered in snow. And being this high in the sky, they could see that the city was big, very big. Maybe even bigger than Manehattan.

"Wow... So, there is a real civilization in this world?" Waddle Dee said.

"Maybe they have found some of the shards. We can ask the locals, or the guards, or even the mayor of this city," Sweetie Belle proposed.

Adeleine started to paint something. "But first, we have to go down there, and I think that I know how we will do." She then finished painting, revealing a balloon carrying a basket. Once it got out of the canvas, it was actually big enough to carry all of them at the same time. As Adeleine jumped in the basket, she shouted, "All aboard!"

At that, they all jumped in the basket, and the balloon started to lift them toward the city.

Rarity turned toward Twilight. "You said that this is Earth. So, does this mean that this is a human city, darling?"

"Yes, I think. But in the Mirror World, humans are the only sapient species, and they can't walk on clouds or breathe in water. But this world clearly possesses other sapient creatures. So this may be Earth, yes, but a very different Earth where humans aren't alone, and where some of them seem to possess some powers, like Adeleine."

"Uh... Twilight."

"Yes, Pinkie?"

She pointed at the portal, more exactly, at the streets below the balloon. "Where are the humans?"

"Hey. That's true!" Applejack said. "If this city is like Manehattan, then the streets should be as full as the waiting line at the start of the apple cider season, and yet, I see no humans."

"Maybe they are in their home because of the cold?" Fluttershy proposed.

Rarity shook her head. "No... Even with the cold, there would be a few of them still out, either going to their job, visiting a friend or a family member, or playing in the snow. The streets shouldn't be empty like they are..."

Twilight nodded. "Rarity is right. Humans always wear clothes, and I'm sure they have clothes against the cold." She frowned. "Their absence worries me. Something is going on."

She was not the only one worrying about the absence of sign of life in this city. Sweetie Belle and the others were looking down at the empty streets, not seeing anyone that they could speak to.

"Why don't we see anybody?" the filly asked.

After a moment of silence, Adeleine said, "I will get us down, and we will search."

So she made the balloon go down, and they landed in the middle of a snow-covered street. They jumped out of the basket, and the balloon disappeared. Dedede then approached one of the buildings and knocked at the door.

"Hey! Anybody?!"

But nothing. After a whole minute, he went to another building to try the same thing, only to have the same result. The rest of the group dispersed to help him. Most of them simply decided to do like Dedede, in vain. Ribbon however decided to fly to the windows, trying to see through them if she could spot anyone. But nothing.

Sweetie had the luck of finding a door that was not locked, and entered the building. "Hello? Is there anyone?"

But nobody came...

Despite this, she decided to continue inside the building. She passed the small entrance hall, and saw that she could either take the stairs, or an elevator to go up. She decided to take the stairs, so she could search the floors one by one. But before that, she knocked at the doors of the first floor, nobody answering her.

Second floor, same thing.

Third floor, idem. Annoyed, she tried to open one of the door, and to her surprise, she was able to open it!

Rarity raised an eyebrow. "I don't know what surprises me more. That Sweetie would open the door of a stranger's house, or that she has been able to open it. In a big city like that, ponies tend to close their door to avoid the risks of a stranger, or a thief entering."

Sweetie opened the door more, and said, "Hello?"

Nobody answered her.

She entered the apartment, entering a small hallway. She then heard something approaching, seemingly on wheels, and soon saw a robot with a broom appearing from one of the rooms connecting to the hallway. It was a white, cylindrical robot about the size of Sweetie Belle, with two metallic blue arms ending in claws, two round, yellow, glowing eyes, and a rectangular mouth that flashed red when it started speaking.

"I'm sorry, visitor. The masters aren't home right now. Do you want to leave a message?"

Her brain rebooting from the fact that a robot was talking to her-even if she had seen robots before, it was the first time that she heard one talk-, she asked, "Who are you?"

"I am UHA500614913, or as my masters name me, Waly. I am a robot programmed to take care of the master's home."

"Alright. When will your masters come back?"

"Unknown. The masters have been gone for 427 years, 3 months, and 15 days. They haven't precised when they would come back."

Sweetie looked at the robot, insure. "Erh... Why are they gone?"

"The masters have gone in a journey to another world."

"With a spaceship?" she asked with a doubt.

"Affirmative."

She sighed in relief. "So they have just moved to another world. Alright. What about the other inhabitants of this city?"

"I have heard the master say..." The voice of the robot became deeper, like the one of an adult stallion. "It's time to go Eva. The spaceship is ready." The voice then became similar to the one of a mare. "Everyone is really going with us? They have really been able to build a spaceship big enough for everyone to go in?" The voice turned back to the deep one, getting excited. "Yes! I have just seen the photos in the computer. It's like a giant flying city! And they built them all over the world! Every single humans on this planet will be able to go!" There was a small silence where the person with a deep voice took a big breath, then said, "It will be a new start for humanity. We will find a better world, and hopefully, not do the same error than our ancestors..." The robot then started to talk again in its own voice. "End of recording. I conclude that the masters have gone in their journey with everyone in the city, and in the world. Time of their return: unknown."

Sweetie Belle was silent for a few minutes, biting her lip, looking down, then said, "Thank you. I will be going now. But... hum... Do you know how long a human lives?"

"Human's average lifespan is of one hundred seven years as stated in the last medical report."

"And you said that your masters have been gone for 427 years, right?"

"Affirmatif."

"Then... Don't you know that your masters will never come back, because they are probably dead of old age by now?"

The robot was silent for a few seconds, then dropped the broom. "Confirmed. The time since the masters' departure is superior to the masters' lifespan. Conclusion: they are dead."

"So, what will you do?"

"Without master to serve, I have no purpose. So I will shut down until I have a new master to serve."

"Are... Are there other robots like you, in this city?"

"Affirmatif."

"So they would shutdown too, if they learn that their masters won't come back?"

"Some units don't need masters to have a purpose, and will continue to work even if they learn that they have no masters anymore."

"I see... Well, here is a purpose for you, Waly. Go find the other robots, tell them that their masters aren't coming back, and together, you can take humanity's place. Have friends, a home, like, this one, maybe a job if you want, anything you would like to do, not necessarily about taking care of homes. You can even try to find another robot that you like, and together, build a baby bot! Just, go tell what I just said to the other robots, make them spreed the message, and start a new life. You don't have to wait for a master that could never come."

Again, the robot was silent for a few seconds. "Affirmatif. I will spreed the message." It then passed beside Sweetie Belle, and exited the apartment. Just as it passed the door, it stopped, and looked at her. "Thank you."

She smiled. "You are welcome. By the way, my name is Sweetie Belle."

"And so..." Discord suddenly said. "Sweetie Belle helped to form a new civilisation. She will be worshiped by those robots like a goddess, forever known as 'The Sweet One'."

Rarity looked at him. "Don't go too far, Discord. They will probably be thankful to her, but they are still robots. I don't think they understand the concept of religion."

"One day, maybe they will."

Twilight looked down at the book from the Mirror World still in her hooves. "It's so hard to believe... Those humans were superior in technology than the ones in the Mirror World, but they had to abandon Earth because it was starting to freeze for some reason. Is it what will happen to the Earth of the Mirror World?"

"You can talk about this to Sunset Shimmer once you have the occasion," Celestia said. "I'm sure that she and her friends would be interested to learn about this other version of their world. And together, you can discuss of the possibility that their version of Earth may freeze too in the future. However, I'm not sure they could do anything to change it if it was the case."

"Yes. I will."

Sweetie Belle exited the building and found her friends waiting for her.

"You are right in time. We were thinking of coming to search you," Dedede said. "Have you found anything?"

"Yes. I have found what happened, and even made a new friend. There was a robot, and it told me that the inhabitants of this world left it to go live elsewhere."

"So there is nobody?" Ribbon asked.

"Beside robots and creatures like we encountered wandering around? No. Beside, Adeleine, you will be interested to learn that the ones living in this world were humans."

"Really?"

"Yes. Do you know anything about where the humans of Popstar come from?"

"No, I don't know. I always thought that Popstar was our homeworld."

"It's still possible," Waddle Dee said. "After all, there are Waddle Dees living in Popstar, and there are Waddle Dees also living in other worlds."

"But there are some species that seem to live in only one world," Dedede said. He then pointed at Ribbon. "Look at her for example. Have we encountered any fairies yet beside her in all the worlds that we have visited? There is a possibility that all the humans of Popstar, and the universe, originate from this world."

Adeleine crossed her arms and sighs. "The two are possible. But we aren't here to question my origins, we are here to find the crystal shards. We will go back to this once Ribbon's world is saved."

They all nodded.

"But I wanna know..." Pinkie complained.

"Sorry Pinkie. Another time," Applejack said.

Dedede crossed his arms. "But that means that there is nobody to help us find the shards. We will have to find them in this abandoned city by ourselves."

"That's nothing new," Adeleine said. "but it's true that I wouldn't have minded some help."

"If we find robots, we could ask them," Sweetie Belle said.

Waddle Dee rubbed his arms against each other. "Hopefully, there aren't robots that will shoot at us with rockets or lasers..."

Sweetie huffed. "Kirby and I took on the Heavy Lobster, twice. If we end up fighting a robot in this city, we will be more than ready."

---

The light led them through the abandoned city toward one of the buildings, where it pointed slightly up. To enter the building, they passed through what was probably some small park with a path going through it to the building, star-shaped lamps at both sides of it.

Luckily, the door was not locked, so they entered the building without problem. Inside, Sweetie Belle discovered that the building seemed to be a giant mall. A mall specializing in toys, if she judged by the toys that she could see being sold everywhere in the first floor. Conveyor belts led to each floors, each selling even more toys, and they found also a shard above the last one. Surprisingly, or not, many creatures seemed to live in this mall, because they had to fight their way through a great diversity of them, from Sir Kibbles to those worms that push rocks from the top of the conveyor belts, passing by Poppys, and even Gordos.

Once at the top, they found an elevator working with a winding key that helped them climbing to another floor, in a separate section of the mall. They traversed a first room with what looked like Kabus jumping out of holes hidden under big leaves to spit bubbles at them. Strangely, the holes disappeared once they were defeated. In this room were also three basins full of pink, orange, and blue liquids, with small pillars circled by weird-shaped colored rings that looked like stars at their center. Whatever was the purpose of these things, they could only guess.

At the end of the room, they entered another elevator with a winding key that led them to the floor above. Getting out of it, they were now in a room full of giant blocks of various shapes, squares, triangles, cylinders, some of them with holes. Suspicious, Dedede approached the first of these holes and put an arm in front of it before rapidly getting out of the way as one of these frog creatures got its head out of it to gobble him. Dedede crushed it with his hammer before it went back in the hole, and from there, they made sure to avoid getting in front of these holes.

Another elevator awaited them at the other side of the room. Climbing to the next floor, the new room was, this time, full of small pathways above the floor connected to each others and going in all directions, for kids to walk on and work their balance. For the fun, Sweetie decided to walk on them, followed by Kirby and Waddle Dee, while Dedede and Adeleine simply walked around of jumped above them.

Another elevator, another floor, another room, this one simply having big tilted pillars, and there were some of these one-eyed green blocks that were very easily avoided, along with a few Gordos. The room after the next elevator was more problematic, because while the room just possessed what seemed to be round tables, there were Shotzos on some of them that immediately started shooting at them once they entered. By running, jumping, or taking cover behind the tables for the smaller ones, they were able to avoid their projectiles and reach the exit, while making sure to avoid being blown up by the Poppies that were in this room.

After a small hallway, they reached a ring-shaped indoor garden, with a big Pupa hanging above the center, and some little black balls with two white eyes floating around. A good beat down later, and they exited the garden with a new shard. After the garden, they ended in a room with a big glass, someone having painted in white on it a couple of Cherries, a Peach, and a Melon. Seeing this, they looked at each other and all raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"This smells like another puzzle to obtain a shard," Waddle Dee said.

Sweetie Belle nodded. "Probably." She looked at the painted fruits to memorize them, and went to the next room, followed by the others. In it, they found colored buttons on the ground. Again, they raised an eyebrow at this.

"I thought that it would be buttons with fruits painted on them," Dedede said.

Adeleine put a hand under her chin and tilted her head, thinking about what to do. "Let's see... Cherry... Peach... Melon..." She looked at the buttons. "Wait... They are colored buttons. Colors! Of course!" She went beside the first button, which was colored red, and pusheed it. "Cherries are red!" She then pusheed a pink button. "Peaches are pink!" And she pushed a green button. "And melons are green!" Once the green button was pushed, a shard appeared above it.

Kirby applauded while Sweetie Belle facehoofed. "Of course! That was so obvious!"

"I'm sure you would have found out with some time. It's not hard to guess."

Ribbon took the shard and looked at the light of the crystal, seeing it pointing down. "I don't know if the next shard is in this building, but I can already tell that we have to go down."

"So, do we continue?" Waddle Dee asked.

Dedede nodded. "Just in case there is an elevator going down."

And so they continued. They passed through a room full of plants, some of them trying to eat them; a second room full of furniture, some of them threatening to crush them by falling of them; a third room where they had to go in a big aquarium with some of those frog-like creatures; a fourth room full of giant screws and bolts where they had to avoid some enemies that were just a purple sphere with four metal claw surrounded by electric sparks trying to ambush them; and a fifth room with fridges, televisions, and yellow vertical poles going from the floor or the ceiling with those yellow, electrical round beings like there was in the spaceship on that desert world.

They were now in a dome-shaped room with walls made of glasses. At the center, there was a eight-pointed hollowed green star floating above the ground, with three Shotzos on three of its points. Shotzos that knew how to aim! They perfectly predicted their position, always shooting at the exact place they would be if they didn't change direction or speed. Thankfully, there were floating colored glasses that they could use as shields, and Sweetie was of great help to stop the projectiles too. They circled almost the whole room before reaching a new elevator. However, this one went up instead of down, and they ended up on the roof of the building.

"Well, at least, we are sure that we will not go more up," Sweetie Belle said with a giggle.

Ribbon looked at the crystal. "And now, I know that the next shard is not in this building. The light points over there." She pointed down over the edge of the roof.

Waddle Dee sighed. "Well, time to go back down." And so, he started to walk back to the elevator.

"Where are you going?" Sweetie Belle asked.

He looked at the filly and raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Back inside to take the way back to the streets."

Sweetie Belle stared at Waddle Dee, then looked at Dedede and Kirby before the three for them laughed. "We don't need to go back inside the building to go down."

"There is another way?"

Dedede suddenly put him on his back. "Of course!"

Adeleine started to rub between her eyes in annoyance. "I think that I see what you are talking about. I suppose that this is faster this way."

"Uh?" At this moment, he saw Kirby running toward the edge of the roof... and jumping. "Oh... Of course..."

Sweetie Belle and Dedede then looked at each other, nodded, and followed Kirby. While falling, Dedede inflated to slow down, and Sweetie Belle wrapped her whip around him. Once they landed, they looked up and spotted Adeleine floating down with a parasol, Ribbon flying beside her. Once the human and the fairy joined them, they followed the direction of the light.

---

They had to traverse the whole city, the streets starting to fill with robots, much to Sweetie's joy. Soon, they left the city, and after a small trek through a field full of firs but without grass or snow, they reached a lonely dome-shaped building surrounded by a small wall that seemed to be made of puzzle pieces. There was a chimney spitting smoke at both sides of it, and they could see three turning gears and a piston moving up and down some metallic thing shaped like an anchor on the roof.

However, the light didn't lead them to the building itself, but to a hole in front of it, that looked like the entrance to a sewer, with a small wall circling three quarters of it, and a ladder leading down. They looked at the hole, nodded to each others, and took the ladder one by one. The way down was rather long, and there were a few Gordos going back and forth in the way. They could already see that the place seemed childish, because like the wall around the building, the walls and floors here seemed to be made of puzzle pieces, but they saw also many boxes, and machines lifting them from one place to another. When they reached the end of the ladder, they also spotted gears almost everywhere, and there were lamps lighting the place. They could hear the clangs and thumps of more machines, coming in particular from below.

This reminded Sweetie Belle that futuristic world, and she didn't like it. That world was very dangerous, so who knew what kind of dangers there were in there. Well, she still hoped that this place will not be as problematic.

They still went down, jumping from a few platforms while avoiding some kind of blue living rockets or torpedoes shot from cannons in the walls. They had to jump from more platforms beside small tunnels, and with Shotzos on them. Following Ribbon's instructions, they went in the first tunnel, only for it to lead to a dead end. Only the last one led to a box that seemed to be more fragile than the others. So Dedede destroyed it with his hammer, revealing a ladder going up, exactly where Ribbon pointed. However, there were more boxes in the way, and Sweetie destroyed them with explosive balls while Kirby climbed the ladder, until he reached a shard that he gave to Ribbon.

Now in possession of the shard, they jumped from a last platform and landed on a green conveyor belt going in the opposite direction than the one where they had to go. Beside it was another conveyor belt that went to the right direction, and they jump on it to make their journey easier. However, after a small passage, the conveyor belt turned to the left, which didn't seem to be the right way, because the light showed the right. So they went back, much to their annoyance, and took the first one, forcing them to run on it to advance.

After the small passage, they saw that this one turned to the right, but had many gates blocking the way, with squeaky hammer machines slamming their hammers on it. So, rather than continuing on the conveyor belt, they jumped on the floor under it and went directly to the exit. This led to a new room with more conveyor belts, red ones going back, and green ones going forth, all the while above a dark gulf, so this time they had no choice but to walk on them. But something disturbing stopped them before they even stepped on the first conveyor belt. At their left, there were many pipes, and they started from some aquarium full of water... with what seemed to be a weird pink hippo floating in it. They could see another aquarium a little further, but from where they were, they couldn't see if there was something in there.

"Why is there an animal trapped in there?" Ribbon asked in shock. "Is it even alive?"

"I-I-I don't know. That... I don't understand," Sweetie Belle said. "But we must save it!"

"But how?" Waddle Dee asked.

He was answered by Sweetie shooting an explosive ball at the glass of the aquarium, only for the glass to remain intact. She frowned, and jumped on a shield to get closer. Once beside it, she accumulated energy in one of her hooves, and punched the glass, but this left not even the start of a crack. She then threw a Vulcan Jabs, hitting the glass at least a couple dozens times, only to have no results. The hippo didn't even move to acknowledge her existence.

"Come on!" she shouted in anger.

She heard Dedede sigh. "Seems like we will have to find something more powerful to get this animal out of this aquarium."

"But... We can't leave it here..."

She felt someone tap on her shoulder, and looked to see Kirby, inflated, flying behind her with a sad expression.

Then, Dedede talked again. "Actually, seeing all those machines, I wonder if there is not something else behind its presence."

"Like what?" Waddle Dee asked.

Dedede waved around. "We are in a factory. Why would they trap animals in aquariums?"

"Good point," Adeleine said. "You know, with this factory, and this whole world, being technologically advanced, with robots and all, maybe this is a clone."

"A clone?!" Sweetie Belle shouted. "You mean that this factory could be producing clones?!"

"Among other things, I think. Again, this is a theory. But this is the only reason that I see why there is a weird hippo trapped in there. What is in this other aquarium?"

"Uh... I'm gonna look. Wait a minute." Sweetie flew to the other aquarium and saw in it some white and round creature with a white needle-like beak, blue wings, and a blue tail. "Seems like some bird that look like the ones made of fire or ice that we have fought previously, but it's normal, and white! And it's really big! it's a little bigger than Kirby!"

"A hippo and a bird, but different from all the ones that we know..." Dedede thought. "Were the humans trying to create new species of animals from old ones?"

Waddle Dee rubbed his left arm in incertitude. "I... I propose that we continue, and that we think of those animals, or whatever, later. This place gives me the creeps, and we can ask the robots back in the city if they know something."

Sweetie Belle sighed in resignation. "You are right... And I hope that you are right, Adeleine."

Dedede stepped on the first conveyor belt and started to walk on it, having to lower himself to pass under some big metallic tubes with valves on them. "Urg... I feel that I will hate this room..."

"Don't complain," Adeleine said behind him. "I'm forced to lower myself too."

"Watch out guys!" Sweetie Belle then shouted. "There are Gordos floating up and down between some tubes!"

"Neat!" Dedede shouted back with sarcasm.

They passed beside more aquariums, those ones empty, one of them with a turbine while the others were cylindrical. Midway through the room, they passed under a really big machine with a black section constantly illuminating with colored square lights, prods all around it, and with giant screws under it with the one eyed green blocks between them. After this machine, they passed beside another turbine, and reached a new aquarium with some black cat-like creature the size of Dedede inside it. The cat only had a big head with the ears, the eyes, and the whiskers, an oval body, and a tail, but no legs.

They could clearly see it blink its yellow eyes.

After this one, they reached another aquarium with... an orange cat-like creature in a black cloak with a red bow, only the head and the ears visible, with some blue hairs, and big, round black eyes. This one really made them question what had been going on in this factory, because this creature, judging by the cloak, wasn't, or hadn't been, just a simple animal.

That was with big relief that they left this room, only to end in a big cylindrical room with lava below them. They spotted a cage hanging from the ceiling at the center, with a shard in it, and there was a big bird of fire charging at them. While Sweetie flew to the cage and tried to melt the chains suspending it with the hottest fire that she could summon, Kirby froze the bird with his ice, quickly getting rid of it with the help of Dedede and Waddle Dee. Soon, Sweetie Belle was able to melt the chain, and made the cage fall on a platform suspended above the lava. At that, Dedede jumped on the platform and hit the cage with his hammer, bending the bars. Some more hits, and he opened a hole big enough for him to put his arm through and catch the shard that he gave to Ribbon.

The next room was just a very long path. The problem? There was a big press going constantly up and down on this path, making it clear what fate it reserved. Thankfully, the press didn't seem to be shaped like the path, leaving some holes. So like in that cave in the previous world, they went in one by one, starting with Kirby, then Sweetie Belle following him.

She waited for the press to go all the way down, and to start to go back up. Once that was the case, she started to run, was able to reach the end without needing to stop in one of the holes, only to discover that there was another press, and Shotzos were shooting at her. Like before, she waited for it to start getting back up, using a shield to protect herself against the Shotzos, and ran, before stopping just before reaching the end, where there was a hole.

She did the same thing for the following press, but the next one was more problematic. She was forced to stop at the first hole, and rapidly ran to reach the end before it went back down. The last press was the most risky one, because there was only one small hole toward the end. Sweetie could already imagine Dedede and Adeleine being forced to crawl in this hole because of their size.

She joined Kirby, and waited the others, taking the occasion to look at the machines that looked like big heads with sharp teeth, and that seemed to be pumping. Pumping what, she didn't know. And after seeing the animals, or whatever they were, in the previous room, she was not sure that she wanted to know. And all those gears... And all those flashing lights... And not a single person to make them work. This factory really creeped her out.

Once they were all back together, they continued to the next room, with there were more of these pump machines that looked like creepy faces, but smaller, and they were connected to a small machine with a thermometer. Again, she could only guess the meaning. However, that seemed to be a dead end, until they saw that they could reach the level above by passing through a hole. However, once they were there, some yellow transparent wall lifted by some big green robot started to advance toward them, and they were forced to run.

This went like this for a few more levels, where they found a shard in the fourth one, at the end. At the fifth level, they had to stop on a small metallic wall in the middle of the hallway, because in addition to the yellow wall chasing them, there was another one coming from before them, and the metallic wall was the only way for them to not be crushed. Once the two yellow walls were against the metallic one, the robots started to step back, giving them the occasion to continue and reach the level above, where there were no walls chasing them this time. Beside a few of those lightning creatures on clouds, the only thing in this level was actually another machine that looked like the pumps, but the 'sharp teeth' were replaced by a black section with the flashing colored square lights, and it was connected by cables to two other machines that Sweetie guessed were two supercomputers. Things that only existed in sci-fi stories. So the machine at the center must be some generator.

Destroying it would probably stop the factory.

But she decided to do nothing. It may cause the whole building to explode.

So she continued with the others, and after a few more rooms without much obstacles, they reached a big room that seemed to be a big hangar with what seemed to be white vehicles big enough for all of them to go in. They had the shape of a cone, the top covered in glass, with reactors at the back, and four flat red 'legs' with round ends. At their side were entrances on top of slopes.

Waddle Dee pointed at one. "Wherever the next shard is, we could use one of these things to go to it faster!"

"And do you know how to use one?" Dedede asked.

"We... can always learn. It must not be hard. Come on, my king, please."

"Please," Sweetie Belle repeated, doing her puppy dog eyes.

Adeleine sighed. "We can try..."

And so, they entered one of the ships. In the cockpit, Dedede, Kirby, and Ribbon sat down on the back seats while Adeleine, Waddle Dee, and Sweetie Belle went to the front to see how it worked.

The filly raised an eyebrow. "Wait, that's all? I thought that there would have been more buttons. There are only a few ones, a lever, and a wheel."

"Even if there are only a few buttons, we don't know which one to push. I guess that the wheel is to steer the vehicle, and the lever may be for the speed, but which button starts it?" Adeleine asked.

"Maybe the big, green one beside the wheel?" Waddle Dee proposed.

Adeleine nodded. "Alright, I'll try. Get a sit you two."

They nodded and sat down on the seats at Adeleine's left and right. Once they were seated, Adeleine sat down on the driver seat and pushed the green button. At the moment she pushed it, the floor around the vehicle started to rise, and the ceiling above them opened. After a few seconds, they reached the surface, not far from the dome-shaped building, and the vehicle suddenly floated up, the 'legs' turning into wings, with the round ends revealing to be turbines. Adeleine then took the wheel, and with her right hand, pushed a little the lever, and the ship-because this was clearly a ship-started to move. She then saw that she could pull or push the wheel. On an intuition, she pulled it, and the ship went up, flying above the firs, and leaving the factory behind.

"You are actually right Waddle Dee, this is not hard! Which direction Ribbon?"

"Turn to the right."

So she turned the wheel to the right, making the ship turn in the same direction until Ribbon told her to stop. Once she was sure that this was the right direction, Adeleine smiled widely and pushed the lever a little more, gaining speed.

"That's so cool!" Waddle Dee shouted.

"Poyo!"

"Now I wonder what the other buttons do," Sweetie Belle said. She then pushed a small button below a screen.

Adeleine tried to stop her, but too late. As Sweetie pushed the button, music then started to play. They all looked at where the song came from, Adeleine quickly looking back at where she was driving to make sure that they didn't fly into a mountain, before they all started bobbing their head at the song.

"Hey. I like it," Waddle Dee said.

"At least, the ride won't be boring," Dedede said.

Sweetie Belle laughed. "Rainbow Dash would love this song! Maybe I should write the lyrics so I can sing it once I'm back to Equestria."

---

"Yeah! That song must come to Equestria!" Rainbow shouted.

Rarity took a big breath. "I'm so glad they are out of that awful place. If such a thing existed in Equestria, it would definitely close. There are so much dangers that there would be more ponies dying in this place than in the Royal Guard. What were the humans thinking?"

"To be fair," Spike said. "Sweetie Belle and her friends haven't really taken the intended path. Ponies, or people, aren't supposed to go on conveyor belts in those factories. From what I learned, factories like that are everywhere on Earth. Of course, this is the first one that I see producing clones, if their theory is right."

What he said gave her goosebumps. "Oh yes. Those clones. Just... why? And how?"

Twilight answered her. "I don't know how this technology works, so I can't answer how. I would have to ask Sunset, she probably knows more about this, or could do some research to find out. As for why... There can be many reasons. My theory is that when this version of Earth started to freeze, many species of animal must have gone extinct. So the humans cloned them in the hope than if Earth goes back to normal one day, then they could put them back. Of course, they gave up the project once they left Earth."

"What we miss is what caused their world to freeze in the first place," Luna said. "When Sweetie Belle spoke to that robot, the recording said something about some error caused by their ancestors. Maybe there was an accident."

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "An accident that could cause a whole planet to freeze?"

"Maybe they had a big winter factory, and it exploded, causing winter to fall everywhere," Pinkie proposed.

"That is not possible Pinkie," Twilight said. "The humans don't control the weather and the seasons like we do. Their whole planet is like the Everfree Forest, so they don't need anything like a winter factory."

Rainbow Dash looked at her with big eyes. "Say what now?"

Discords laughed. "Such a chaotic world. Maybe I should take some vacation on a version of Earth one day. A version where it is not freezing, of course."

Rarity looked back at the portal, seeing Sweetie now singing a song about some 'thriller night' that was not so bad too. However, she remarked something. "Since when has the night fallen?"

"Oh, since a couple of minutes ago," Discord answered. He then raised a paw and materialized above it a small version of the frozen Earth with the moon. Half of it was covered in shadow. A dotted red line then appeared at the surface, starting in the half not in shadow, before ending in the other half. "They have joined the night side of this world."

"That fast?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Yes. Their ship could leave you in the dust."

"What did you say?!"

"Do you mean that you could go in the other side of Equus in a few minutes?" Rainbow opened her mouth to retort, only to say nothing. "Thought so." She crossed her hooves and pouted at that, to his amusement.

---

They were now above a really giant city, the skyscrapers dwarfing the ones of Manehattan or of the city they visited previously, and going for miles and miles. However, this city was much more gloomy, and not just because this was the night or because there was not a single living being to see. The buildings were all made of metal, with a few black lines and some red lights the only features that they could spot at their surface, but no apparent windows, or colors. It was just... metal... and empty... and soulless... Among the buildings, they also spotted a few metallic roads suspended high above the surface, stretching in straight lines for miles.

Ribbon then started to speak. "The next shard is somewhere down there, but... but it seems to move. I think that someone, or something, is in possession of it."

Sweetie Belle frowned. "I hope that we will not have to fight something like that living lava back in the volcano."

Adeleine sighed. "Knowing our luck..."

"I'm telling you, this will be a robot!" Waddle Dee shouted.

"If it's a robot, then maybe I could ask it to give the shard to us." Sweetie Belle said.

Suddenly, a yellow laser pierced one of the left wings, causing the ship to start to lose altitude, Adeleine losing control of it, and making the whole group panic.

"Waaaaahhh!!! We will crash!" Adeleine shouted.

Waddle Dee took a device that looked like a micro and shouted at it. "SOS! SOS!"

"Idiot! There is nobody in this world to save us!" Dedede yelled.

Kirby then pointed at one of the metallic roads. "Poyo!"

"Of course!" Sweetie Belle said. "Adeleine, try to land the ship on this road!"

"I will try!"

Hands on the wheel, Adeleine turned it slightly to the right, turning with difficulty the ship so it went above the road. Once close enough, she made sure that the ship remained above the road while it continued to go down. At the same time, she pulled the wheel so the ship remained as parallel to the road as possible, so it didn't crash nose first on the road, which could be bad. Another laser piercing one of the right wings almost caused her to spin the ship, but she was able to use it to regain some balance and make the landing easier. After a whole minute, the ship bounced on the road, destroying one of the right wings and forcing everyone to cling to their seats to not be propelled by the shock. The ship bounced again, and started sliding on the road, going slightly to the right and threatening to go over the edge of the road. Thankfully, it stopped sliding just as a part of it was above the chasm, but was able to remain on the road. But for how long?

Kirby quickly opened the door, and everyone ran to exit the vehicle, Adeleine leaving at the last second just as it started to tilt, and it fell off the road. A few seconds later, they heard an explosion below, illuminating the area for a very short period, before smoke started to rise.

However, they didn't have time to breathe. A giant robot appeared at the other side of the road, flying and seemingly looking at them. It possessed a cylindrical white body, bigger at the top, and smaller at the bottom, with two yellow diamond-shaped parts that looked like eyes, and a red part at the bottom between the two 'eyes' and two reactors that it used to fly. There were two other reactors behind it, and they had a red triangle drawn on them, and possessed a few holes at the top. There was a fifth, cylindrical reactor under the main body that looked like one from the Halberd. It also possessed two white arms that looked like paddles, blue at the end, and linked to the main body by black 'shoulders'. The parts of the main body under the arms were actually black with a green light, revealing that the white part was actually an armor and above it, there was also a cone-shaped black head with a single yellow glowing light.

Ribbon looked at the robot in fear, and then at the crystal. "It... It's the one possessing the crystal."

"And it shot at us," Dedede said angrily, hammer in hands. "Seems like it wants a fight."

Sweetie Belle gulped and started to speak to the robot, waving at it. "Uh... Hello? You don't need to fight us! We only want the crystal that you possess, and we will be gone!"

The robot 'looked' at her for a few seconds, and raised its left arm, sweeping it across the road and forcing everyone to jump above it to not be slapped.

Dedede smirked. "Well, we have our answer. Let's turn this robot into a pile of scraps."

The reactors suddenly opened, shooting missiles at the group, easily dodged. Sweetie Belle was the first to attack by shooting an explosive beam at the robot, only to cause no damage to it.

She frowned. "That thing is solid, even more than the Heavy Lobster."

"We will have to target parts that are not armored," Waddle Dee said.

Adeleine studied the robot. "So, the head, the parts under the arms, and maybe the blue end of the arms. I wonder if the yellow and red parts are weak points too."

The robot attacked again with another sweep, this time of the right arm. While they jumped above it, they took the occasion to attack it with everything they had, effectively damaging it. Sweetie then shot at the yellow and red parts of the main body to test if they were weak points or not, only to do no damage. However, when she shot at the head, it worked. Speaking of the head, it suddenly shot a laser from the yellow light, sweeping the road with it, forcing them to jump again. It followed by slamming both its arms on the road, trying to crush Kirby and Dedede who ran out of the way before attacking them.
Sweetie decided to jump on a shield and fly around the robot, not stopping shooting at the head. She gained its attention, and the robot shot another laser at her that she dodged. It tried to slap her, then it tried again, and again, and again, the robot totally forgetting the rest of the group. Taking the occasion, Dedede grabbed Kirby and threw him toward the head of the robot. Kirby clung to it, and started to breathe ice at it. To get itself rid of him, the robot started to fly around, turning on itself at great speed, trying to use the centrifugal force to make him fall. Knowing that he couldn't last, Kirby released the head and inflated himself to fly away and quickly go back on the road.

While he flew, the robot shot at him with another laser, only for Sweetie to protect him with the shield, the laser powerful enough to break it, but it gave time for Kirby to get out of the way and land on the road. Not paying Sweetie Belle attention, the robot charged toward the road at the group on it. Seeing it approach, they quickly ran away just before it broke a part of the road by crashing on it. Ribbon counterattacked by shooting crystals, only to be slapped like a fly, making her crash into Sweetie Belle as she was flying toward it.

At this moment, the robot being close enough of the road, Dedede did a big jump, and when he started to fall toward the robot, he prepared the hammer, and violently hit the head, making the robot tilt. His action accomplished, he jumped again and landed on the road.

The robot seemed to have enough, because it suddenly flew above the road and opened itself from the bottom. The head entered the body, and the two parts fused back from where it was, changing shape to give the body the shape of a cone similar to the ship they used to come here. The armor that had been the front of the body was too fused with the one of the back, the red part now above the nose, leaving the front and the nose unprotected. The reactors were still at the bottom, the ones at the front having not followed the armor when the robot had started to split. The black 'shoulders' went down beside the green lights at the side, and the arms turned around, the blue end now beside the 'shoulders', and the white parts splitting open to form claws. The robot then lied down on the road, the black parts that were in the front now at the bottom, nose pointed at the group, and it started to advance toward them, snipping at them with its claws while firing more missiles, and the road behind it broke into pieces.

Because of the claws, they were forced to run away from it, and they couldn't approach to attack the exposed bottom part. frowning, Kirby gave up the Ice Ability and sucked one of the missiles before spitting it back at the black nose of the robot. At this moment, Sweetie Belle and Ribbon came back, and the filly shot many explosive balls at the bottom while the fairy shot crystals from the other side. The robot counterattacked by shooting more missiles at them, but they were easily dodged, and it couldn't shoot its laser anymore in this form.

Whoever designed this robot wasn't really smart.

A door then opened under it, and out of it came a missile bigger than the others going straight in front of it. Kirby sucked it, only to inhale the top part while the body of the missile was not inhaled and continued its course. Taken by surprise, Kirby was hit, but he didn't let it stop him and spat the top of the missile back at the robot.

It suddenly flew up in the sky, taking back its first form, and started to fall back toward them reactors first in a clear attempt to crush them. Kirby then looked at Dedede, Waddle Dee, and Adeleine and nodded at them, before he opened his mouth and inhaled them, to their surprise. Once they were all in him, Kirby looked up toward the approaching robot, and once it was close enough, he spat his friends at its main reactor under the body. The collision threw the robot back up before it crashed on the road a little further, and Dedede, Waddle Dee, and Adeleine landed back beside Kirby.

Dedede punched Kirby on the top of his head in anger, flattening him. "You could have warned us!"

Kirby rubbed the spot where he was hit. "Po-poyo..." He then spotted at his feet a shard, and smiling in joy, he took it. "Poyo!"

"Yes!" Adeleine shouted. "The robot musts have dropped it after that attack!"

"Speaking of the robot, it has stopped moving," Waddle Dee remarked, staring at the robot.

Sweetie Belle joined them with Ribbon, and while the fairy took the shard, she said, "That's it? No big explosion? When we defeated the Heavy Lobster, it exploded."

A part of the road under the robot then broke apart, and because of its weight, the robot tilted and fell into the chasm, disappearing in the darkness. The only thing showing what became of it was a big sound indicating it crashing at the surface, but still no explosion.

Dedede huffed. "It's less fun when they don't explode."

---

Leaving the breaking road, they flew to the roof of a nearby building, and Ribbon let the crystal open a portal. Once open, the portal showed a heart-shaped pink world with a face and three smaller hearts around it. there was also a ring with two yellow bows that circled the big heart. However, they could see darkness spread everywhere at the surface.

Ribbon gasped. "It's Ripple Star! It's my world! It's almost covered in darkness!"

"So it's time," Sweetie Belle said.

"But the crystal is not complete."

"The crystal is leading us to Ripple Star despite not being completed?" Dedede asked. "Then that means that there are shards that have somehow fallen back in this world."

Kirby looked at Ribbon and nodded in determination, raising his arm and shouting a fierce, "Poyo!"

They all nodded, and Adeleine said, "This is the last step of our journey, and the most dangerous. But we are ready! We will find the remaining shards, and beat the Dark Matters!"

"Hopefully, this time once and for all!" Waddle Dee continued.

"And nothing will stop us!" Sweetie Belle shouted.

"Now let's go! We have a world to save!" Dedede finished.

Ribbon looked at all of them and smiled. "Thank you, everyone. I don't doubt that we will win."

At this, they entered one by one the portal, ready to fight the darkness.

Chapter 36: Final Matter

They appeared on the surface of Ripple Star, only for all of them to raise an eyebrow at what they were seeing. Or rather, what they were not seeing. Rainbow everywhere. Pink hearts and colored rings in the yellow sky. Flowers and even small rocks of various colors. Bushes with star-shaped leaves. There were even giant flowers with pink petals that opened and closed all the time, revealing a bulbed purple pistil. But not a single trace of darkness.

It was probably an area not touched by the Dark Matters, they concluded.

Ribbon looked around and said, "I recognize this place! We are not far from the castle!" She then pointed in a direction. "It's this way. And the crystal says that the next shard is this way too!"

"Convenient," Dedede commented. "But remember Ribbon, even if we see your friends, we will not be able to trust them. They may be possessed by the Dark Matters, and we may be forced to fight them."

Ribbon looked down in sadness and resignation. "I know. I hope we will not have to..."

"We will try to not hit too hard," Waddle Dee said.

Sweetie Belle nodded. "Just enough to knock them out."

Kirby looked in determination in the direction pointed by Ribbon and started to run. In the way, he ate a Plugg, a creature that looked like a blue outlet plug-whence their name-on green feet, and gained the Spark Ability. The others looked at him, nodded, and followed him without saying anything.

They quickly found out that the creatures of Ripple Star were all possessed by the Dark Matters, seeing that they were far more agressive than usually. Each time they knocked one out, Ribbon used the crystal to force the Dark Matter out and destroy him, hopping to weaken their forces.

Just before reaching a pond, they found a shard floating in the way, surprisingly with great ease. Just after the pond, they entered a dome-shaped white and pink house with a red turbine above the door. The door seemingly being a wall with a pink star in it, a water wall in front of it, and circled by a yellow octagon, Ribbon had to show them that they could simply pass it by walking through it.

After walking in a tunnel-like yellow hallway, they entered a single room with another turbine in the ceiling, a few colored blocks, including one with a heart, and a computer. The hallway closed behind them, and there was another similar hallway in front of them that closed too. At this moment, a big version of these living saws named Sawyer popped out of the ground and charged at them to try to cut them in half, only for Dedede to grab it, pluck it out of the ground, and throw it toward the ceiling where Kirby sent a big electrical ball at it while Sweetie jumped and punched it in the side with a Vulcan Jab. Meanwhile, Adeleine and Ribbon dealt with the few Bronto Burts flying around.

Once they were done with all these enemies, they obtained another shard, and they were able to exit the house. Outside, they passed through what was a garden full of flowers, then entered a river where Dedede destroyed a rock to reveal a third shard, before seeing that it was starting to get darker.

"We are approaching," Ribbon said with apprehension.

After eating a Maxim Tomato to heal every injuries they may have gained in the way, they continued their way, the atmosphere starting to change. The sky was now turning blue, with clouds of darkness starting to show. They soon saw the castle of Ripple Star, a beautiful, giant round structure circled by smaller triangular structures with green gems in them. Above the castle, separated by pillars, there was a second section shaped like a rounded cone. And the whole thing was surrounded in darkness.

Ribbon could only look in horror at the state of the castle. "My queen... Everyone..."

Dedede rolled up his sleeves. "Welp! Time to bring back some light in this place!"

Ribbon looked at Dedede as he started to walk in determination toward the castle. "Wait!" She pointed at a well beside the path. "The crystal says that there is a shard in there. And beside, there is a secret passage that can help us infiltrate the castle without having to fight hundreds of Dark Matters in the way."

"Yeah..." Sweetie Belle said. "I don't think we would be able to fight that many Dark Matters with an incomplete crystal as their only weak point..."

"So, the well?" Adeleine asked to the others.

"The well," they all answered. excepted Kirby who said, "Poyo."

So they all jumped in the well, where they found yet another shard in another rock at the bottom, under the water. Ribbon then showed a tunnel in one of the walls, and they took it, Dedede with difficulty because he was almost too big to go in. This led to an underwater cavern that they followed until they reached a point where there was no more water. Jumping out of it, they travelled the rest of the cavern on feet, Dedede destroying a boulder blocking the way.

There were still a few enemies, but they were not as many as outside, so they didn't have any problems, and thanks to Ribbon's directions, they didn't get lost. They had to jump in a few holes to reach another part of the cavern underwater, where they found a shard before jumping out of the water again. After a small trek, they arrived at a wall of Star Blocks, and destroying them revealed more Star Blocks. At this moment, the cavern was replaced by a basement, with sculpted walls, stairs, and pillars, with a shard behind one.

After a staircase full of these Star Blocks, they entered a hallway that led them to a room with what Ribbon revealed was an elevator yellow at the outside, red at the inside, with a yellow star at the center. When they walked on it, it lifted them to the room above, which seemed to be a storeroom full of pink heart blocks, carpets, and jars.

"From here, we just have to pass a few rooms and climb a few staircases to reach the top of the castle," Ribbon informed them.

Sweetie Belle nodded. "No doubt they will be well guarded."

"Not well enough," Dedede said with a smirk. "Against us, they have no chance."

They exited the room, and from here, it was like Ribbon said. They entered a room that was full of enemies, fought all of them, exited it, took a staircase, reached another room full of enemies, and this repeated five times, finding shards in the first, third, and fifth rooms, the second shard hidden under a carpet. The enemies were numerous, but against the full power of the whole group, like Dedede said, they stood no chance. To Sweetie Belle, they weren't even as well trained as the Meta Knights she fought with Kirby on the bridge of the Halberd, so their defeat had been assured from the start. The most difficult part was making sure that Ribbon could destroy all the Dark Matters without them getting possessed because of their number.

After the last room, they arrived at another staircase under a big cloud of darkness, with a few of these black creatures like Waddle Dee had eliminated on Popstar before entering Dedede's fortress. After eliminating them, they looked up at the dark cloud.

"So, what do you think is in there?" Waddle Dee asked.

"Who knows. There can be anything," Sweetie Belle answered.

Ribbon looked at the crystal. "The next shard, probably the last one, is in there. We will have to fight whatever is in it."

They passed another few seconds looking at the dark cloud in determination before climbing the staircase, reaching a room directly under the dark cloud. Readying themselves, they flew into it.

---

They were now inside the cloud of darkness, surrounded by blue and dark void. They immediately spotted their enemy floating at the very center, and to Sweetie Belle, it was one of the weirdest enemies she had encountered until now. Whether it was weirder than the video game thingy was up for debate. The thing looked like a white geometrical figure with 21 faces, each face having what looked like a red eye with a black pupil. The thing turned on itself in an erratic pattern, and they absolutely didn't know what it had in store for them. The similarities with Zero didn't escape Sweetie Belle and Kirby.

Adeleine then started to speak. "So... Is this thing vulnerable to our attacks, or is Ribbon the only one that can damage it?"

Before anyone could answer, the thing turned into an orange sphere with small spikes around it. Suddenly, the spikes extended everywhere, almost impaling Dedede and Ribbon who moved out of the way at the last seconds. The spikes then retracted, leaving behind thorns, and after a couple of seconds, it turned back into its normal form.

"Whatever, we have to try!" Sweetie Belle shouted. "We can't remain here just dodging its attacks!" At that, she shot a beam at this weird Dark Matter, only to do nothing to it.

Kirby nodded with a, "Poyo!" and attacked too with his Spark, only to do nothing too. Dedede jumped and swung his hammer, but it bounced on the Dark Matter's body. Even Ribbon's crystals didn't do anything to it, to everyone's surprise.

"Darn it!" the penguin yelled. "How do we beat it?!"

The Dark Matter then turned into an eyeball of fire and started shooting columns of fire while turning around, each columns leaving behind small fireballs. Watching closely from where the columns started, they were able to avoid them without being burned until the Dark Matter returned to its first form.

While in its fire form, however, the group discovered something. They had continued attacking it with everything they had. Because it was made of fire at this moment, Sweetie Belle had thought that it would be vulnerable to ice. So she had shot ice at it, only to cause no damage. At this instant, annoyed, she had started to throw her other attacks, starting with lightning, then fire. And surprisingly, the fire had worked! It was just at this moment that the Dark Matter had turned back to normal, and they could now see that one of the eyes had turned black.

Sweetie Belle smiled in joy. "Yay! We can hurt it! It is vulnerable to fire!" She then shot a fireball at it, only for the fireball to do nothing. "What the heck?"

"There must be something," Waddle Dee said. "You hurt it with fire, but now you can't."

The Dark Matter then changed form again, this time turning into a ball of electricity, and started to shoot beams of electricity that bounced off the walls of the dark cloud. The surprising move caused Waddle Dee, Adeleine, and Sweetie Belle to be hit, but thankfully, it didn't hurt too much. After a moment, the beams turned into electric balls that floated around for a time before disappearing. Taking an opening between the beams, Kirby jumped beside the Dark Matter and attacked it with his own electricity, this time hurting it. Seeing it worked, Kirby jumped again and hurt the Dark Matter a second time just before it turned back into its first form, now having three black eyes.

"Wait a minute!" Sweetie Belle shouted. "It turns into fire, and fire hurts it. It turns into electricity, and electricity hurts it. What if the only thing that can hurt it is the element corresponding to its current form?"

"And those forms are surprisingly like Kirby's Abilities," Waddle Dee remarked. "First, the Needle Ability, then the Fire, then the Spark." The Dark Matter then turned into a big rock, with four smaller rocks floating around it. "And now the Stone Ability!" They dodged the falling rocks, then the Dark Matter itself once it started to roll around to try to crush them. "It's like it exists to counter Kirby's ability to copy!"

Dedede frownew. "The Dark Matters probably created that thing in case they would have to fight Kirby again, hoping that by using Kirby's very own Ability against him, they would beat him. That's smart. Too bad for them, now that we understand how to beat it, it will be a piece of cake." He saw Kirby licking his lips and punched him on the top of his head. "Stop thinking about food and do your job! Use its own weapon against it! Use your Abilities!"

After rubbing his head, Kirby nodded at him and waited for the Dark Matter to transform again. It transformed into a crescent-shaped razor followed by smaller crescents and started to fly around to try to cut them.

"Cutter!" Sweetie Belle shouted.

Kirby gave up the Spark Ability and was able to inhale the smaller crescent at the back. Now with the Cutter Ability, he attacked the Dark Matter. Waddle Dee attacked too, wanting to see if his spear could count, only for it to bounce on the Dark Matter, causing him to be cut by it. Eventually, they heard a small explosion coming from the Dark Matter, and it reverted back to its first form, three more eyes having turned black.

It now took the Needle form, spikes protruding everywhere around it. Again, after dodging a spike, Waddle Dee jumped at it, and this time, was able to use the spear to hurt it. Kirby quickly gave up the Cutter Ability to inhale one of the thorns left behind by the spikes, and spat it at the Dark Matter. Another attack from Waddle Dee, and they heard another explosion before it went back to its first form.

The Dark Matter now turned into a giant black bubble, and created more smaller bubbles that started to bounce around.

"Uh... I'm not sure about this one..." Sweetie Belle said.

Dedede looked at Kirby. "Do you have an Ability related to bubbles?"

Kirby only shook his head before rubbing it to think which Ability would work against this form.

The small bubbles suddenly split in two, doubling their number while making them smaller. Because of their number, one of the bubbles hit Kirby from behind, and the bubble exploded, releasing a small explosion that hurt him.

At this, Ribbon and Sweetie gasped. "It's the Bomb!" they shouted.

The bubbles started to pop, releasing small bombs that remained floating in place. Kirby quickly inhaled one to gain the Bomb Ability and threw bombs at the Dark Matter. At the same time, Adeleine drew bombs and threw them at it too, while Sweetie shot explosive balls. Among the explosions, another small one was heard inside the Dark Matter, and it returned back to normal.

The next form was the Spark one, but a single lightning bolt from Sweetie caused it to revert back to normal before it even attacked, everyone hearing another small explosion from it. Now there were only eight red eyes remaining.

The Dark Matter now turned into a big tilted ice cube that floated up and down surrounded by shards of ice, the shards threatening to ram them. Kirby gave up the Bomb and inhale some of the shards of ice, and rather than getting the Ice Ability, he decided to spit them back at the Dark Matter. Dedede did the same thing, while Sweetie shot ice balls. Another explosion was heard from the Dark Matter, and it was back to its first form.

Five eyes remaining.

It took the Fire form, and Sweetie immediately shot fireballs at it. After dodging a column of fire, Kirby inhaled a fireball and spat it at the Dark Matter. It reverted back to its normal form with another explosion.

Three eyes.

The Stone form. While they dodged the boulders, Adeleine painted rocks and threw them at Dedede who used his hammer to send them at the Dark Matter. Kirby then inhaled one of the small boulders and spat it while Sweetie wrapped her whip around another boulder and hit the Dark Matter with it. Another explosion was heard, and it went back to normal, no eyes remaining.

The Dark Matter exploded again, the explosion bigger, before it started to shrink, and after a couple of seconds, it broke apart, and the pieces turned into particles that disappeared in the darkness while releasing a shard. When Ribbon fused it with the crystal, it was now about four times her size.

She smiled. "We did it! The crystal is complete!"

"Then what are we waiting?!" Waddle Dee shouted. "Let's use it do destroy the Dark Matters!"

She nodded, and let the crystal float as they regrouped around it. The crystal started to glow, the light getting stronger and stronger, engulfing the whole dark cloud. It rapidly spread outside the castle, to the whole planet, attacking the darkness and forcing it to back away. As the group reached the balcony between the two sections of the castle, they watched the darkness being chased away by the light full of love released by the crystal. Soon, the darkness was chased out of Ripple Star, was forced to take the shape of a giant ball, and after receding far enough into space, it exploded, the explosion seen from the surface of the planet.

As they started to scream and bounce in joy, exchanging congratulations and hugs, and even dancing, Sweetie and the others were joined on the balcony by other fairies who congratulated them, including a tall fairy that looked more like a human. She had freckles on her cheeks, and possessed black hair with two braids behind her head held together by red ribbons. She wore glasses, a white shirt with a red skirt and a pink collar, a blue tie, a blue bow in the back, and they could see a pink dress under the skirt. The golden crown on her heads easily helped identifying who she was.

"My queen!" Ribbon shouted in happiness.

However, as the queen started to open her mouth, probably to congratulate them, the crystal suddenly started glowing again, and shot a beam at the queen, to everyone's shock. Very quickly, a GIANT cloud of darkness was expelled from the queen, and it quickly flew away from Ripple Star. Despite it now being in space, they could see it expand, forming its own world of darkness just beside Ripple Star.

They all frowned. "This is not the end," Dedede said.

"We will have to go in it?" Waddle Dee asked.

"Of course!" Sweetie Belle answered. "We can't let them escape! We must deal with those Dark Matters now, before they come back for another round! Beside, they seem to wait for us to settle this."

Meanwhile, the fairies gathered around the queen, Ribbon holding her in her arms.

"My queen! Are you alright?!" she shouted in worry.

The queen weakly groaned, and almost whispered, "Ribbon?" not even opening her eyes.

"Yes. It's me. I found heroes, and together, we have expelled the Dark Matters out of Ripple Star." She looked up at the giant orb of darkness visible in the sky. "But now, they have formed a dark world. I don't know what is waiting for us."

After some more groans, the queen only said two words.

"Zero Two."

And she fell into unconsciousness.

---

"Oh boy... This will be ugly..." Discord said.

They could see it, these two words somehow filled Sweetie Belle and the others with dread, and even Discord seemed uncomfortable.

The Dark Matters, so far, proved themselves to be the most horrible creatures they ever saw, and that white one with all the red eyes had been really disturbing.

So, what will it be with this Zero Two?

"Zero Two..." Celestia said. She looked at Discord. "Haven't you said that the previous leader of the Dark Matter that Sweetie Belle and Kirby fought was named Zero?"

"Yes. And if this Zero Two is like the first one..." He snapped his fingers, materializing a bin in front of each ponies, and dragon. "you may need these. Unless you prefer that I close the portal now, which I recommend."

"It was that horrible?" Applejack asked.

"Maybe you should tell us what happened the first time," Luna said.

"The first time," Discord repeated. He looked at everypony with a big frown. "The first time, they invaded Popstar, and possessed half the population. Dark Matters are beings of darkness and negative emotions. Their only weak point are good emotions, especially love. So they go to a world, spread at its surface, possess its inhabitants, and force them to do everything you can think to make sure that they stop feeling any ounce of positive emotions. Once the inhabitants are hopeless, the world is plunged into darkness and despair forever, and they pass to the next one to repeat. This is what they were about to do to Ripple Star, and this is what they wanted to do to Popstar. To put it simply, their goal is to plunge the whole universe into darkness and despair, exterminating all forms of love, happiness, and whatever. So they did this to Popstar..." He looked at Rarity. "and Sweetie Belle was one of the possessed." They all gasped.

"She has been forced to hurt innocents. She had to fight her friends. She almost killed. By the time she was saved, and she started fighting Zero alongside Kirby and that blue blob named Gooey-remember him?-, she had developed a real hate of the Dark Matters, and in particular Zero because he was the mastermind responsible of everything. You saw how she was the most focused in trapping the Dark Matters so Ribbon could destroy them? It's because she WANTS them dead. No mercy.

Now, Zero. He was nothing more than a giant white orb. A white orb with a single bloody eye. And I mean, BLOODY! And Sweetie Belle absolutely pummeled it. Even going close and personal to beat it like a punching bag. By the time they were done with Zero, Sweetie Belle was almost fully covered in blood, and she passed the next few hours in a pile of friends being comforted. So, I don't know how the fight against this Zero Two will go, I don't know how Sweetie Belle will react against him. A whole month has passed since then, after all, and she had her friends to help her. But just in case, you should keep these bins ready."

He was answered by silence, everypony looking at him. Rarity then started to cry. "My... My poor Sweetie Belle... Why did this happen to her? Those... MONSTERS! She is just a filly!"

"They don't care," Discord said. "They have no care, and no mercy."

"So, you are telling me that a traumatized filly is about to fight the main reason of her trauma?" Luna asked.

"Not really, I think. I mean, Zero is dead. But if Zero Two looks close enough to the first one, then maybe it counts. All I know is that she seems to be okay with this, seeing how they are approaching that dark thing."

They saw that Sweetie Belle and her friends, including Ribbon holding the crystal, were now riding on a big star, about to enter the planet-sized cloud of darkness. They could see that she had a very determined expression, but that she was also grinding her teeth, and sweating. She was not the only one, the others also being in the same state, but Sweetie Belle was the most apparent.

Celestia frowned. "Hopefully, with her friends, she will be able to pass this trial without being hurt."

---

They entered the giant cloud, the crystal opening a way. After a few seconds, the Warp Star led them to the start of a path constituted of platforms made of hexagonal colored tiles. All around them, there was only a red void filled with the dark energy of the Dark Matters.

They were very close to each other, looking everywhere, not leaving their weapons. Surprisingly, there were no Dark Matters assaulting them. They only saw those black creatures guarding some of the platforms in the way.

Kirby looked at the others and nodded at them in determination. "Poyo." He then jumped on the next platform, eating the black creature on it.

Dedede looked at Sweetie Belle and petted her. "Are you sure?"

She nodded. "Zero is dead. This Zero Two is only a substitute. This may not be that bad. Beside, I have all of you with me."

"I don't know about this," Waddle Dee said. "If the fight against Zero Two takes place in the air, like against Zero, not all of us may be able to follow."

She sighed, only to be hugged by Adeleine. "Remember. Even if we aren't here, we will still be with you."

"At least, I will be here," Ribbon said.

"Thank you."

At that, they advanced, following Kirby who already eliminated all the black creatures and was waiting them at the end of the path beside a hole. Jumping in it, they fell to another level where there were no creatures. Further, they saw a blue hexagon in the floor, and a green hexagon protruding beside it, looking like a big button. In curiosity, Dedede hit the green hexagon with the hammer, causing the blue one to suddenly rise before going back in the ground.

He looked up, toward the dark center of the cloud above them. "Seems like this is it, guys." He looked at Kirby. "Go on the blue hexagon, and I will hit the green one to propel you up so you can fight Zero Two." When Kirby went on the blue hexagon, Ribbon landed on his head, clinging to him. Dedede then looked at Sweetie Belle. "Do you still want?"

She nodded. "I will use a shield to fly."

He sighed. "Remember. We will not be able to help you, we could do nothing. However, don't forget. Whatever happens up there, we will be there for you, and it will be alright."

She nodded again, smiling at him. "Don't worry."

He huffed. "Don't tell me to not worry."

Giggling, she stepped on the blue hexagon beside Kirby. Seeing they were ready, Dedede hit the green hexagon with all the strength he possessed, propelling Sweetie Belle, Kirby, and Ribbon toward the dark center, where Zero Two was waiting for them.

Reaching the very center of the cloud, now surrounded by black... rings circling them and moving around in the red void, Ribbon quickly gave the crystal to Kirby before grabbing him to help him fly, Kirby holding the crystal and ready to shoot. Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle created a shield that she used like a platform to fly.

They quickly spotted a giant white orb, but it was not quite like Zero. It was not spherical, looking more bulbous, slightly flat at the bottom with a point like a small tail. He also possessed small white segmented wings, and... a halo above his head? They also spotted a big bandage just under it, with a few red cracks protruding around it.

Zero Two then turned around, revealing that he had had his back to them, and revealed his face, constituted of two small beady eyes and a big red mouth.

He actually looked more like an angel, which Sweetie found really disturbing, knowing about his true nature.

But then, Zero Two had a small transformation. The mouth opened, the eyes disappeared, and the wings expended, with dark red oval-shaped 'feathers' appearing at the end of the fragments, for a total of twelve 'feathers', six at each wings. Then, a pupil appeared in the mouth, revealing it to be actually the infamous red eye.

The moment he saw them, Zero Two then closed his eye... and started to cry bloody tears, surprising the three of them.

But before they could say or ask anything, Zero Two opened back his eye and shot energy balls at them from it. They quickly flew out of the way, discovering that the energy balls exploded. He continued shooting them, targeting Kirby, while the puffball shot crystals toward Zero Two. Again, to their surprise, the crystals didn't hurt Zero Two, only the ones hitting the eye seemingly doing something as they made it bleed. So he targeted the eye, but targeting it while dodging the explosive energy balls was surprisingly hard.

To help him, Sweetie Belle tried to gain Zero Two's attention by shooting all kinds of projectiles at him, but because they did nothing to him, Zero Two didn't pay any attention to her. So, instead, she shot at the energy balls, making them explode prematurely and giving Kirby and Ribbon some easier time to target the eye.

After a few hits, Zero Two suddenly half closes his eye and seemed to be stunned, stopping attacking. So Kirby continued to shoot more crystals at the eye, until Zero Two went back to his senses and restarted attacking with his energy balls. For some reason, it was his only attack. No shooting blood. No popping Dark Matters out of his body. He didn't even try to charge at them.

Kirby stunned him again, and again, Zero Two went back to his senses after a few seconds. The whole process repeated a few times, until Sweetie groaned in annoyance. "Come on! Why is he still alive?! Even the fight against Zero wasn't this long!"

Strangely, at the mention of this, Zero Two closed his eye for a few seconds, then looked toward Sweetie Belle in what seemed to be pure hate.

And then, he charged at her.

The filly immediately made her shield fly away while not stopping to face Zero Two, shooting at his energy balls. After a whole minute of this, having enough, Sweetie Belle surrounded herself in her shield and charged at him at great speed. While the charge didn't damage him, it still knocked him away a little. Kirby, who was behind him, took the occasion to ask Ribbon to fly above him so he could shoot toward the bandage, thinking that it may be a sensitive spot that could hurt him. But instead of directly hitting the bandage, the crystals actually hit the halo, making it turn a different color at each hit. Zero Two rapidly turned around to shoot his energy balls at them, one of them getting its mark, almost making Ribbon drop Kirby.

Still surrounded by a shield, Sweetie Belle charged at the left wing, which forced Zero Two to spin around himself, and gave the occasion for Kirby to hit the halo again, eventually destroying it and hitting the bandage under it. This destroyed the bandage, revealing a familiar bloody red hole, and it REALLY hurt Zero Two, making him thrashing around.

Despite their surprise at seeing the hole, they spotted that the white point at Zero Two's bottom had turned into a cactus-like tail shooting green gas, disturbing them even more. But they understood that this may be a weak point, so Ribbon quickly flew so Kirby could target it while dodging the obviously poisoned green gas. The crystals really seemed to have an effect on it, so Kirby continued to shoot until it turned back into the white point, and Zero Two turned back to face them, now really pissed off, the hole on his head bleeding heavily, and the halo back above it.

He then closed his eye and started to spin around himself at great speed, sending the blood flying all around him. While Sweetie was able to not get blood on her thanks to her shield, Kirby however got blood on his eyes, blinding him.

As Kirby started to rub his eyes to get rid of the blood, Ribbon looked at it and shouted, "That's disgusting!"

"Watch out!" Sweetie Belle yelled.

At her yell, Ribbon looked back toward Zero Two, only for both her and Kirby to violently be rammed by him. The shock caused Kirby to release the crystal, throwing it away, and Ribbon to drop Kirby, who started to fall.

"Oh no!" She looked at the crystal, then at Sweetie Belle. "Take the crystal!" She then flew down to catch Kirby.

Without even nodding at Ribbon to show that she heard her, Sweetie Belle flew after the crystal, pursued by Zero Two who clearly didn't want her to get it. He hadn't counted on Sweetie's magic, the filly grabbing the crystal with it. Crystal in magic, she spun around and shot at Zero Two's eye a few time before dodging his energy balls.

She was glaring so much at him...

She then started to talk. "So you are actually Zero, right? Or at least, some reincarnated version of him. We destroyed your eye, but your body survived, and it became what you are now." She shot more crystals, all the while flying away from Zero Two still pursuing her and shooting his energy balls. She got on her hind hooves and grabbed the crystal in her fore hooves, forming a shield to block some of the balls. "So you remember? I'm the one that did this to you. I killed you. This is why you seem to hate me so much, am I right?"

Zero Two glared at her.

She glared back. "I hate you too. Because of you, I almost killed my friends." Her glare lost in intensity. "Gooey told me that you don't have anything in you. No soul. No heart. No dream. You can only feel things like hate, anger, jealousy, sadness, or pain. And you spread them. Because things like happiness, laughter, kindness, or love hurt you."

Zero Two got stunned by the crystal hitting his eye, and Sweetie took the occasion to attack the halo. However, she was not able to destroy it in time before Zero Two restarted attacking her.

"I remember the first Dark Matter that I fought. His reaction to me hugging Gooey. Dark Matters are your creation. So they are a part of you, in a sense. So, Zero Two, I suppose that this whole 'spreading pain' has more behind it."

She gritted her teeth in pain as one of the balls hit her. At that, she strengthened her grip on the crystal and started to spin around herself. After two turns, she threw the crystal in Zero Two's eye, impaling it. She then surrounded herself in her shield again and charged at the crystal in his eye, pushing it all the way in, making him violently thrash around, his eye becoming a geyser of blood. Luckily, she still had her shield around herself.

She then started shouting, "You are jealous of us, right?! You want to know what it is like to have friends, to love, but because it hurts you, you can't! So you decided to make others stop feeling love!" She grabbed the crystal in her magic and got it out of what remained of the eye, and flew up to the halo. "Rather than trying to find a way to make you be able to feel love, or to just let the others alone, you decided that they should suffer, like you suffer!" She shot at the halo, destroying it, and hit the hole, making the green tail appear. "I have been thinking about this since our first fight! I don't know what I should feel about you anymore! I hate you! But I also pity you! You have caused all this pain, but you are in pain too!" She pointed the crystal at the tail, took a big breath, and closed her eyes. "And I will end all this pain, right now."

She shot.

The tail exploded, and light started to emerge from Zero Two's body. As the area started to get brighter, she saw Zero Two's face, and saw that he had taken back the form from the start, the eye becoming like a mouth and the two small black 'eyes' reappearing, 'smiling' at her. The effect was kinda ruined by all the blood pouring from the 'mouth' and on the head.

She then heard a "Poyo!" and turned around, seeing Kirby and Ribbon approach.

"You did it!" the fairy shouted in joy.

"Yes, but we should quickly get out of here, because I'm sure the place is about to explode!"

They nodded, and a few seconds later, they were escaping on the Warp Star. They quickly joined Dedede, Waddle Dee, and Adeleine, and they jumped on it. They exited the dark cloud just a few seconds before it exploded, and they flew back to Ripple Star.

---

As Sweetie Belle and her friends returned to Ripple Star, the ponies only looked in silence at what they witnessed, excepted Fluttershy, who was hidden behind her chair. Pinkie was also crying.

"I have heard a big explosion. Is it over?" the pegasus asked.

Applejack answered her after a few seconds. "Yes sugarcube, it's over. But darn, Discord. You weren't kidding about the ugly part."

"Of course! But seriously! Did she had to plant the crystal in the eye?! That was totally unnecessary and overkill!"

"Probably to end the fight faster, without having to shoot in the eye for another whole minute to stun him," Luna said.

Rarity took a big breath and sighed. "I don't know what to think... Seeing my sister killing something..." She looked at Celestia. "Princess... Was it the right thing to do?"

Celestia frowned. "Like Sweetie Belle said, Zero, or Zero Two, chose to make the whole universe suffer like him, rather than accepting his life or trying to find a way to change it. If she had spared him, he would have just come back to restart spreading pain elsewhere, and she had no way to imprison him. It was one of those cases... where death was the only way out. I don't say that killing is right, but Sweetie Belle had no choice. She was quite violent about it, but Discord warned us, and after what she has gone through, I think we can forgive her."

"At least, it wasn't as violent as the first time. An impaled eye is nothing compared to what she did to him," Discord said.

"It's still so sad!" Pinkie Pie said. "He just wanted to love and be loved! But he couldn't because love hurt him! And so he was sad and hurt and angry and mean and..."

"But he is not suffering anymore, right?" Rainbow Dash said, insure. "I mean... Sweetie said that she has ended the suffering caused by Zero Two, but she also ended Zero Two's suffering. So that's... nice...?"

"I suppose this is the only good part about Sweetie Belle killing Zero Two, beside definitely stopping him: putting him out of his misery," Twilight said as she hugged Spike. "I could tell that she really wanted him dead, like Discord said. But at least, she hasn't killed Zero Two only by hate and vengeance. There was mercy, and duty. I... I don't know if I would have been better at her place."

"And she has even accepted it," Discord continued. "The first time, she was a mess. But now, she seems only a little disturbed, but nothing to the point of having to be buried under a pile of friends."

"She has really matured..." Rarity said. She looked at her little sister, as she and her friends were given medals with small crystals by the queen of the fairies. She smiled proudly at her. "I so want to hug her..."

Discord then closed the portal. "I think that's it, everypony. End of the journey, the world is saved, blah blah blah. Oh! Before I forget!" He snapped his fingers, and a miniature version of himself appeared on his lion paw. "You will watch Sweetie Belle, and warn me once something interesting happens."

The mini Discord saluted him, opened a portal, and stepped through it before it closed.

"You think there will be more adventures despite the probable end of the Dark Matters?" Luna asked.

"Yes. The Dark Matters were clearly the main threat until now, with Sweetie Belle fighting them three times, but they aren't the only threat. There was that mad jester, after all." His smile grew. "Something tells me that what we have just seen may be nothing compared to some of her future battles. After all, new bad guys tend to be stronger than the previous ones."

"Nightmare Moon wasn't a pushover for a first bad guy, and you were probably the biggest threat we had until Tirek," Twilight said. "Your logic is wrong."

"I did say 'tend to be'. This is not a general truth." At this, he disappeared.

Not long after, Celestia and Luna had to say goodbye before they returned to Canterlot to do their duties. However, Celestia still asked Twilight to inform her of Sweetie Belle's adventures, that she judged "Pleasant to follow".

The princesses were also very curious to see what there will be after something like Zero Two.

Author's Notes:

I know that the name of Ripple Star's boss is Miracle Matter, but the characters don't know its name, so they just think of it as 'the Dark Matter' or 'the white thing'.

I hope that I haven't screwed up the fight against Zero Two, knowing how the fans love this boss.

Chapter 37: The Ancients

After their victory over the Dark Matters, and the ceremony where the queen of the fairies had rewarded them, Sweetie Belle, Kirby, Dedede, Waddle Dee, and Adeleine decided to remain on Ripple Star a day or two to rest. Kirby did what he did best: eating, napping, and walking around, exploring the world and being friendly to the locals. Dedede was not doing much, lazying around and eating the local food, seeing if there was not some recipes that he could give to the cooks. Waddle Dee, surprisingly, had already started training to better use his new weapon, wanting to become an elite soldier for his king as quickly as possible. Adeleine took the occasion to paint the unique and beautiful environments of Ripple Star, thinking of bringing the paintings back to Popstar to keep them as memories and give some of them to her friends. She seemed to have gotten really close with Ribbon, because they passed a great amount of time together.

Sweetie Belle, her, did some exploring alongside Kirby, making friends with the fairies, playing with them, and pretty much putting the fight with Zero Two behind her. While she had accepted it, killing someone, even as horrible as Zero Two, was still hard. And she couldn't help but be sad for him. Being forced to live like that because of his nature, when he actually wanted the opposite, was probably the most tragic thing she ever heard. A part of her had really wanted to help him. But it was just too late, far too late. He was too deep in his pain, in his hate. In the end, the best way she could help him had been to kill him, to stop everything.

Right now, she was with the queen of the fairies, named Ripple, after her own planet. For a queen, Ripple was really approachable, and really didn't act like a queen. She was clumsy, and tended to lose focus. Sweetie had already stopped counting the number of times she had caused her glasses to fall. But she took all that with good humor, and now that her world and her subjects weren't in danger, she was always smiling. She was also really curious, because as soon as she learned that Sweetie came from another dimension, she asked her to tell her more, reminding her of Twilight.

Gosh, if those two were to meet, they could talk for days.

And so, Sweetie Belle was telling her about Equestria, about the ponies, the magic, the princesses moving the sun and the moon, the Cutie Marks, the pegasi managing the weather, and many other things that were so different from this dimension. She also told about her crusadings with her friends, and some of the events that happened in Ponyville, like the parasprites, or the invasion of the Pinkie clones, many of them making the queen laugh, and others making her shake in fear or in suspense.

If it hadn't been for her crown, it would have been really hard to believe she was a queen.

After some time, however, she remembered something she had talked with Ribbon on Popstar, and after finishing another tale, she decided to talk to Ripple about it.

"Queen Ripple?"

"Yes?"

"Back in Popstar, Ribbon told me how Zero was created. Something about a Dark God. She told me to ask you for more details. So, can you tell me more about this Dark God? Because he has created Zero, it may be useful to know more about him."

Ripple looked at Sweetie Belle for a time, and nodded. "Follow me."

She then led Sweetie to a library, where she took a rather small blue book with a pink heart drawn on its cover, titled The Ancients.

Ripple then talked. "I must warn you, many things have been lost. This book is only a compilation of everything that we could find, about this God, and the civilization that was venerating him. A good example is their names. We never found how they were named. So we simply name the civilization the Ancients, and this god by various simple names like The God, the Dark God, the Dark Lord, or the Destructor. Their stories are linked, so to speak to you about the Dark God, I must tell you about the Ancients, and again, their history is full of holes. But at least, the big lines are here."

Sweetie Belle nodded. "Whatever you have gathered in that book will be better than nothing."

Ripple nodded, and opened the book. "We know that this God comes from the beginning of time, maybe even before that, and is responsible for the creation of the three Great Forces of the universe: the Heart, the Soul, and the Dream. Thanks to this, the main symbol of the God is a heart, but stars are also used sometimes to represent him."

"Right. Stars symbolise dreams."

"Exactly. We sadly don't know what is his appearance, but apparently, it changes with time. We only know that his creations may give an idea of some of his main features."

Sweetie Belle frowned. "So, Zero being one of his creations, does that mean that there are some parts of him that may actually come from this God?"

"Probably. But I can't tell which. Now, eventually, the civilization of the Ancients appeared. Venerating this God, they took his symbols, and using his powers, they created some powerful artefacts, both magical..." At this, she showed a crown with spikes extending from the base, and turning a few pages, she also showed the Star Rod and the Fountain of Dreams, to Sweetie's surprise, and even the Crystal. "and technological." She then showed a blue and white ship that looked like a normal one, with oars and a mast, but there were too two wings beside engines at the back, and there were stars at the front and at the base of the wings. Turning a few pages, she also showed a mechanical thing shaped like a white cylinder with a black head that looked like a screw and with a yellow glass just below it. There were pink lights coursing its cylindrical body, with some of them forming a big heart at the front, under the yellow glass, some jagged in the middle making look like it was breaking. It also possessed white wing-like things shaped in an arc at its sides, black at the outer edges, with blue feather-like part protruding from them, making Sweetie think of the red 'feathers' of Zero Two.

Sweetie was awed at all those artefacts, especially at seeing that those Ancients created the Fountain of Dreams, but then, she thought of something. "Did they create Nova too?"

"Nova?" Ripple asked.

"Some planet sized mechanical comet with the mouth of a cat. He could grant wishes."

"Oh! The Clockwork Stars! You actually saw one?"

"There are more than one?"

"Yes." At that, Ripple turned a few pages and showed a mechanical being like Nova, but red colored, and with different objects around his body. "The Clockwork Stars are probably their greatest creations. For a civilization where dreams had an important place, there was nothing better than creating something that could make dreams come true. You said the one you saw was named Nova?"

"Yes. Sadly, Kirby and I had to destroy him."

Ripple gasped. "Why?!"

"The sun and the moon of Popstar were fighting each other, and someone named Marx told us about Nova, and that he could stop them. So Kirby and I explored a few worlds to use the power of their Fountains of Dreams to summon him. Now that I think of this, "making dreams come true" explains the link between the Fountains and Nova. Anyway, so we summoned him, only for Marx to come and wish to conquer Popstar, so Nova was starting to help him. To stop him, we had to destroy him."

Ripple sighed. "What a waste... But yes, I suppose that in the wrong hands, some of those artefacts could be used to do bad things. And with the bad influence of the God later, some of them have become corrupted. Like this one..." She showed back the cylinder thing. "It is said that it was actually a prototype of Clockwork Stars, and it could also grant wishes, in a lesser extent. However, now, if someone was ever trying to use it, then it would corrupt them, twisting them. There are also some warnings about "absolutely not using it without the control device", but we don't know what it would cause."

"Ugh. If I encounter it, I will make sure to destroy it. Something almost as powerful as Nova but corrupted AND corrupting the ones using it? Too dangerous."

Ripple nodded. "It would be for the better, but I don't know where it is. Now, the Ancients were mainly divided into two clans: the ones that preferred to use magic, and the ones that preferred to use technology. And this is where it starts to go down. You see, the magic users were much closer to the Gods than the others, basing their magic on some of his powers. However, after some crisis about "one of the God's children killing almost all the others and destroying many worlds", the technology users started to fear the God. You see, Sweetie, everything has a good, and a bad side. With the Soul, come the Good, and the Evil. With the Heart, come Love, and Hate. With the Dream, comes the Nightmare. With Light, comes Darkness. And the Ancients just discovered the bad side of the God's creations.

The magic users using The God's powers for their magic, they include those bad sides in their magic, and demonstrated it while fighting the being from the crisis, and so, they were starting to be feared too. It got worse, and worse, until eventually..." She turned the pages of the book until showing a picture, where Sweetie can see beings with horn-like ears-their only clear feature-facing each other in the opposite sides of it. At the left, the beings are throwing spells toward the right side. At the right, the beings are using weapons and machines shooting lasers at the left side. "war broke out." She sighed. "The technology users won, and exiled the magic users that survived, and the God with them.

The thing is that during the war, The God absorbed all the negativity resulting from it. So when the magic users, after their exile, prayed the God to avenge them, he started to change. And so, the God attacked, spreading destruction, filling more and more with negativity, until by the end, he was only just that. The Creator... was now the Destructor, and the magic users, now blinded by hate and revenge, continued to follow him, giving him more strength, not caring if it destroyed the universe. It's in that period that the Dark God created Zero, and some other beings, to help him. The Ancients were almost all exterminated in that second act of the war, their civilization ruined. The only thing saving what remained, was a group of four heroes-sorry, we don't know who are those heroes-accomplishing the impossible. They fought the magic users, then the Dark God himself, and using his own powers against him..." She showed a picture with a big purple crystal heart pierced by four pink spears with heart-shaped tops. "They sealed him. And the few remaining magic users were scattered in the universe."

"But he is only sealed... He may come back."

"Yes." She looked at Sweetie Belle. "If this happens, then the only way to fight him, and stop his destruction, would be to use that same power that the heroes used: Heart, Soul, and Dream, and in enough quantity. You would have to assemble a team of friends, also warriors that you can trust, as many as possible, and together, use this power, to either seal him, or kill him. However, he is a God, so he can't really be killed. He would eventually come back, hopefully, losing at least a part of his negativity." She turned the page, showing a new picture. What looked like a heart-shaped white mask, with two small holes for eyes, and its bottom forming a long, sharp point. "Whatever the case, if you end up fighting him, then he will be, definitely, the most powerful and the most dangerous being that you will ever face. Zero, compared to him, would be nothing. So I hope for you, and for everyone, that he will remain sealed in that heart for the rest of time."

Sweetie Belle looked at the heart-shaped mask, sweating. She really hoped that Ripple was right, and that this God will remain trapped. Fighting an actual God, coming from the very origin of the universe, and that could destroy it? He would probably crush her. But again, she had ended up fighting something created, directly or indirectly, from the powers of this God four times now. Nova, the Dark Matters, and Zero. Maybe he even had something to do with Nightmare. And seeing all those artefacts, and knowing that there were more beings like Zero out there, she will probably be facing more of them. So what were the chances that she will have to confront this Dark God?

Maybe she should join Waddle Dee.

Chapter 38: Vacation

That night, as they were together for dinner, Sweetie Belle toldthe others about the Dark God.

"You really think we will one day fight this God?" Dedede asked.

"There is a possibility," she replied. "I mean, in the space of a few months, we have had no less than five crisis concerning artefacts or beings created by this God, or by the Ancients with his help. First, the Fountain of Dreams, the Star Rod, and Nightmare. Well, this is not confirmed that Nightmare was created by the God, but there is a big possibility, with the God being the creator of the dreams. Secondly, the Dark Matters, three times. While the God hasn't directly created the Dark Matters, he did create Zero, who himself created the Dark Matters. And then, there was Nova, using the power of dreams, and so the God's power, to grant wishes. So, you see, I really wouldn't be surprised if we do fight the God himself at some point in the future."

Adeleine rubbed her head in nervousness. "I see your point. But do you think we would be able to fight something so powerful?"

Sweetie Belle sighed. "I don't know... Queen Ripple said that four heroes were able to seal him, so this shows that he is not invincible. We could do it too. But we will certainly need to get stronger. And having more allies would not be bad too. I know we could count on the animals and Gooey to join us. And..." She smiled sheepishly at Dedede. "there is Marx too."

"What?!" Dedede fell from his chair, and quickly got back up, looking at Sweetie Belle in disbelief. "He is alive?!"

She nodded. "He survived the explosion of Nova, and I convinced him to stop trying to conquer Popstar. Seeing how he hasn't tried anything bad since then, I think we can now count on him."

"And why haven't you told me?" he asked, annoyed.

"You were too angry at him. If I had told you, you would have gone to fight him."

He grumbled and crossed his arms while sitting back on his chair. "True..."

Adeleine looked at her plate for a few seconds, then looked at Kirby and Sweetie Belle. "You can count on me too. I will be there if the day comes."

"Me too," Ribbon said. "I'm not a great fighter, but I could be of help."

Adeleine smiled at her. "You could lift me, like you did in our adventure."

Ripples nodded. "I will also ask the fairies to forge a crystal that you could use to shoot projectiles. It would not be as powerful as the Crystal, but it would still be useful thanks to the Heart energy of our world. We are not much for weapons, in Ripple Star, but against the Dark God, we are willing to do something."

"And of course..." Dedede bumped his chest. "I will be there too! It would be a shame if I, the Great King Dedede, will not help saving the universe when my second in command will do it!"

"Me too!" Waddle Dee shouted.

Sweetie Belle smiled at them. "And I think we can add Meta Knight too. Even if he tried to conquer Dream Land, in the end, he only wanted to protect Popstar. He was just... misguided."

Kirby raised an arm. "Poyo!"

Sweetie giggled. "Of course. We already have a big and powerful team ready to fight this God if he shows up."

Dedede smirked. "If he does, he will regret it! With all of us, he will not stand a chance!"

"Poyo/Yeah!"

Queen Ripple smiled at them. "Yes. I believe in you." And after a moment of silence, she added "I have heard that you wanted to return to that world of water, which, by the way, is named Aqua Star, to pass some vacation. So, how about I guide you to it tomorrow?"

"Yes, please! We don't know where it is exactly!" Sweetie Belle said.

---

It was a nice day today in Ponyville. Warm with a few clouds here and there, perfect for a small tea time. So it was only natural for Discord and Fluttershy to have one outside the pegasus' house. That, and Discord wanted to make sure that his friend didn't have any... sequels from the violent spectacle from the previous day. Already, the poor dear had been getting agitated at seeing Zero Two, whose appearance had been quite unsettling, so when that thing had started leaking blood from his eye, she had had a hard time keeping her eyes on the fight. And when the bandage had been destroyed to reveal that big bloody hole in the head, she had passed the rest of the fight hidden behind her chair not looking at it.

He thought that he should have closed the portal at this moment, or at least, he should have told Fluttershy to not look.

Right now, she seemed to be better, probably thanks to her friends, both ponies and animals, and that tea party was probably helping her relaxing too. Or it may be Discord goofing with his magic to make her laugh that actually helped.

Right now, he was having a musical number with a bunch of tea-pots, making them expel steam with different sounds to form a song, Discord himself acting like a conductor.

"No, yellow tea-pot with the pink flower, you must do two short puffs followed by a long one. And blue tea-pot, red tea-pot, and purple tea-pot with pink dots, can you do your 'puff PUFF puff puff' a little faster? Alright, we restart. Three. Two. O..." He was interrupted by a letter popping in front of him. "Oh. Bummer."

"What is it Discord?" Fluttershy asked.

Discord caught the letter and started reading it. "Oh! It's a report from the mini me that I sent to watch Sweetie Belle. Already?"

"I hope she is not in another scary adventure so soon..."

After some more reading, Discord said, "No. Nothing like that. She has actually gone in a small vacation with the others and that queen fairy in that waterworld."

Fluttershy sighed in relief. "Thanks Celestia..."

"Oh..." Discord suddenly half shouted, surprising her.

"What?"

Discord started sweating. "Well, that's unexpected..."

"What?" Fluttershy repeated.

"Erh... Apparently, Sweetie Belle may, and I say 'may', end up fighting in the future a Dark God from the origin of time. As in, Zero's daddy."

Fluttershy cringed. "That monster's father? A Dark God?" She gulped. "How bad is it?"

"Really bad," Discord answered. "He is a God... a Dark God... and he is named 'The Destructor'. When a Dark God is named 'The Destructor', this translates by 'this guy can destroy the whole universe if he is not stopped'. All the villains that you and your friends have faced, me included, would be worms compared to his power. Yes, even Tirek when he possessed all that magic. That bad."

Fluttershy started to shake. "M-maybe you should bring Sweetie Belle back..."

"I'm thinking this but... this could be her purpose. What if she ended up in that universe to help save it from that God? So what would happen if I bring her back? Would they be able to fight that God without her?"

She looked down thoughtfully. "So this means that if you bring her back, you take the risk of this universe being destroyed?"

"This one, and maybe many others. There is a possibility that this God can open portals to other dimensions."

"Eep!" She half hid herself under the table. "Like, he could come to Equestria?"

"For him to enter our dimension between all the dimensions of the multiverse, there is a really small chance. But yes, there would be a very, very, VERY small possibility." He crossed his arms, and after a moment of silence, he asked, "So, should I take the risk?"

"I... I think this is not for us to choose. You should ask Sweetie Belle's family. Rarity and her parents."

---

In the house of Sweetie Belle's parents...

"We are okay with her remaining in this other universe," Hondo Flank said, Sweetie Belle's father, a white unicorn with a brown mane and tail and possessing a mustache.

Discord raised an eyebrow. "Really? Just like that?"

"Father, are you sure? He just told us that Sweetie may have to fight a being more powerful than anything we can think of!" Rarity shouted

Cookie Crumbles, a pink unicorn with a two-toned purple mane and tail who was Sweetie Belle's mother, nodded. "Yes. We trust in her." She giggled. "I still have a hard time believing that Sweetie Belle is now fighting evil and saving worlds in another universe. She may still be a filly, but if your previous tales are to be trusted, then I'm sure that with the help of the friends she made in this universe, she will win her fight against that God if this happens." She turned to her husband and smiled. "And who knows, she may get her Cutie Mark thanks to this. If this is really 'her fate', then I don't see better occasion."

Hondo Flanks put a hoof under his chin. "So, a Cutie Mark in God Slaying? Oh, I already see it." He then changed his voice, making it lower. ""My daughter's Cutie Mark is a wand! She will be a prodigy in magic! Maybe she could even become Princess Celestia's protégée!"" He talked back in his normal voice. ""Oh please! That's nothing! My daughter has a Cutie Mark in God Slaying! Princess Celestia should become HER protégée!""

"Father!" Rarity shouted, horrified. "Watch what you say!"

Discord suddenly rolled in laughter. "I totally have to propose that to Celestia if it happens!"

"But aren't you worried for her?" Fluttershy asked. "I mean, she could die."

"Of course we are worried," Cookie Crumbles answred. "We are worried since the day we learned that she has been sent to that other dimension. But again, we trust in her. And we also trust in her friends to protect her. If we just give in and don't let her take some risks, then she may miss opportunities, and it could ruin her life. Until now, she has won all her fights against foes both powerful and dangerous, so I have no reason to believe that she can't win against this God." She turned to Discord. "But if things come to worst, then I'm sure that you will be here to stop her from being killed. You always watch her, right?"

"Now that I have sent a mini me to keep an eye and warn me once things start to get interesting, yes, I will always be there to ensure that she will not be killed."

"Speaking of this... Can... Can you open a portal so we can see her?" she asked.

"Of course!"

At this, Discord snapped his fingers and a portal opened on one of the walls. Quickly, it showed a beach where they could see Sweetie Belle in the water with Waddle Dee, Adeleine, Ribbon, the queen of the fairies, and an orca, probably Acro, playing with a beach ball. Kirby and Dedede were napping on the sand of the beach, bathing in the warm sun. At a moment, some orange mole-like creature with a round body dug out of the sand beside Dedede, only to be crushed by his hammer, the penguin still sleeping. But then, the beach ball was sent too far by Queen Ripple, and it hit Dedede on the head, waking him up with a surprise bounce.

"What? What? What? What hit me? What happened?"

"Sorry Dedede!" Sweetie Belle shouted while the fairy queen hid her eyes behind her hands, head half in the water in embarrassment. "Queen Ripple has hit the ball too hard! Can you send it back, please?"

He huffed and took the ball. "Alright, I will send it back to you." He smirked. "But I still have to make you pay for waking me up, so..." He took his hammer, and tossed up the ball. "TRY TO CATCH IT!" He hit the ball with his hammer, sending it toward the group in the water like a cannonball.

"It's too fast!" Waddle Dee yelled in panic.

However, Sweetie simply put herself in the path of the ball and readied her right hoof with a grin. The next second, when the ball was about to hit her in the face, she gave an uppercut to it with her hoof now enveloped with energy, sending the ball flying high towards the sky. She then shouted at Dedede, "Thank you!"

The king grumbled and sat back on the sand, his arms crossed.

Once the ball came back down, the game restarted as if this event never happened.

"That's my girl!" Hondo Flanks shouted. "Have you seen it? She has intercepted that cannonball as if it was nothing! I'm so putting her in Ponyville's hoofball team once she comes back! She will wreck all the others and make us champions!"

"We have a hoofball team?" Rarity asked.

"Erh... no. But I'm sure that we will be able to form one once I show Sweetie Belle's skills!"

"Honey. If Sweetie becomes a God Slayer, don't you think she will have better things to do than playing hoofball?"

"Darn, that's right."

Discord looked at both parents, then bent toward Rarity, whispering, "They see their daughter punching to the sky a beach ball charging at her like a cannonball, and that's all the effect it gives them? You, I understand, you are now used to it, but them?"

She sighed. "That's my parents for you. If a cyborg from the future suddenly appeared in the middle of the living room, they would just ask him to join them for dinner, and father would probably ask him to join a hoofball team. So Sweetie Belle punching a cannonball is nothing outside of making them even more proud of her. And her eventually becoming a God Slayer? They will accept it as if it is something like becoming Captain of the Royal Guard."

"So they are the opposite of you? You over dramatise everything, while they under dramatise?"

She glared at him. "You can resume it this way..." she said with a growl.

Fluttershy hid her chuckles behind her hoof.

In the end, they continued watching Sweetie Belle playing with her friends or exploring under the ocean for a whole hour before they decided to close the portal, both parents happy to have finally seen their daughter after all those months, and seeing that she was alright, and not alone, and that she will do great things.

And seeing how she had seemed pretty close to that pink ball once he had joined them after his nap, that she may have gained more than friends.

Chapter 39: Celebration

After many well earned hours of playing or resting on a beach and in the ocean of Aqua Star, Queen Ripple guided Sweetie Belle and the others back to Popstar. After a ride of a few minutes on Warp Stars, they reached the star-shaped world, and landed in Dream Land, not far from the mountains where Dedede's castle was.

As she looked around, Queen Ripple said, "It's a nice world. I wouldn't mind coming back here sometime."

Ribbon nodded. "I know I will."

"And I will be happy to return to Ripple Star one day too," Sweetie Belle said.

"I agree/Poyo," Kirby, Adeleine and Waddle Dee said.

Ribbon hugged the team one by one, saying, "I can't wait for that day. I will miss all of you."

Dedede chuckled. "You know, I plan to celebrate the ultimate defeat-I hope-of the Dark Matters, the biggest threat of the universe. Well, without counting that Dark God" He spread his arms. "Tomorrow, there will be a huge party! My Waddle Dees will spread the word to all of Popstar! This will be the biggest celebration ever, from dawn to dusk, and even beyond! So if you want, you can come!"

---

Pinkie Pie put a hoof on her heart and took a huge breath. "That feeling... It's like the biggest party ever is about to happen... And I'm gonna miss it!"

---

Ripple and Ribbon both smiled widely. "I would be happy! And I'm sure that all the fairies will want to come too!" the queen said. "Goodbye everyone, and thank you again for saving Ripple Star." At that, she bowed at them, waved her right arm, and started to fly toward the sky.

"Goodbye!" Ribbon shouted as she followed her queen. "See you tomorrow!"

The heroes shouted goodbye and waved at them as they saw the fairies getting smaller and smaller in the sky, until they disappeared.

---

After that, they all went back to their life while waiting for tomorrow's party, or almost. While Dedede and Waddle Dee returned to the castle, and Adeleine returned to her home, Sweetie proposed to Kirby to do something they had talked about in their journey: exploring the other side of Popstar. Curious, Kirby accepted, and rapidly, the two of them climbed on a Warp Star and went to the nearest edge of the world.

To their disappointment, the other side of Popstar was... normal. As they flew, they saw oceans and lands of various shapes, generally stars, with grasslands, forests, mountains, deserts, and so on. Anyway, they still separated to explore, in the hope of finding something interesting.

Now that she thought about it, she should explore the first side too. Outside of Dream Land, the Rainbow Islands, Rainbow Resort, and a part of Orange Ocean, she hadn't seen much.

It was only an hour before dusk that Sweetie found something that may be of interest: a very old, ruined structure carved in a mountain. Sadly, seeing that it was getting too late, she simply reported her finding to Kirby as the two returned to Dream Land, the filly deciding that she will explore this ruin another day.

At least, they made friends with a few of the inhabitants of Popstar living on the other side, that weren't different actually. Also, they had had to fight a few ones.

The inhabitants of this universe really loved fighting, uh?

Once back in Dream Land, Kirby waved goodbye to Sweetie Belle and returned to his home. However, before going back to the castle, Sweetie Belle did a quick detour to Marx's home to tell him about the party tomorrow. Now that Dedede knew that he was alive but didn't seem to want to kill him, then why couldn't he come? Beside, he was a jester. A party will be perfect for him.

He couldn't stop bouncing in joy once Sweetie told him about it.

When she finally came back to the castle, it was to see the servants busy preparing the party. They will probably be at it all night, but seeing their expressions, they didn't mind. Celebrating the end of the Dark Matters will be worth it. It was still surprising, seeing how they had been at it since Dedede's return. The numerous stands and other things being built that she had spotted in the way to the castle were a big proof of how busy they had been. While the party will extend to the whole world-not everyone will go all the way to Dream Land-, the heart of it will really be in and around the castle.

Watching them, their excitement spread to Sweetie Belle. Sleeping was for the weak! She was gonna help them all night! Beside, as second in command, she had to give the example. What would it look like if she was sleeping while they were doing all the work?

But before, a quick dinner, and after that, she will do something she had been thinking about doing for Waddle Dee. Hopefully, she will be able to do it. Making a bandana should be easy, right?

---

The party started just as the first rays of the sun appeared above the horizon, and it was like Dedede had said: grandiose, to the point that it looked more like a giant funfair. Already, there were thousands of inhabitants of Dream Land either eating the tons of food proposed, or playing the many games, often related to the destruction of the Dark Matters. whack-a-moles with Dark Matters instead of moles, shoot the target with Dark Matters as the targets, Dark Matters pinatas, put the Rainbow Sword on the Dark Matter, and so on.

They were not the only things proposed. Dedede had really diversified the activities. So there were also various competitions: fighting competition, competitions to test the strength by hitting piles of blocks of marble (Knuckle Joe loved this one), racing, with or without vehicles (including one similar to what they had had in Aqua Star, with the river and the rafts), dancing, and so many others. At that, we could add a gallery made by Adeleine where she painted various things from their adventure, the other worlds, the places they visited, the enemies, and some key moments of their fights like Waddle Dee piercing the head of the creature of lava with his spear covered in ice; stages to sing where bands were sometimes playing Dedede's anthem on some of them; fireworks everywhere, everytime; bouncy castles; a haunted manor; a mirror maze...

Actually, more than a funfair, it really looked more like an amusement park. All it missed was a roller coaster and it would be complete.

After a small breakfast followed by a nap to regain some energy after a whole night of work, It was almost noon when Sweetie Belle joined in the festivities. She could see that the fairies came, the little beings flying around to do the various activities among the inhabitants of Popstar. She could see Queen Ripple on one of the stages, singing shyly some song, with a few fairies doing the choir, and she spotted Ribbon beside Adeleine at the entrance of the gallery, the girl painting the fairy who was standing on a big Dark Matter plushy, wearing proudly a crystal gun smaller, and certainly less powerful than the one used against Zero Two, but easier to use.

She first decided to test how she was doing in the competition with the blocks of marble. Once in it, she was led to a pile of ten blocks, and there were three other piles, each with an opponent, which were a Bonkers, an Iron Mam, and a Knuckle Joe. She could also see some cracks in the ground.

The Knuckle Joe waved at her. "Hey! Sweetie Belle! Nice seeing you competing here!"

She waved back at him. "Nice seeing you too! I'm not surprised to see you here! This is totally your kind of competition!"

"Exactly! It's already my tenth participation! I haven't won any, but I have so much fun testing my strength against others!"

"Alright everyone!" a Waddle Doo with a whistle shouted. "Be ready! Once I whistle, you will hit your piles of blocks!"

Sweetie Belle took position behind her pile and readied her right hoof, wrapping it in her energy. After a few seconds, she heard the Waddle Doo whistling, and hit the pile with all her strength, and to her surprise, was actually able to break all ten of them and even create a very small crack in the ground under it. At the same time, she felt the earth shaking and looked to see that the Iron Mam had not only pulverised her pile of blocks, but had also created a crack at least five hooves long! Bonkers had also created a crack barely bigger than Sweetie's, while Knuckle Joe had just destroyed the ten blocks without forming any cracks. Seeing the full strength of what she had fought in the past, she couldn't help but sweat. How had she not gotten her spine broken into dust?

Waddle Doo raised his right arm. "Iron Mam is the winner! Followed by Bonkers, Sweetie Belle at the third place, and Knuckle Joe at the last place!"

"That's awesome Sweetie Belle!" Knuckle Joe shouted. "You have surpassed me!"

"I... Woah..."

"I know, right?!" At that, waterfalls of tears started to fall from his eyes. "The student has already surpassed the teacher! I am so, SO, SOOOOOO PROUD!"

"Uh... Thanks. Well, I gotta go! I want to test the other activities!"

"Of course! Good luck! You should try the fighting tournament! I'm sure you will win it! Urh... Maybe not. I have heard that the king will participate in it."

"Yeah, I don't think I'm of Dedede's level yet. But I can still try."

---

The tournament was rather surprising. While all the fights were actually duels, if she was to trust the board, the final will be a free for all battle between four fighters. After enrolling, she looked at who were the others participants. There were still a few spots without participants, but she could already see that her first fight will be against a Sword Knight, and her second, probably a Bugzzy, seeing that he will fight against a Waddle Doo. Among the other participants, she could see that there was Dedede, as she had been told, but also Kirby, probably forced in by Dedede so the penguin could fight him. Kirby had no reason entering a tournament unless the price was a big cake.

Oh... The price was a big fruit cake.

Well, again, the price was probably a bait made by Dedede to ensure that Kirby would enter the tournament. She didn't care about the cake, but if, and that was a big IF, she won the tournament, she will make sure to share it with Kirby, and Dedede to not make him jealous.

Once she was called for her first fight, she entered the arena, a simple round area without any obstacles surrounded by a stands with many spectators, and saw the Sword Knight she was about to face. She then heard someone shout in a microphone "Ready?!" and prepared her whip. When she heard "Fight!", she cracked her whip toward the knight, forcing him to jump back. As he jumped, she shot a beam at him, and hit him in the head. Seeing that he was not knocked out yet when he landed, but that he was a little stunned, Sweetie Belle charged at him. She jumped to her left to avoid a poor swing of his sword, and gave an uppercut to him, sending him flying. She then wrapped her whip around his foot, and tugged at it, making him violently crash on the floor.

He didn't get back up.

"Winner: Sweetie Belle!"

Under the cheers of the spectators, she left the arena to wait for the next fight. It didn't take long for her to be called back. She entered the arena at the same time that the Bugzzy, as she had guessed, and once they heard "Fight!", the Bugzzy immediately charged at her to grab her. But at the last second, Sweetie Belle created a shield and sent it toward him. As a result, Bugzzy was not able to avoid the shield and hit it full force before being sent back, landing on his back not far of the edge of the arena. At that, she charged a beam, and just as Bugzzy got back up, she shot it at him. Bugzzy, too busy rubbing his head in pain, only saw the beam come at the last moment, and could only panic as he was sent back again, this time hitting the wall at the base of the stand. Another shield sent at him ended the fight by making him go through the wall, leaving a Bugzzy-shaped hole.

"Winner: Sweetie Belle! However, could you please avoid destroying the wall?"

"Sorry!"

This made two wins, and already, it was the final. She already knew that she will fight Kirby and Dedede, but now, she wondered who will be the fourth one. Before she had time to go look at the board, she was already called. Well, I'll quickly find out, she thought.

She entered the arena, and saw that Dedede was already there. Kirby was the next to come, quickly followed by none other than Meta Knight, to the surprise of the three other fighters.

"You are here too?" Dedede asked.

"I saw Kirby and Sweetie Belle participating, and I wanted to fight them again. And I'm curious to see if you have gotten better since our last fight."

Dedede smirked at him. "I have trained hard! However, you are not my priority target." He turned toward Kirby. "You hear that? Prepare to be clobbered!"

Kirby took a fighting stance toward Dedede. "Poyo!"

"Uh. Remember Dedede, it's a free for all," Sweetie Belle said. "If you focus too much on Kirby, you will open yourself to me or Meta Knight. And it's not because I serve you that I will go easy." She then frowned while looking at the three of them, sweating. "However..." She turned toward the stand. "Hum... Maybe you should evacuate the stand everyone. I fear that this fight will get out of proportion."

The referee then started to speak with the microphone. "No need." At that, a few Simirrors created a dome made of mirrors around the arena. "When I saw who was participating in the tournament, I immediately knew this would end like this, so I recruited a few Simirrors to protect the stands."

"Good thinking," Dedede said. "However, this means that we will also have to watch out for the projectiles that bounce from the mirrors."

Meta Knight chuckled. "I don't mind this new challenge. This will make this fight even more interesting."

"Now, are you ready?" the referre asked. "Time to start the big final of this tournament! 3... 2... 1........... FIGHT!"

The very instant they heard the word, Meta Knight opened his bat wings and flew up while Dedede charged at Kirby with his hammer. He however jumped back to avoid a dive attack from the knight and swung his hammer at him, only for Meta Knight to parry it. The dive attack from Meta Knight caused the apparition of a yellow star that Kirby inhaled before spitting it at Meta Knight from behind, judging him to be the most dangerous foe. The hit caused Meta Knight to lose balance, opening him for another swing of Dedede's hammer that sent him away in the air.

As Dedede looked at the knight with a proud smile, he was suddenly hit on the head by a shield, followed by another shield hitting him from the back, almost making him fall on Kirby, the puffball running away before being crushed. Sweetie Belle then jumped on Dedede's back, saying, "Forgot about me?"

Dedede growled. "So you wanna play like this?"

Before Sweetie could answer anything, she had to use another shield to protect herself from Meta Knight attacking her. Quickly, Dedede got back up, making the filly fall from his back, and jumped in the air to try to crush both Sweetie Belle and Meta Knight, only for the two of them to separate just before. Again, Kirby took the occasion to inhale one of the stars that appeared and spat it at Dedede, hurting him. Rather than attacking directly Kirby in vengeance, Dedede started inhaling, targeting Sweetie Belle. The filly was not able to stop herself from being inhaled, and when she was in Dedede's mouth, the penguin spat her at the puffball. He jumped out of the way, but was slashed by Meta Knight, and both of them were crushed under Dedede's belly. Meta Knight, of course, didn't let himself being crushed like that without answering, and slashed Dedede's belly, forcing him to get back up.

Kirby kicked Meta Knight to stun him a little, and quickly got away, only to have a whip wrapped around him, and Sweetie threw him back at Meta Knight and Dedede. Meta Knight stepped out of the way, so Dedede was the only one hit, but it only caused him to slide a little before he caught Kirby and slammed him on the floor. Meanwhile, Meta Knight sent three waves at Sweetie Belle, forcing her to run, before he charged at her. She was slashed a few times, until, between two slashes, she punched Meta Knight with an energy charged hoof, making him step back, followed by another punch that was parried. He swung back, she dodged, she punched, he parried, he swung, she punched the sword, he punched her in the muzzle, and he followed it by a headbutt.

The filly stunned, Meta Knight grabbed her and threw her toward Kirby and Dedede, the both of them busy attacking each other, Kirby having the advantage. Sweetie's head rammed Kirby, opening the both of them to Dedede who swung down his hammer on them. At this instant, Meta Knight sent a tornado at them, taking Dedede by surprise, and the three of them were swept away by it.

As they landed and got back up, Dedede was the one parrying Meta Knight charging at them, and Sweetie Belle jumped on a shield before flying away. Once far enough she shot elemental projectiles randomly at the mirrors. The beams were reflected by them, and soon, they were flying everywhere from all directions, threatening to hit everyone. Dedede was hit by a fireball in the back, putting him in fire, and Meta Knight deflected the projectiles about to hit him with his sword. The projectiles hitting the ground caused the apparition of many stars, giving ammunition for Kirby. But to his curiosity, he could see that the stars were colored differently. The ones left by the fireballs were red, the ones left by the ice balls were blue, and the ones left by the lightning bolts were green. Having an idea, he inhaled one of the green stars and gained the Spark Ability, to his pleasure. Immediately, he electrified Meta Knight, only to be hit by an ice ball freezing him and knocking the Ability away.

After being burned again by another fireball, Dedede had enough and grabbed the frozen Kirby before tossing him up. Like he did with the beach ball in Aqua Star, he hit him with the hammer and sent him toward Sweetie Belle, only for the filly to make the shield go slightly to the right, making Kirby pass at her left. The puffball was reflected by a mirror, and as he come back toward Sweetie Belle, she kicked him, sending him back at Dedede, only for him to be hit again by the hammer, and to be sent back toward the filly. Sweetie Belle being too busy preparing to intercept Kirby again, she didn't see the wave sent by Meta Knight at her. Because of it, she lost her focus and was hit by Kirby, making her fall from her shield.

As she fell, Kirby was finally able to get out of the ice, just in time to avoid another wave from Meta Knight, followed by the knight himself charging at him. Not wanting to be slashed again, as he fell, Kirby opened his mouth and started inhaling, forcing Meta Knight to stop his charge and use his wings to resist Kirby's aspiration. Suddenly, he was hit from behind by Dedede's hammer thrown at him by the penguin. The hammer was rapidly grabbed by Dedede who had jumped after it, and swung it down at Meta Knight, sending him toward Kirby who had now landed beside Sweetie Belle who was slowly getting up. Kirby still trying to inhale him, Meta Knight found himself inside the puffball's mouth who spat him back at Sweetie Belle before she was able to fully get up.

The hit caused Sweetie to roll on the floor until she stopped near the mirrors, and she yet again tried to get back up. Seemingly forgotten by the three others, who were now busy trading blows to each other, she was able to get back on her hooves, and she slowly walked toward the center of the arena. Meanwhile, Kirby avoided Dedede's hammer and counterattacked by inhaling the star it left behind. However, rather than spitting it at Dedede, he targeted Meta Knight, only for him to deflect the star at Dedede. Meta Knight followed this by attacking Dedede, and the king stepped around him to avoid his sword before trying to hit him with his hammer, only for the knight to spin around and parry the hammer, and punch at the same time Kirby in the head as the puffball had been about to punch him.

At the center of the arena, Sweetie was now surrounding herself in a shield, to which she gave more and more energy with some difficulty. Once she thought she had given enough, she released a big "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" and expanded the shield in all directions. Hearing her, Dedede looked above his shoulder toward her, only to be hit by the shield which continued to expand. Meta Knight being in front of Dedede, and not having seen the shield coming, was rammed by the penguin, finding himself against his belly. As Meta Knight had been between Dedede and Kirby, Meta Knight himself collided with the puffball. They very rapidly reached the mirrors, which were able to stop the expanding shield that then disappeared, leaving behind a crushed Dedede that fell back to the ground, leaving behind a crushed Meta Knight that fell back on Dedede, leaving behind a crushed Kirby that fell back on Meta Knight who had, by the way, lost his mask, again. Sweetie Belle herself was now unconscious, not having any energy left.

This left the arena in a deep silence, not even the spectators saying anything. After a moment, seeing that none of the fighters were getting back up, they started hearing the referee speaking in the microphone.

"What do we do? The four of them are unconscious. Do we wait for the first to get back up?"

"Sweetie Belle has knocked out the three others. Maybe we can count it?"

Eventually, after some discussions, the referee said, "The four fighters have fallen unconscious at the same time! It's a draw! In consequence, the four of them are considered victorious!"

At that, the mirrors disappeared, and the unconscious fighters were force fed Maxim Tomato juices under the cheers from the spectators. The first one to wake up was Sweetie Belle, quickly followed by Kirby, then Meta Knight, and finally Dedede. As soon as he saw that his mask was broken, Meta Knight flew away without saying a word.

"Who won?" the filly asked.

A Waddle Dee answered her. "It's a draw, so the four of you are considered victorious. But you still have done a really good job. You have been able to knock out Kirby, King Dedede, and Meta Knight with that last attack. Too bad you lost consciousness, because you would have won."

"Darn..."

Dedede approached her. "You have still done what none of us has been able to do until now: knock out Kirby. Even if it was a free for all, and that Meta Knight and I have helped, that's still a big exploit. Just for that, you deserve a whole buffet worth of Maxim Tomato pies."

"No thanks. I don't have a black hole for a stomach like you and Kirby, and I don't want to become an immobile ball." After some thinking, she added, "A single pie should be enough. And this can wait for tomorrow. There iss already enough food in this party. Just the cake that we will eat as the price of this fight will be filling enough."

Dedede chuckled. "True." He then noogied her. "You still made me a proud king today. Ask me anything, and you will have it."

"That wasn't already the case from the moment you made me second in command?"

He laughed. "Good point."

---

After that, and eating the cake, they went their separate ways. A quick rest later while looking at a butterfly flying around her, she entered the raft racing that she was able to win rather easily. She will definitely have to race again one day against Kirby, Waddle Dee, Dedede, and Adeleine, and maybe more. It would be nice if Broom Sunglasses, Cape Knight, Knuckle Joe, the animals, Gooey, or Marx came racing too. She will ask Dedede to organize that.

She then tried the haunted manor, which was really haunted with real ghosts, of course recruited to scare the fools testing their courage. But while she did get a few starts because of the ghosts jumpscaring her, she was not scared by them. No wonder, after fighting a few ghosts in her previous adventure. And frankly, after Zero, ghosts were nothing. At least, she had some fun.

And then, she found Waddle Dee racing with a Poppy, a Plugg, and a Broom Hatter. In the end, he won the race, with the Hatter being second, the Poppy being third, and the Plugg being last. Seeing him winning, Sweetie Belle cheered for him, attracting his attention.

"Sweetie Belle! Have you seen it?! I won!"

"Yes! I saw! I knew you would win! Let's get some ice cream to celebrate this!"

"Yeah!"

Once they got their ice cream, they sat on a bench not far, and they started eating. Sweetie Belle then said, "I have something for you."

"Really?"

She nodded and took something from under her kerchief, revealing it to be a blue bandana. "I wanted to thank you for helping us saving Ripple Star, and I thought of a way to make you really unique among the Waddle Dees, especially now that you have started to use a spear to help us fight bad guys. And after some thinking, I thought that a blue bandana would be nice on you." At that, she gave the bandana to him. "I made it last night. I hope you like."

Waddle Dee looked at the bandana. "Th... Thank you, Sweetie Belle. It's the first time that I get a gift." He gave his ice cream to Sweetie Belle, and wrapped the bandana on his head, doing the knot at the back. "How do I look?"

She clapped her fore hooves. "As one of my friends would say, you look awesome!"

He took a proud pose. "Then from now on, you can call me... Bandana Waddle Dee! Or Bandana Dee for short!"

She giggled. "It will take some time to get used to it."

---

After noon, Sweetie Belle was now with both Kirby, Bandana Dee, and the animals in front of one of the stages, listening to Pitch singing. Being a bird, he was a natural. Once he finished, they all applauded him, Pitch's mother being the loudest.

Bandana Dee then turned toward Kirby. "Hey Kirby, I heard that you can sing. You could try."

Sweetie Belle frowned. "I have heard too. But I also heard that his singing is painful. Some soldiers complained that they almost became deaf." She looked at kirby. "Can you sing without breaking our ear-drums?"

Kirby looked at the both of them, smiled, and went on the stage. Everyone around the stage immediately prepared their hands, claws, hooves, wings, or whatever to protect their ears as Kirby took the microphone.

And then, he starts to sing, and to everyone's relief, he was not singing to the point of making them half-deaf. In fact, he was singing pretty well, even if it was just with "Ahahaaah!", and the song was really good! It was so... happy-go-lucky, that they all just had to smile at hearing it, and some of them even started to hum it, and Pitch rapidly helped him by singing a fast paced accompaniment.

"Cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep
Cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep
Cheep cheep cheep
Cheep cheep cheep
Cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep."

Sweetie Belle eventually joined them on the stage, and once he started a new verse, she started singing.

"In Dream Land
Lives a little pink puffball
So joyful, so playful, and gourmand
But watch out
He defends the world from all
That threaten to bring it to it's end
This hero's name is Kirby

Back and forth he journeys with his friends or alone, fighting foes, the darkness, to bring baaack dreams!
In the sea, in the space, with courage, he will go, bring peace and return to the land ooof dreams!

In Drea-"

Prt prt prrrrt!

Just as they started the next verse, they were interrupted by farting noises coming from behind the singers. Looking at the origin in annoyance, they saw that it was Marx using a big whoopee cushion, pressing it with his right foot in the rhythm of the song. In anger at having the song stopped like that, Pitch started chasing him, and Marx sprouted his wings to escape him while laughing maniacally.

For a few seconds, Sweetie Belle growled in annoyance as she watched Marx, before slowly, her growl turned into laughter. She was quickly followed by Kirby and some of the spectators, including Bandana Dee, while others were rather pouting, like ChuChu or Pitch's mother.

She was glad to have given Marx a second chance. He was really good at making things more entertaining. Without him, this party would be less fun, even if not everyone had her opinion.

"I like this guy!" she heard Broom Sunglasses say among the spectators.

Her laughter increased.

---

Many hours of fun later, as the sun set, Sweetie Belle was now with all her friends looking at a pyre where a dummy of Zero was burning-an idea of Gooey, surprisingly-. They were all here, even Meta Knight. Strangely, watching this dummy burn was making her nostalgic. Zero was definitely dead, his whole body having exploded, leaving nothing for him to regenerate and come back as a 'Zero Three', meaning in the same case the end of the Dark Matters. But the Dark Matters had been her main enemies until now. She had had four adventures until now, the Halberd not really counting as one, and among those four adventures, she had ended up fighting the Dark Matters in three, and Zero in two. She probably would have remained a simple filly training to fight a puffball if that hadn't been for the Dark Matters forcing her hoof to become the hero she was now, and it was thanks to them that she was now friends with Kirby.

It was like a chapter of her life was closing.

But, now that the Dark Matters were gone, what will come next? She thought back to all those artefacts created by the Ancients, and to this Dark God. Will her next adventure have something to do with them again?

And... now that she thought about it, did Kirby have something to do with them? The Dark Matters had called him the Incarnation. Zero knew something about Kirby, and with Zero being a creation of the Dark God, what did that mean for Kirby?

Wait a minute. Gooey was like Kirby, but he was a Dark Matter that gained a soul, a heart, and the capacity to have dreams. A Dark Matter, a being that didn't possess any of the three Great Forces of this universe, became like Kirby when he gained those three Great Forces.

She looked at Kirby in wonder. Could Kirby be the incarnation of those three Great Forces? But then, how was he born? Was he a creation of the Dark God too? But then... what did it mean for Meta Knight? He looked like Kirby. The only two differences were that he possesses hands, and that he was dark blue.

She decided to directly ask him. As she approached him, he saw her, and waited for her to say something.

"Meta Knight..." She looked around at the crowd, and whispered, "Do you know something about the Dark God?"

...

...

...

"Follow me."

At that, Meta Knight turned around, and Sweetie Belle did as he just told. A few minutes later, they reached the arena where they fought earlier, now empty, except for a butterfly. Once they reached the center, he finally started speaking without turning to look at the filly.

"How have you learned about the God's existence?"

"On Ripple Star. Queen Ripple showed me a book about the Ancients and the Dark God. She explained to me the three Great Forces of this universe, how the God created them, how he became the Dark God he is now... Thanks to her, I now understand that Zero was a creation of this God, and... and I now think that Kirby may be another of his creations."

Meta Knight looked at her at this. "Why do you think that?"

"Do you know Gooey? He is a Dark Matter that obtained the three Great Forces thanks to the Fountain of Dreams. What is weird is that by obtaining them, he gained the same ability to copy than Kirby. Beside, when I was possessed by a Dark Matter, back when Zero attacked Popstar, they named Kirby the Incarnation, which I now think is the incarnation of the three Great Forces. And the God created the three Great Forces."

"And so, because the God created the Great Forces, and Kirby is the incarnation of them, you concluded that he was created by the God too."

"Yes. And this makes me question about you too. I mean, you are of the same species as Kirby, right? I... I saw you, without your mask, and you really look like him."

Meta Knight chuckled. "Am I a creation of the God too?" He removed his mask, and looked at Sweetie Belle in the eyes. "You can say that, in a way, I am indeed a creation of this God."

"So, am I right for Kirby?"

Meta Knight looked down, thoughtful. "You are right to say that Kirby and I are similar. However, I can't confirm if you are right about him being the incarnation of the three Great Forces. But it's a good theory, and with the Dark Matters calling him the Incarnation, I think that this is a strong possibility. This is enforced by him possessing this ability to copy, ability that I do not possess, despite the two of us being similar."

"So, you don't know?"

He shook his head. "I wasn't present at the time of the God, I was born only many centuries later. So I don't know everything about that time."

"But you said that you are a creation of the God!"

""In a way,'' I said. Queen Ripple told you about the God and the Ancients, but has she talked to you about anything else? Has she told you how the God became the Destructor?"

"Erh..." She tilted her head, trying to remember what Ripple told her. "She told me that there were two clans of the Ancients, and that after some crisis, they started a war between the two clans, which caused the God to become like that."

He nodded. "What did she tell you about this crisis that started everything?"

"That... That this was caused by... I think she said 'one of the children of the God' going into a rampage. Wait..." She looked back at Meta Knight. "Are you implying that you are one of those children?"

He nodded again. "The Children of the God. We were created by him using the three Great Forces, making us the most powerful people in the universe. We were the Guardians, and the Messengers." He sighed. "And then, the crisis happened, one of us, for some reason, went into a rampage, destroyed many worlds, killed countless people, almost exterminated us, before he was finally sealed. The few of us that survived then separated, and we were forgotten, and we forgot. Of course, the survivors continued their life, and generations passed, until I was born. What I just told you is all that remains of our History." He put his mask back on his face. "Now, all I can do is continue the duty of my ancestors and being the Guardian of this world that incarnates the very Dreams that the God created."

Sweetie Belle smiled at him. "And remember that you can count on me and Kirby to help you defend Popstar."

He huffed. "You even have done a better job than me so far. You have been able to eliminate the Dark Matters, while I could do nothing."

"Well... If that wasn't for Gooey telling me that Zero's main weakness was love, I don't think that even Kirby could have done anything. It was a teamwork. As for the most recent problem with Zero Two, I'm sure that if we had found you, you would have joined us to save Ripple Star. You are a Guardian, but so are me, Kirby, Dedede, Bandana Dee, Rick, Coo, Kine, Chuchu, Nago, Pitch, Gooey, and Adeleine. Even Marx will probably defend Popstar if he has the occasion. It's together that we will stop beings like Nightmare or Zero from plunging Popstar into darkness, despair, or whatever." She suddenly gasped. "Nightmare! I remember! Kirby was able to use the Star Rod to stop him! And nobody could use it until now! Maybe he could use it because he incarnates Dreams! This would confirm that he is really the incarnation of the Great Forces! So, does that mean that he was directly created by the God, rather than being born like you?"

"It seems like it. But Kirby is so young, so it doesn't make sense, or else, he would be centuries old, and he should know about everything that we have just talked about."

"And yet, he was as surprised as me at seeing the Dark Matter the first time, and he didn't know anything about Zero or the Dark God before I told him about them. He doesn't even know that he is the incarnation of the Great Forces. You are right, this doesn't make sense."

Meta Knights sighed. "We seem to be in a dead end here. In the end, it doesn't matter how Kirby has come to life. What matters is that he is effectively the incarnation of Dreams, Heart, and Soul, and that means that he will be our biggest ally against whatever spawn of the Dark God we may fight in the future."

She nodded. "There are also the artefacts of the Ancients. Queen Ripple showed me a few of them, and apparently, some of them are corrupted by the Dark God."

"Yes. And there are always the power hungry overlords wannabe that will try to conquer Popstar."

"And the Dark God himself. Ripple and I think that we may end up fighting him."

He chuckled. "Looks like we may be busy in the future."

She giggled. "Yes. It looks like."

They then looked at each other, and nodded, saying at the same time, "But together, we will stop them."

Author's Notes:

So, I have tried my hand in a fight free-for-all, and at writing lyrics for Green Greens. I hope that they are good.

Also, I have added links to the theme of the Heavy Lobster at the start of the fight against them, both in chapter 18 and in chapter 22.

Speaking of the Heavy Lobster, I just got an idea absolutely brillant!

https://youtu.be/0mRPTrWHHKQ

You will fear the Sweetie Lobster Armor !

Chapter 40: The Mirror World

Author's Notes:

I don't know if you noticed it, but I have fused a few abilities that were pretty much identical.
-Spark and Plasma
-Fire and Burning
-Ice and Freeze

I have also added both themes of Dark Matter in the battle against him in chapter 14, as well as Meta Knight's battle theme in chapter 18

During the party, Sweetie Belle was able to tell Kirby about her idea with the music notes, and Kirby accepted to help her the next day. After a good night of rest, she found Kirby in the way between his house and the castle, and together, they searched a Walky.

After a dozen minutes, they found one at the edge of a forest, the walking microphone attacking them as they approached, shooting music notes from his mouth with a terrible cacophony. They had no problem avoiding the music notes, and Kirby quickly ate him, gaining the Mike Ability, and earphones as a hat.

Now in possession of the Ability, Kirby jumped on Sweetie Belle's back, giving her a look very similar to Vinyl Scratch, with purple sunglasses, a mane that would make Rarity faint, and earphones. Seeing her new mane style, she giggled and started to mime operating a turntable.

"Hellooooo everypony! This is DJ 5-tar ready to make you headbang!"

She raised her right hoof, looked at Kirby on her back who smiled and nodded at her as he took a mike, and a song started to blast from her horn along with colorful sound waves and music notes in rhythm while Kirby shouted in his mike.

"Woooooh!!! I love this Ability! Da! Da! Dadada! Dadadadadadada!"

Not far in the sky, hidden behind a cloud, the mini Discord shouted, "Heck yeah!" while headbanging. He was also holding a camera, recording the whole thing.

---

In the Carousel Boutique, Rarity was busy completing a dress for a customer. She was so focused in her task that she didn't see Discord appearing behind her.

"Rarityyy!" he singsonged.

She groaned in annoyance before turning around to look at him. "Hello Discord. What do you want?"

"To show you this!" He then showed her the camera that he just received from his mini him.

A few seconds later, Rarity's scream and Discord's laughter could be heard far outside of the boutique.

---

After her successful sound test, now having an idea of how to at least shoot music notes and sound waves from her horn (the music will be for another time), she thanked Kirby and said goodbye to him before returning to the castle where she started her training to master this new move. However, a few days later, she couldn't help but think that she could do more than simply shoot music notes and sound waves from her horn while singing.

What if... she put some energy in her singing...

She will have to test this later, but now, she was really curious to see what was in this ruined structure she had discovered on the other side of Popstar. Ready to go exploring it, she still asked before that Bandana Dee if he wanted to accompany her, which he accepted, excited at the idea of exploring another ruin and maybe discovering a treasure. So the two of them jumped on a Warp Star and flew around Popstar, joining the other side where Sweetie led them to the area where she had seen this structure.

It didn't take long before they found it, and they crash-landed at the entrance.

Bandana Dee groaned on the floor. "When will you learn to land with that thing?"

"Soon, I hope..." Sweetie Belle answered.

Once the two of them were up, they approached the big double doors made of metal leading to the inside of the structure, in the mountain, with four stars engraved both at the left and right. Twelve more stars were engraved on the doors, four of them being shooting stars. Seeing that they had no handles, they tried to push them open, without success.

"Urg... Don't tell me we will already be stuck outside," Waddle Dee said.

"I'm sure there is a way to open them. If not, we can always try something else to enter. Like blasting them."

"Blasting metal doors will not be easy. Let me think." At that, he placed himself against the wall at the left of the door, trying to think of how to open the doors. However, to his surprise, he actually pressed one of the stars, and a sound, like an organ, played from it. "Woah!" he shouted in surprise, bouncing away from the wall.

"Oooohhh!" Sweetie Belle immediately went press one of the stars at the right of the door, producing another sound, different from the first one. "A puzzle!" She pressed the three other stars, producing more sounds. "I know! This one is a G, then we have a A, B, and C! The one that you pressed is a F, and the three last ones must be a lower C, D, and E!" At that, she frowned. "Do we have to play a song with these stars? This will be impossible to find the right one!"

"So we would need a music sheet?" Bandana Dee asked. He then pointed at the door. "Maybe it has something to do with the stars on the door? Don't you think that they are placed like notes?"

She looked at the stars, and smiled. "Hey! You are right! This is probably what we must play! The shooting stars probably mean that we must continue to press the stars to extend the corresponding notes. And it looks easy. Let's see... C C D_____ C D E_________ C C D_____ C D E_________"

"You are right, that's easy! I just need to press these three stars like you said!" And so, following Sweetie Belle's instructions, Bandana Dee pressed the stars, and after playing the twelve notes, the doors opened. At that, they did a hoof/fist bump in victory, only for Bandana Dee to suddenly scream at seeing arrows coming at them from inside the ruins. Sweetie Belle rapidly created a shield to stop them, saving the both of them.

"Okay..." the filly said. "Puzzles: check. Traps: check. We will have to be careful once inside."

He nodded, wiping some sweat on his forehead before putting his spear in front of him, ready to use it to block any new projectiles.

Inside the ruins, they were quickly stopped by a sea of spikes on the floor, with the only way to continue a series of platforms. However, above each platforms, there were giant axes swinging like pendulums, forcing them to time their jumps to not be cut in half. At the end of the sea of spikes, Sweetie Belle almost got crushed by a pillar suddenly slamming on the floor in front of her. More pillars followed this one, with a few spears coming out of the walls and almost impaling them.

After the pillars and the spears, they saw more pillars in the middle of the hallway, these one spinning on themselves while expelling real walls of fire at opposite directions. More fire is expelled from the walls of the hallway at various height, slowing them down. Halfway through the pillars, lightning shot from the ceiling were added to the obstacles, forcing Sweetie to create another shield above them to not be shocked.

Barely they passed all that that they were now attacked by lasers shot from cannons in the walls! They quickly ran through this section, jumping and changing direction erratically to avoid them. Halfway through it, many grids of lasers appeared, and they had to jump in the holes between the lasers while still avoiding the cannons.

They passed a double door and rapidly closed it, almost out of breath.

"Having this many traps shouldn't be allowed!" Bandana Dee complained.

STOMP STOMP

They became as still as statues, and slowly turned around to see what caused these stomps, gulping. Here was a robot, about the size of the Heavy Lobster, with a simple round white body, two legs and two arms each ending with claws, and a single pink eye at the center, a black star painted around it.

Sweetie Belle sweated. "Guardian of the treasure: check."

"I should have said no..."

The robot opened its claws, revealing holes from where it expelled fire. Sweetie Belle and Waddle Dee ran in opposite directions to escape it. The filly was the first to attack, shooting beams at the robot, but barely doing any damage. The robot turned toward her, and energy started to gather in its eye. After a few seconds, a big, purple laser beam was shot from it at her. She stopped running suddenly, and the laser hit just in front of her. She counterattacked by shooting lightning, which seemed to be effective. Bandana Dee suddenly jumped from behind the robot and landed on it, spear raised. He then jumped again to fall in front of it, and pierced the eye. He quickly jumped away, leaving a hole.

"Now, Sweetie Belle! The eye!"

"Yes!"

As Bandana Dee distracted the robot who tries to crush him under its claws, Sweetie Belle charged both magic and energy into a giant beam, and shot it at the eye of the robot, totally piercing it from the front to the back, leaving a giant hole. the robot stopped moving, and electricity coursed it before it exploded, throwing Bandana Dee at a wall.

Sweetie Belle joined him to see if he was alright as he slid down the wall. Once on the floor, he groaned and said, "I hope that this treasure is worth it."

"After all those traps and that robot? Whatever is in these ruins MUST be worth all that."

After resting a little, they continued their exploration of the ruins. Thankfully, there was not much to explore, because they discovered that the next hallway contained the treasure at the end on a pedestal. However, they will have to pass a big hole just before that.

At seeing the chest, full of joy at reaching their goal, they started running toward it, only to stop after a few steps when they heard something land and roll behind them. Looking back, they saw a giant round boulder rapidly rolling toward them, threatening to crush them. Screaming in panic, they ran as fast as they could, and after a few seconds, were about to reach the hole, too big to be jumped above. Instead, Sweetie took her whip, wrapped it around a beam under the ceiling, grabbed Bandana Dee, and swung above the hole just as the boulder fell. They landed just in front of the chest. Now safe, they took their breath.

"I'm never exploring ruins ever again!" Bandana Dee shouted.

Sweetie Belle giggled. "Oh come on, Bandana Dee. This is not any more dangerous than our adventures!"

"We almost got ourselves killed at least twenty times since entering these ruins. I don't remember this happening before."

"That's true. But if one day, we find ourselves invading the fortress of an evil overlord, it could be worse."

"Right... At least, we have the treasure."

"Oh yes! Let's open it!"

They approached the chest that was almost their size, blue with golden rims, and a round ruby.

However...

"Drat! It's locked!" Bandana Dee shouted, kicking the chest.

"Awww... And we don't have the key." She glared at the chest. "Let's bring it to the castle! We will find a way to open it!"

Bandana Dee looked back at the way they came from, gulping. "Does this means we have to go all the way back, passing all those traps, with it?"

She sighed. "Seems like it... Come on, I will lift it with my magic."

---

"So this is why you look like you have gone through a war zone?" Dedede asked in the throne room.

They both nodded, not able to speak because of their mouth being full of well earned and much needed cake. Sweetie Belle quickly swallowed before speaking. "So, do you know how to open this chest?"

Dedede took his hammer, said, "Of course I do!" and violently hit the chest with it, only for the hammer to bounce. He raised an eyebrow in confusion. "What?" He hit the chest again, with the same result. After a few more hits, he tried to force the chest to open with his hands, jumped and hit the chest with his hammer as he fell, took it and slammed it on the floor a few times, bit it, hit it again, inhaled it and spat it, threw a Gordo, only to fail each time. "What is the problem with this chest?!"

Bandana Dee raised his arm. "Maybe we can pick the lock."

Dedede looked at him, and after a few seconds, facepalmed. "Why didn't I think of it?"

"Because you prefer doing the brutal way?" Sweetie Belle proposed. She ducked to avoid the hammer thrown at her. "See?"

Dedede huffed. "Whatever."

At this moment, something broke through one of the windows, quickly identified to be Meta Knight.

"Dedede! Where is Sweetie Belle?" He then spotted the chest, and seemed to frown. "And where did you get that chest?!"

"We got it from some ruins on the other side of Popstar," Sweetie Belle answered, letting the knight know that she was here.

Meta Knight groaned. "Whatever you think, never open this chest! It contains something that must be kept trapped inside! Just hide it somewhere where nobody will find it!"

Bandana Dee facepalmed. "Aww really?! All those traps, and we get a cursed treasure?!"

Before Sweetie Belle could say anything, she was grabbed by Meta Knight who put her on his shoulder. "Wha- Hey!"

"No time!" He turned to Dedede. "Hide the chest! Don't open it!" At that, he flew out through the window.

Bandana Dee and Dedede looked at the knight flying away with Sweetie Belle, then looked at each other.

"Did Sweetie Belle just get kidnapped?" Bandana Dee asked.

"Naw... Knowing Meta Knight, there must be a good reason for him to take her. Besides, isn't it the dream of any girls to be taken out of a castle on the shoulder of a knight?"

"It looked more like a dark knight kidnapping the princess to lock her." He then looked at the chest. "So, what should we do about it?"

"If Meta Knight says that whatever is in this chest must not get out, then we will do as he told us: hide it."

---

"What's going on?!" Sweetie Belle shouted. "You know I can fly, right?!"

"I'm faster! The Kirbys are probably still fighting him right now, but they may need your help to beat him! I'm certain they can win by themselves, but I prefer to assure the victory by bringing you! I know very well how you form a good team together."

"What? The Kirbys? They?! Him?!"

"My evil counterpart from the Mirror World. He is... extremely powerful. He easily beat me and trapped me. It's only a few minutes ago that I have been able to escape thanks to the Kirbys. And yes, the Kirbys. Somehow, when my counterpart attacked Kirby, he split him into four Kirbys, and they were joined by the Mirror Kirby. Now the five of them are fighting my counterpart, but I could see that the fight was still hard for them. My counterpart possesses some abilities that I don't."

"You couldn't help them?"

"I'm still feeling too weak from my fight against him. I would have been a burden."

Not long after, they reached the mirror in the sky leading to the Mirror World. It was a giant oval-shaped mirror in a golden frame with four stars at the corners, a crown at the top, and angel wings at both sides.

Sweetie found it absolutely majestic.

They traversed it.

---

The Mirror World was so alien, and yet so familiar. Sweetie Belle could recognize from the sky many landmarks, but they looked different. Being in the sky, they were actually above a cloudy area, where Meta Knight led them through a few mirror doors until they reached a beautiful section with yellow clouds and structures that seemed to be made of crystals, including a big one simply constituted of a wall in a circle all around them, with windows and stars. On top of one of the structures in the center of the circle formed by the wall was another mirror similar to the one they took to come in this world, with many other, smaller mirror doors around it. Without losing time, Meta Knight passed through it.

She noted to herself to visit the Mirror World one day.

---

The other side of this mirror seemed to come from Tartarus. She recognized the wall from earlier, however, it was now half destroyed, without any stars to be seen, and there were no clouds anymore. Instead, all she could see was a dark, purple, swirly sky that gave Sweetie Belle goosebumps as they landed on a platform where Meta Knight dropped her before pointing down with his sword. Just at this instant, she remarked that she could hear a battle happening below them, and saw an electric ball flying toward the sky, followed by the area flashing a few times as she heard explosions, before she recognized the distinct sound of a tornado.

Looking down, she could see five Kirbys, a familiar pink one using the Sword, a yellow one that used Bomb, a red one that used the Hammer, a Green one that used the Tornado Ability-it was the first time that she saw it, but she recognized it by the tornado-like hat on his head like described by the minions after the Nightmare Incident-, and a dark gray one using the Spark, fighting a dark gray version of Meta Knight, with black bat wings, red armored shoes, a scar-like scratch at the left side of the mask going through the eye, and a silver colored sword similar to the one of Meta Knight with a sapphire in its hilt. Also, the mask had a thinner and more angled slit, making him look angry.

Dark Meta Knight-she will call him that-spun on himself, creating many tornadoes around him. The Kirbys passed between them, and Green started to spin around himself to become a tornado and flew toward the dark knight, only for him to jump to dodge. In the air, he parried Pink before kicking him to send him away, only to be hit by the hammer of Red in the back, making him crash into the ground. Despite that, he created a mirror to deflect a bomb sent by Yellow, before creating more mirrors from where he summoned swords to stab Black, Pink, and Green.

"So, an evil counterpart that also possesses the Mirror Ability?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"And ruthless, without honor, brutal... He is everything that I am not, making him extremely dangerous."

She frowned. "The Kirbys seem to have the upperhand, but you are right, this could get ugly. I'm going!" At that, she jumped from the platform, a hoof enveloped in energy. Dark Meta Knight wasn't expecting for something like that to happen, so she was able to take him by surprise just as he flew and prepared his sword to summon more tornadoes, and her hoof connected with the top of his head. They both fell to the floor, creating a small crater with Sweetie Belle pressing against him. She quickly jumped away as Dark Meta Knight swung his sword at her, and she landed among the Kirbys, smiling at them.

"Need a hoof?"

---

Twilight, her friends, Spike, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo suddenly found themselves teleported in an empty room of the castle that was turned into a theater. Before they could express their confusion, Discord appeared in front of them.

"No time to explain! It's already started! We are missing it!"

At that, he opened the portal, showing Sweetie Belle and... five Kirbys? Battling a darker version of Meta Knight. It opened just as bombs were raining from the sky thanks to Sweetie Belle having the yellow Kirby who possessed the Bomb Ability on her back. However, the knight skillfully ran between the explosions before sending a shockwave at her that she blocked with a shield while the black Kirby approached him from behind and electrified him before being slashed. Meta Knight then jumped high to avoid both the hammer from the red Kirby, and the tornado from the Green Kirby, only to be slammed by a shield from Sweetie Belle. Back on the floor, he was received by the pink Kirby who slashed him a few times before he was able to parry and counter him.

All of that happened in the space of a few seconds.

"Woah nelly!" Applejack shouted.

Meta Knight suddenly disappeared in a mirror that split into three shards, each with a Meta Knight inside. The three mirror shards then started to fly around erratically. One of them was hit by a beam from Sweetie Belle, only for the mirror to break into smaller shards that homed in on her, but the shards were stopped by the red Kirby destroying them with his hammer. The two last Meta Knights then flew out of the last two mirrors, one of them diving toward black Kirby, and the other one diving toward the pink one. Black Kirby shot a ball of electricity toward the Meta Knight charging at him, only for the Meta Knight to break into mirror shards that cut him. Meanwhile, pink Kirby parried the one charging at him, and green Kirby took the occasion to sweep him with his tornado before he was crushed under the red's hammer. Red Kirby jumped away to let place to the green one coming back, but Meta Knight then started to spin on himself, becoming a slashing tornado that countered green Kirby's tornado in a violent clash. He was then rammed by Sweetie Belle inside a shield, and a bomb from the yellow Kirby sent him flying high in the air where he used his wings to stabilize himself before he raised his sword, creating mirrors on the ground from where he summoned giant swords, doing it three times, each time the swords appearing at different places.

"That's so intense!" Spike and Scootaloo shouted, shaking in excitement.

"Too intense!" Fluttershy squeaked, hiding her eyes behind her hooves.

After finishing summoning the giant swords, Meta Knight then started to fly around while sending dozens of shockwaves from his sword, making them rain on the Kirbys and Sweetie Belle. He stopped advancing to dodge another electric ball from the black Kirby, but found his left foot wrapped in Sweetie's whip, before being slammed on the floor where red Kirby crushed him again. Meta Knight jumped away from red Kirby only to land beside a bomb, courtesy from yellow Kirby. The explosion sent him toward Sweetie Belle who punched him violently to send him toward pink Kirby who slashed him.

"Yeah, that's intense. But I'm confused," Rainbow Dash said. "Why are there five Kirbys? And why is Meta Knight black and looking all evil?"

"Maybe he is possessed by a Dark Matter?" Twilight proposed.

Rainbow Dash looked at her in confusion. "I thought that they were all exterminated after Zero Two's defeat."

"Maybe there are some survivors."

"No, this has nothing to do with the Dark Matters," Discord said. He then looked at a letter. "If what the mini me says is right, then they are actually fighting an evil mirror counterpart of Meta Knight."

Twilight gasped. "A mirror counterpart? As in, from a mirror world?"

"Exactly. Right now, Sweetie is in a mirror version of Dream Land. As for why there are five Kirbys, I'm not sure. There is something about Kirby being attacked by this dark knight, only to be split into four versions of himself. The fifth Kirby is the mirror version."

That was when they suddenly heard Sweetie Belle who started singing.

"Ah ahahah aaah
Ah ahahah aaah!"

And she shot music notes and sound waves from her horn toward Meta Knight, the soundwaves ramming him while the music notes exploded in contact.

At that, they all raised an eyebrow. "Sweetie Belle has turned singing into a weapon?" Apple Bloom asked.

"What? Rarity hasn't shown you?" Discord asked.

"Shown us what?" Spike asked.

Despite Rarity groaning, Discord answered. "You are lucky that I have a photo." He snapped his fingers, and a photo appeared in his claw. He then showed it to the others, letting everypony see Sweetie Belle's look, or rather, DJ 5-tar. "With the help of Kirby and one of his Abilities, she became like that."

"That's Sweetie Belle?!" both Apple Bloom and Scootaloo asked in wonder.

"She looks so cool!" Spike said.

"I think that I still have the recording somewhere. It would be perfect for a sweet rave party."

"Now I want to see this!" Rainbow Dash shouted.

"Me too! Me too! I will give it to Vinyl, and she will use it for my next party! This will be Sweetie Belle's first hit!" Pinkie Pie said.

Rarity only sighed while shaking her head. There was nothing she could do, even if it hurt to see Sweetie Belle with... this mane style.

They then heard a big explosion, and saw the Meta Knight being propelled toward Sweetie Belle who now had the green Kirby on her back, causing her mane and tail to become like tornadoes. She then summoned a tornado from her horn, and the Meta Knight was propelled in the sky, where he was hit many times by red Kirby spinning on himself with the hammer while he was slashed by shockwaves sent by the pink Kirby, and electricity thrown by the black one. Flying away from the assault, the Meta Knight summoned more giant swords all over the area despite being clearly weakened.

And then...

Slash!

He was cut by the real Meta Knight in the blink of an eye, stopping him right away. Cracks then started to spread all over the dark counterpart's body...

"Ugh... How... could I lose?"

More...

"Master..."

And more...

"No..."

And more...

"I will not die..."

And more!

"I will not die!"

And more!

"I will not-"

And he finally split into countless mirror shards.

The original Meta Knight looked at the falling shards. "Did he just said 'master'?" That was when the area started shaking, and flashing, to everyone's surprise. "I have a bad feeling..."

Suddenly, a black hole opened in the middle of the area, between the Kirbys and Sweetie Belle, and sucked all of them inside without leaving them any chance to escape and making the ponies panic. Seeing that, Meta Knight flew beside the black hole and threw his sword in it just before it disappeared.

"Whatever you will fight now, this is the best I can do to help. Good luck."

---

Sweetie Belle landed with the Kirbys in an unknown area, the sky looking like a maelstrom disappearing in a giant black hole. They then saw Meta Knight's sword fall in front of them, and Pink immediately took it, replacing his sword with it while his green hat disappeared. Just in time, because they could see some giant shadowed figure slowly floating down from the black hole in the sky.

The figure revealed himself to be a being wearing some hideous mask with four long yellow horns. The mouth of the mask was open, showing the being's pink face, with glowing yellow eyes, and two fangs protruding from his mouth. His body was enveloped in a dark blue cloak, and with his arms crossed, they couldn't see much. All they could see were his arms, metal-like with big spikes, and ending in hands with sharp nails. There were also two mirrors floating around him.

"I must say that I wasn't expecting my underling to be beaten. Congratulation."

"Who are you?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Call me Dark Mind." At that, he smiled, and spread his arms, revealing that his body looked like a big red-orange orb with a black eye with orange lines going to the red pupil. That surprised everyone excepted black Kirby, recognizing this orb. "Once I am done with all of you, I will be the supreme ruler of the two worlds! And, I will be your end!"

At this instant, he shot a wave of star-shaped colored projectiles very similar to Nightmare's that Sweetie blocked with her shield. Dark Mind then teleported behind them, and opened his cloak again to shoot more stars. Using Meta Knight's sword, Pink was able to cut through the stars and attack the orb, causing Dark Mind to float back in suffering before teleporting. Once he reappeared, everyone attacked him simultaneously with all they had, the mirrors deflecting some of the attacks. Quickly, he swatted Pink, Red, and Green before shooting stars at Yellow, Black, and Sweetie Belle, the filly using another shield to protect all three of them while Black sent another electric ball at the orb, forcing Dark Mind to disappear.

"At least, he doesn't spam teleport like Marx," Sweetie Belle commented.

When Dark Mind reappeared to throw more stars, she then shot at the orb a charged beam that she had been preparing while Pink stabbed him with the sword. Surprisingly, cracks then appeared on his body, and he broke into mirror shards like Dark Meta Knight. Once the shards disappeared, they were transported to some ruins, with a switch in front of them, a door behind it.

They all raised an eyebrow at that. "What? Already? This can't be over like that!"

Pink looked at the other Kirbys. "Poyo?"

Red shrugged. "Poyo."

Yellow shook his head. "Poyo poyo poyo."

Green put an arm under his mouth and started to ponder. "Poyo?"

Black then showed the door. "Poyo! Poyo poyo! Poyo!"

They all nodded. "Poyo!"

At that, they activated the switch, opening the door, and passed it, leaving a confused Sweetie Belle behind. "Erh... Poyo?"

It didn't take long to reach a mirror door, finding in the way a Maxim Tomato to heal all their wounds, having to pass a door that closed after a few seconds to find it. Passing the mirror door, they ended in a new area with the maelstrom sky, only this time, the floor was the one from the ruins, and there were platforms. They spotted Dark Mind floating down, ready to restart their fight.

He teleported around a few times before surprising them by swinging the mirrors around, using them to ram all of them, knocking all the Abilities from the Kirbys, including Meta Knight's sword. Green was the one catching the sword while red recovered the Spark, and Pink gt the Hammer. The Bomb and the Tornado were lost, however, Dark Mind destroying them with a swat of his hand, leaving Yellow and Black without Abilities. Following that, Dark Mind teleported around again a few more times before shooting his stars. Black inhaled a red one, gaining Fire, while Yellow inhaled a blue one, gaining Ice. Green cut some of the stars before stabbing the orb, Red and Sweetie attacking too both with electricity.

After teleporting a few more times, Dark Mind did again the trick with the mirrors, but seeing this coming, they all ran away, and Sweetie shot a beam, successfully hitting the orb. When he reappeared after a few teleportations, he was attacked by Pink on the head, and he decided to teleport away before attacking by shooting more stars. With the sword, Green opened the charge by cutting the stars, and all together, they attacked the orb, which eventually shattered Dark Mind. With a flash, they were now transported into a cavern.

Sweetie Belle sighed. "How many times will we have to do this?"

"Poyo?" Yellow said.

"Poyo poyo?" Green said.

"Poyo poyo poyo?" Pink said.

"Well, no matter how many times we will have to fight him, we will beat him."

What followed was that they had to choose between four paths, each starting with a Star Block and each going down in water. Separating, Black was the lucky one finding a Maxim Tomato, while Red and Yellow found cherries. Back together, they used the Maxim Tomato to heal before continuing, passing a Gordo, getting out of the water, and finding another mirror door.

Like the previous times, they were now in an area with the maelstrom sky, this one having the floor of the cavern, with some ponds. When Dark Mind appeared, they could see that he started to become irritated. Without losing time, Red threw an electric ball, but Dark Mind placed a mirror in the way. The mirror was destroyed, and the shards then homed in on Red who was saved by Green deflecting them with the sword. To his surprise however, Dark Mind teleported in front of him, grabbed him, and shot a few stars at him, knocking away the sword. Yellow caught the sword and used it to stab Dark Mind and force him to release Green. Dark Mind then turned toward Yellow and slapped him before teleporting around, shooting stars everywhere, too fast to be attacked. Green inhaled a green star to gain an Ability, and ended up having Cutter.

Once he stopped teleporting beside Yellow, about to grab him, Sweetie attacked him with a few beams. Dark Mind saw however the beams coming and placed the mirrors in front of them, stopping three beams while he was hit by the others, and was also stabbed by Yellow. The mirrors were shattered, and the shards now charged toward the filly. Grinding her teeth, Sweetie created a shield to stop the shards, but not just a simple shield, a mirror shield, deflecting the shards. However, Dark Mind teleported before being hit by the shards.

Dark Mind now looked toward Sweetie Belle, seeing that she now had two mirror shields floating around her. He couldn't help but chuckle at this. "Trying to imitate me?"

She smirked. "Why not?"

The mirrors reformed around him, and he immediately used one to ram Yellow about to stab him from behind, knocking away the sword. He still got cut by Green's cutters. Red caught the sword just as Dark Mind teleported beside him, about to ram him with another mirror, only for Red to be wrapped and sent away by Sweetie's whip. All the other Kirbys, except Yellow, took the occasion to attack him, and his body shattered for the third time. They were then transported to an icy mountain beside a tower. It didn't take them long to find the door behind some gate, however, they decided to explore the area to see if there was nothing. And effectively, they found a Maxim Tomato. Now fully healed, and Yellow now possessing the Sword Ability, they took the mirror door.

Back under the maelstrom sky, the area now just possessed an icy floor, making walking around rather difficult, the ice making them slip. Then, Dark Mind floated down above them, clearly angry, and promptly dropped some weird blue ball before trying to ram them with his mirrors, forcing them to step back. The blue ball then started to float, and exploded in a giant explosion that hit all of them, propelling them in all directions and knocking out all the Abilities. Green was able to inhale back the Cutter while Black caught Meta Knight's sword. But all the other Abilities were lost because of Dark Mind teleporting around at great speed, dropping another blue ball between two teleportations while shooting many stars. Seeing the ball, Sweetie quickly attacked it with her own projectiles, promptly destroying it, to Dark Mind's annoyance. Meanwhile, Pink, Yellow, and Red inhaled some of the stars, gaining respectively Spark, Parasol, and Ice. Red now having Ice, he stopped slipping on the icy floor and was able to reach Dark Mind to attack him. Dark Mind then shattered, only to reappear behind Red, sending him flying with a big punch and knocking away the Ice.

He turned toward Black just as he sent a shockwave from the sword. He placed a mirror in the way, and like the previous times, it was shattered, and the shards charged at Black. Sweetie however placed one of her mirror shields in front of Black and reflected the shards back to Dark Mind, who placed his second mirror in the way of the shards to reflect them in the direction of Sweetie Belle before teleporting. He appeared behind the filly just as she reflected the shards again, and rammed her with his mirror, sending her flying. He teleported again in the way and punched her, sending her flying toward Black who was able to catch her, sliding back a long way on the ice.

Pink threw an electric ball from behind, and the shock opened Dark Mind to Yellow's parasol and Green's cutters. He tried to punch Yellow, but the puffball was able to dodge by closing the parasol and dropping at the last second. Meanwhile, Black was joined by Red. They both nodded, and Red inhaled Black before spitting him toward Dark Mind, Black readying the sword. Dark Mind saw him coming and sent a mirror to ram him. Black cut it in two, then slashed the orb, forcing Dark Mind to teleport. Black then turned toward Pink and raised the sword. Pink approached and electrified the sword, covering it in electricity. Sword still raised, Black turned toward where Dark Mind had teleported-beside Red and Sweetie, attacking the both of them-, and swung down the sword, sending a sharp electric shockwave. Meanwhile, Sweetie was able to ram Dark Mind's head with one of her shields before she escaped with Red on her back. At this instant, the shockwave came from behind and cut him with great effects.

With this attack, Dark Mind's body started exploding and glowing white, and the area disappeared into light. When the light disappeared, Sweetie and the Kirbys could see that they were transported to yet another area, on a long, but thin platform floating in the sky. They now seemed to be inside a swirling storm, because they were surrounded by red clouds rapidly flying around them, even above and below. The red reminded both Sweetie and the Kirbys, except Black, of the planet-sized cloud of darkness in which they fought Zero Two.

Speaking of Zero, they spotted Dark Mind, still alive, floating not far from the platform. However, he was now nothing more than the red orb with the black eye, the eye actually closed. The orb then pulsed one, two, three times, before it grew until it became as big as Zero himself, and the eye opened.

Two mirrors appeared around him, and he started moving them in an erratic figure-eight pattern all over the platform, and because of how thin it was, dodging them was almost impossible. Black Kirby was still able to cut one, which seemed to hurt Dark Mind, surprisingly, only for the mirror to turn into four familiar cutter-like blades that almost cut Black. He was saved by Sweetie Belle placing a mirror shield between him and the blades, remembering that the mirrors were turning into homing shards previously. Thanks to the mirror, the shards were deflected toward Dark Mind, but they did nothing to him, Dark Mind closing his eye at the last second to protect himself.

The mirror reformed, and Dark Mind shot a laser at it. The mirror reflected the laser at the other, which reflected it toward Black Kirby, only for Sweetie's mirror to reflect the laser too. She then used her second mirror shield to reflect the laser back at Dark Mind, hitting the eye. She then looked at Black, and they both nodded. Black then jumped on her back, and Sweetie Belle transformed.

Her mane and tail became yellow and all spiky, a yellow aura appeared around her, and she gained wings with yellow sharp feathers.

She smirked. "Showtime."

She flew up, face to face with Dark Mind, and sent some of her yellow feathers toward him. Again, he closed his eye, but Sweetie took the occasion to charge at one of the mirrors, which she cut with her wing while Black sent a shockwave to destroy the other. Now without mirror, Dark Mind flew away and opened his eye, shooting at her a giant laser that she dodged with an aileron roll. He didn't stop, and shot more giant lasers, the filly flying left and right to dodge them as she charged toward him. His lasers not working, Dark Mind sent his now reformed mirrors away and shot a smaller laser at one of them. The laser was reflected toward the second mirror, and the two mirrors then started playing pong with it, forcing Sweetie to keep an eye on it. Before long, the laser was reflected toward her, and she dodged it, only for it to be reflected again a few times before it came back. This time, she reflected it, Dark Mind reflected it back, and now, the two of them were playing a dangerous tennis match. To add difficulty, Dark Mind shot a second laser.

Having enough, Black sent another shockwave toward the eye. Of course, Dark Mind closed it, but thanks to this, he was not able to reflect the lasers, and they disappeared in the storm around them. At this moment, as Dark Mind opened his eye, he received an electric ball, followed by a few cutters. The responsible were Pink and Green, both respectively on Red and Yellow's back, the two last Kirbys inflated to fly. Pink waved happily at Sweetie Belle.

She waved back, then cut a mirror about to ram her with her wings before flying away to avoid the blades it produced. The other mirror rammed Pink and Red, but thankfully, they were able to remain in the air. In retaliation, Sweetie Belle shot a beam at the eye and was able to hit before she had to dodge a big laser. Dark Mind then created from his mirrors clones of various flying enemies, forcing the Kirby to attack them. With them busy to eliminate his minions, Dark Mind flew toward them, the mirrors turning in circle before him, trying to ram them. He was taken in surprise by Sweetie rapidly passing just in front of him, her wing slashing both his eye and the mirrors, stopping him in his course, before he received sharp feathers in his eye.

Then, he did something unsettling: he spun everything upside down including them, somehow, totally screwing up their balance and visual perception. Using that, Dark Mind was able to hit all of them with his mirrors before shooting another big laser toward Sweetie Belle. However, she was still able to dodge the laser simply by letting herself drop. At this moment, the world returned to normal, and after a few seconds, they were all able to regain their senses, and Black sent another shockwave at the eye.

More lasers were shot from Dark Mind toward Sweetie Belle and Black, and she counterattacked by shooting her own beams at him, the mirrors deflecting some of them. The Kirbys were able to approach them, and using a cutter blade like a sword, Green destroyed one while Pink destroyed the other simply by punching it. They were cut by the blades, but at least, they had hurt Dark Mind and stopped the mirrors from reflecting Sweetie's beams. Seeing the way open, Sweetie Belle charged toward the eye, dodged another laser, and cross-slashed it. Black then jumped from her back and gave it a vertical slash before using it to bounce back and land on her before she lost the Ability.

With this last slash, Dark Mind suddenly stopped and closed his eye before he pulsed. With each pulse, he became smaller and smaller, until he returned to his original size. The whole storm then became unstable, they saw the platform start to crumble, and Dark Mind flew away.

Sweetie Belle frowned. "You will not escape!" She turned to the other Kirbys. "We are going! Try to catch up as soon as possible!"

They nodded. "Poyo!"

She nodded back, and flew after Dark Mind, out of the storm, in the sky above the Mirror World. When he saw her flying after him, Dark Mind started shooting his star-shaped projectiles by dozens. She dodged them as much as she could, helped by Black cutting some of them, and shot beams at him in return. He started flying left and right in an erratic pattern, trying to dodge her beams while his projectiles became harder to anticipate. He even charged at her more than once when she expected it the less! Generally, when this happened, she countered it with a slash from her wings.

Soon, his body started exploding, and yet, he continued, still hoping to escape. At this moment, Sweetie Belle and Black were joined by the four other Kirbys on their Warp Stars, and when Dark Mind tried again to charge at her, they charged at him in return, stopping him.

Seeing that Dark Mind was stubborn and refused to die, Sweetie Belle placed both her fore hooves at her right side, and started to charge a huge quantity of energy along with magic, forming a growing energy ball glowing yellow. She put in as much as she can, and thanks to the Ability given by Meta Knight's sword, it was a lot! After a whole minute of charging it, the Kirbys protecting her, she waited for Dark Mind to charge at her again.

"Let him come!"

Once he was close enough, she rapidly put her hooves in front of her and threw a beam of energy bigger than Dark Mind's current form, totally enveloping him inside it. The power of the beam pushed Dark Mind back, and little by little, his body got disintegrated, until he fully disappeared. The beam itself rapidly disappeared in the sky, leaving for a few seconds a sparkling star.

Seeing their enemy dead, Sweetie Belle took a huge breath, then looked at the Kirbys, smiling at them. "We won."

They all raised one of their arms and shouted, "Poyo!" in return.

At that, she saw a Warp Star coming at her left, and Black jumped on it. As Sweetie Belle returned to normal, she quickly created a shield under her to continue to fly, and when her own Warp Star joined her, alongside Meta Knight, she jumped on it. Once Meta Knight was close enough, Black gave him back his sword, and Meta Knight nodded at him in thanks. Black then waved at them as they approached the mirror leading back to Dream Land.

"Already?" Sweetie Belle said. "That was nice to fight alongside you. We form a good team. I won't mind coming back to this world every now and then to explore it, and then, I will visit you."

Black nodded and smiled at her. "Poyo!"

The four other Kirbys waved goodbye at him, and Black flew away, probably to rest after this adventure. Sweetie sure won't mind some rest after all she went through today. Exploring trapped ruins, fighting a robot, fighting an evil mirror counterpart of Meta Knight, and then, fighting the mirror version of Zero and maybe even Nightmare. That was a lot!

One by one, the Kirbys passed the mirror, and she followed them, Meta Knight coming last. Back in the sky of Dream Land, she then watched as whatever Dark Meta Knight did to Kirby seemed to wear off, because the four Kirbys suddenly fused back together.

That was funny, Dark Meta Knight had attacked Kirby thinking to stop him before he became a nuisance, but somehow, his attack hadn't killed Kirby, and had actually split him into four, which caused their doom both at him and his master. As to why his attack had caused this, maybe this had something to do with Kirby being the incarnation of the three Great Forces.

Meta Knight nodded at them and flew away. Sweetie decided to do the same. She said goodbye to Kirby and flew toward the castle, wanting to go to bed as soon as possible.

---

The end appeared in the portal, and Discord started clapping.

"You know," he said to the ponies. "When she comes back to Equestria, you will be out of your job as heroes."

"We can always work alongside her," Pinkie replied.

"I'm not so sure," Rainbow said. She waved at the portal. "By the time she comes back to Equestria, she will be able to beat any bad guys in ten seconds flat! They appear, she comes, she punches them in the face, done!"

Discord laughed. "Then I can't wait for her to come back! Things will become more interesting! And she will be such a good inspiration to the youths! Just, look!" He pointed at Spike, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom, the young ones mimicking the giant beam.

"One day, I will throw giant beams like her!" Spike shouted.

"Me too!" the fillies replied.

"If Sweetie can, then me too!" Scootaloo continued.

"Oh, Celestia..." some of the ponies said.

Chapter 41: Letter

"And then, I put my hooves in front of me, and sent all the energy I accumulated into a giant beam that was even bigger than him! There was nothing left of him!"

The whole lunchroom exploded in cheering and clapping.

"That's our second in command!"

"Long life the Fatal Cutie!"

"That's so bad you didn't record it! I want to see it!"

"You are the best!..... After the king, of course."

"Bear my children!"

"She is a child, you idiot!" BAM!

"Ow!"

Cape Knight was among the ones applauding. "You are becoming really powerful. Maybe one day, you will be able to beat Kirby in a duel."

She giggled. "I still have to win against Dedede and Meta Knight. Only when I beat them can I pretend that I have a chance to win against Kirby. And they are constantly getting stronger too, so it will be hard."

"And so, what is your next step to become more powerful?"

"I have been able to use Kirby's Tornado Ability. Thanks to it, I now have an idea of how to use the wind, so I will now train to use it. Finding a way to turn my body into stone or my fur into needles would be good too. I also have another idea in mind concerning my singing but I'm not yet sure what it will do, without forgetting that I would like to learn how to play music with my horn so I don't need to sing to shoot music notes. I must improve my skills with my new mirror shields, start to train to throw cutter blades, maybe learn to give my shields shapes so they aren't just flat or round... You know? Like give them the shape of a hammer or a sword and use them as an actual weapon! Of course, creating weapons shaped with my magic would be better."

Cape Knight whistled with fascination. "That's a lot. So you want to learn how to use weapons other than your whip?"

"It's always better to have more than one trick."

"Good point. Just, do not overstrain yourself."

"I know, don't worry, I will not train all the time. I will also pass time with my friends, explore Popstar, the other side, the other worlds around, the Mirror World, have fun..."

"Good." He chuckled. "At least, you will not get bored."

"That's for sure!"

"Of course she will not get bored," Broom Sunglasses said. "I'm here to make sure it doesn't happen!"

She huffed. "Don't try to annoy me too much! Or I will get the maid outfit!"

He gulped. "Please! No! I don't wanna die! Wait... You can still wear it?"

The next second, he was turned into an ice block.

---

"And then, she shot that giant energy beam that left absolutely nothing of him!" Scootaloo shouted, mimicking Sweetie Belle's last attack against Dark Mind.

The fillies and colts around her were all in awe at that.

"And that wasn't a magic beam?" Dinky asked.

"There was some magic, I could see her horn glowing. But since she entered that world, she learned how to use her own energy to attack!"

"Like in my video game Road Brawler! In this game, there is this character named Brick Breaker who is an earth pony who can shoot energy balls from his hooves, without magic!" Button Mash said.

"Exactly! Remember, we already talked about it when we told you about the battleship!"

"Now I want her to teach me how to use my energy..."

Apple Bloom sighed. "We'll have ta wait fer her ta come back."

"Will she be able to even come back one day?" Snip asked.

"Discord could bring her back anytime," Apple Bloom answered. "He doesn't do it because he thinks that Sweetie Belle has some role ta play in this world. And so far, he seems ta be right."

"The question is: when will she be able to come back?" Scootaloo continued.

Rumble was the one answering her. "Well, if she is now fighting bad guys in this other world and becoming a hero for it... maybe never... She could remain here and continue to be this world's hero forever."

The two crusaders looked at each other, and both sighed. "The worst..." Apple Bloom said. "is that ya may be right. She now really seems to be okay with all this."

Scootaloo nodded. "Discord told Rarity, who told Rainbow Dash, who told me that Sweetie Belle is now the second of this king who shelters her. Between her hero's duty, and this job, maybe she already considers this world as her new home. Apparently, she has also made many friends over there." She then smiled. "But I'm sure she hasn't forgotten us. She is probably still thinking of us sometime."

Featherweight nodded. "Yes. You three are best friends. Maybe she seemed okay with her situation because she thinks that there are no way home, and she accepted it. But I'm sure she misses you."

"Or maybe she ish trying to find a way home, but until then, she just lives her new life," Twist said.

"Or maybe now that she is somepony important, she forgot about you!" they heard.

They all groaned, but as if she hadn't heard that, Apple Bloom suddenly took a camera from her saddlebag. "Hey! Wanna see Sweetie Belle being a DJ?"

"What? Really?"

"Now I need to see that!"

"Show us! Show us!"

"Hey! Don't ignore me!"

"Shut up! Music time!"

At that, Apple Bloom pushed the play button, and the camera now showed Sweetie Belle with her Vinyl-like look, blasting music notes and sound waves in the rhythm of a really catchy song.

The rest of the recess became a rave party, with a certain pair of fillies left out, to their annoyance.

---

This night, before going to bed, Sweetie Belle opened her closet and took the maid outfit, huffing as she looked at it. Of course I can still put it. And next time he implies that I have gained weight, I WILL put it. She huffed again. Knowing him, it will not be long. At that, she smirked and started to put the outfit. "Let's train to be the most adorable filly maid possible!"

However, once she put the outfit, something rapidly felt wrong. The outfit still fitted her, but she could feel it being a little tighter around her barrel. It would be barely noticeable, but for somepony who had been forced to be a model for her sister dozens of times, that was definitely not 'barely noticeable'.

She looked at herself in the mirror and groaned. What the hay? I actually gained weight? I thought that all the exercise that I got while training was enough to compensate for all the food that I ate! Celestia! I don't even want to think what I would have become if I hadn't started training! She rubbed her head. "Tomorrow, I'm asking Dedede to reduce my portion. And why doesn't he seem to have gained weight him? He eats two times what I eat! Sometime even ten times!" She sighed. Me too, I would like to eat what I want without caring.

She took off the outfit and put it back in the closet before looking at her barrel and poking her belly, feeling indeed that it was a little softer. Yet again, this was absolutely nothing. She could easily still be considered as thin, and so, she didn't over-dramatise it like her sister would do, but she still took these pounds for what they were: a warning that she should watch what she eats, unless she wanted these pounds to accumulate, until she would pass from thin to chubby. And in her actual job as a hero of Popstar, being chubby would make things harder for her. She would become slower, which would make her more vulnerable to the attacks of her enemies. For someone as big and strong as Dedede, he could do with, but for someone as small as her, that was a big no! Or she would have to make her shields stronger to resist anything. And it would make running from traps like the boulder from the previous day harder. Also, she would jump less high and less far. She could still fly thanks to her shield, but you never know when you would need to rapidly jump to avoid an attack. Finally, she would tire quicker, and in a fight, she didn't want to get tired too quickly. So yeah, for her, whether she was able to avoid gaining weight or not was a matter of life and death.

And there was also something else.

She giggled and looked at the Rarity plushie on her bed. "If I come back to Equestria even with just these pounds..." She took the plushie. "she would go all "My little sister has gained weight? This is the WORST. THING. EVER! No ice cream for you anymore!"" While talking as Rarity, she made the plushie mimic her, which caused Sweetie Belle to burst into laughter. As she laughed, she lied down in her bed, and once she calmed, she held the plushie above her head and looked at it, her smile disappearing, before she sighed. "At least, I would see her again... If only I could at least talk to her..." She looked at the other plushies and hugged them. "Talk to all of them..."

"I... could do something about this," a small voice suddenly said.

The suddenness made her bounce in surprise with an "Eep!" before she looked around rapidly. "Who said that? Who is here?"

A miniature version of Discord wearing a blue dress, holding a wand, and having butterfly-like wings appeared in front of her. "I'm your fairy godmother, and I'm here to grant you your wish."

Before he could say more, he was snatched from the air and trapped in a bear hug by Sweetie Belle. "Discord! I have never been this happy to see you!"

"I'm happy to hear that my appearance is not making somepony groaning for once, but could you please release me so I can breathe?"

"You are the Spirit of Chaos. You don't need to breathe."

"Actually, I'm a duplication created by the real Discord to keep an eye on you."

She stopped hugging him. "Really? And since when do you watch me?"

"Since after your fight against Zero Two."

"And why didn't you come to me earlier?"

"Because I wasn't sure how you would react at knowing that I, as in the real me, could have opened a portal to bring you back to Equestria from the start."

"What?!" She put the small Discord in front of her face and looked at him in anger. "He could have brought me back all this time?! Why hasn't he?"

"Because if he had brought you back, you wouldn't have gotten all those friends, you wouldn't have become this powerful, you wouldn't have fought all those bad guys and saved Dream Land, Popstar, Ripple Star, and the Mirror World, you wouldn't have become a hero, and you would have never discovered that you like being a hero. He had some doubts that you ending in this world wouldn't be for nothing. You know. Fate."

Sweetie Belle stared at him for a few seconds. "I can accept that. But why telling me this now?"

"For two reasons. One: now that you have made your mark in this world, you will not ask me hastily to bring you back. Now you know that you have a purpose in this world, and you are ready to wait until the right time to come back. Two: I thought that you would need some... moral support. I could give some news from your friends and family so you wouldn't be feeling so blue like five minute ago. It would be bad if you start to feel depressed because you miss them too much."

"...... Alright. You win. I'm still mad, but I understand your point... So... I will be able to talk to them?"

The small Discord then made a poststallion outfit appear on him. "I was thinking of letters. You write, I send the letter, they write back, everyone is happy!"

She had a small smile at that. "I suppose that this is better than nothing." She then giggled. "So, you will become my 'Spike' then?"

He huffed. "I will not breathe fire to send the letters! And I will definitely not burp them! No, I will find more entertaining ways to send and receive them. I will be your 'Spike 2.0', alias 'Discord'."

She giggled again. "Then I'm gonna start writing. Be ready to send three letters. One for my parents, one for Rarity, and one for my friends Scootaloo and Apple Bloom." She then got out of the bed and went to her desk, taking three papers and a pen. Before she started, she turned back to Discord. "Speaking of them, how are they? How did they take my disappearance?"

Discord lied down on his side on the bed, head on his paw, as he started recounting. "At first, they were very worried. You disappeared, and they didn't know where you landed. Twilight was working hard to try to open a portal to bring you back. Eventually, I told them about your situation, and while they are still worried-you are risking your life fighting nightmarish abominations, after all-, they are still glad to know that you are alright, and they are happy to see what you have become. Now, Twilight still tries to open a portal, but she is not working to the point of becoming half crazy anymore, which was fun to watch while it lasted. By the way, thanks to me, they saw some of your adventures."

"So they saw me fighting?"

"Oh yes, they saw. They saw everything that happened in the Halberd. They also saw your two most recent adventures, fighting those abominations named Zero Two and Dark Mind. Oh, I also gave them a recording of your moment as DJ 5-tar."

She laughed. "Gosh, now I wish I could have seen Rarity's reaction."

"Sadly, the real me is the one that gave the recording to her, so I can't tell."

She pouted. "Aren't you my fairy godmother? Can't you grant my wishes?"

He laughed. "Wow! You return my own joke against me! This never happened! Generally, my jokes either annoy ponies, or are ignored. I feel that I will like our future discussions."

"You can thank this world. It really changed me." She then frowned. "And... what do they think about me... killing?"

"Don't worry about that, they understand. You don't possess your version of the Elements of Harmony to turn your enemies into stone or whatever."

She sighed in relief. "Thank you... I feared that they would think of me as a monster..."

"In a way, you are a monster, in a good sense. Look at how powerful you have become! For an unicorn filly, you could now fight an alicorn like Celestia! Well, she would probably beat you, but you would put up a great fight. So far, only Starswirl, Sombra, Twilight when she was an unicorn, and that anti-Cutie Mark mare are or were skillful enough for that. And they are only skillful at magic! However, you, you know how to fight both with your magic, with a weapon, and with your own body. I can already tell that when you will have fully developed your potential, you could even fight the Dragon Lord himself. Hydras and Ursa Majors will be a mere nuisance to you. The Everfree Forest will be your playground. Tartarus? A training camp full of punching bags."

"Hey! Hey! Don't you think you are going a little too far?"

"Pish posh! In the space of a few months, you passed from a powerless filly to one of the most powerful warriors of this world. And you continue to gain in strength, skill, and power. If this continues, how powerful do you think you will be once you reach adulthood?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but closed it after a few seconds, not being able to say anything.

"Exactly. It's a little like Kirby. He is just a kid, even younger than you, I can say, and yet, he actually possesses the title of Most Powerful Warrior of Popstar. Who can guess how powerful he will be as an adult?"

"Well, he is the incarnation of Soul, Heart, and Dream, the three Great Forces of this universe. I wouldn't be surprised if he becomes, like, the successor of the Dark God, without the Dark part."

"Mmh... Now I wonder if you will become a god too."

"No way! I'm just a pony!"

"Celestia and Luna were just ponies too, but today, they are considered like gods, especially Celestia."

"But they are not gods. YOU are not a god, you speak of yourself as just a spirit, a demigod, and yet, you were able to best both Celestia and Luna in the past."

"That's true. Well, at least you could become god-like."

She shook her head. "Uh uh. I don't believe I will become that powerful."

"Oh, we will see, my dear overpowered filly." At that, Sweetie Belle started to write a letter. Discord then chuckled and said, "You and Kirby are so alike, while also being so opposite... You are both powerful, but he can only have one Ability at a time while you accumulate them one by one. He is a hot head while you are more careful. You are both great at making friends, you are both adorable, but you are hardworking while he passes most of his time eating and napping." He smirked. "You two form a really good couple."

"Eep!" She rapidly turned around to look at Discord, her cheeks red. "He is not my coltfriend!"

"I think the word to use in this case would be 'boyfriend', and keep telling yourself that. Poor filly in denial."

"Whatever!" She returned to writing her letters. "I will give the letters to you tomorrow, it's too late to send them. They are probably about to go to bed, if they aren't already sleeping. However, for Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, you will have to wait until they get out of school. Wouldn't want you to get in trouble with your marefriend for interrupting school."

It was Discord's turn to get red. "Fluttershy is not my marefriend!"

She smirked. "I never named Fluttershy. Got you!"

He stuttered, and after a few seconds of watching Sweetie Belle in amazement, he got a proud smile. "Oh... You sneaky little rascal!"

She stuck out her tongue toward him at that.

---

The next day, in Discord's house in his chaotic dimension.

"Mmh... Yes. A glue-like cake that will keep her mouth closed and prevent her from eating more should be funny enough. Oh, I laugh just thinking about her reaction. Alright, this prank is Discord approved." A pen noted something on paper. "Now... Oh! I know! A 'legendary' talking book of universal knowledge for Twilight! But the book will tell her wrong things! Knowing her, she will think that what the book says is the truth, and make a fool of herself one way or another! Perfect! Perfect! Notes that!" The pen noted more. "Who else... Maybe I could-"

Suddenly, a hole appeared in the air beside Discord, and the mini-him poked his head through it with a few papers in his claw. "I have some mail!"

"Oh! Mini-me! What a surprise! Mail from who?"

"From Sweetie Belle, to Rarity, her parents, and her two chaotic friends."

Discord raised an eyebrow. "You revealed yourself?"

"She was starting to get a little depressed, so I thought that it was a good time for me to appear, and I proposed to her to become her 'Spike 2.0' so to say."

He huffed. "So I will have to send the letters that she writes to her family and friends?"

"And what they will write back to her."

"You could have talked about this to me."

"I'm you. If I'm okay with this, you are."

"True. Now give me these letters."

Mini-Discord gave them. "By the way, Sweetie Belle is a really good conversation partner. She returns my jokes against me like she returns projectiles to their sender with her mirrors. She has become so entertaining to talk to."

"Really now? Then I will make sure to visit her often once she comes back to Equestria."

"Of course. Just make sure to not joke about her potential relationship with Kirby around her. She will make you regret it. Here is a clue: it concerns Fluttershy."

Discord guffawed. "Oh that's glorious! 'Embarrass me, and I embarrass you!' Now I know that I will love talking to her!"

"I know, because I love it! Now, I must go back to be at her side. Ciao!" At that, his head returned in the hole, and the hole disappeared, leaving Discord alone.

---

Rarity was in a cabin in the train, watching the land passing rapidly beyond the window. She was coming back from Canterlot, where she was able to open her own boutique, making her dream come true. While there had been some... problems, right now, she was the happiest mare in Equestria, even if there was a shadow to her happiness. Once she had told everypony that she had been about to open a boutique in Canterlot, they had been so happy for her. However, she really regreted to not have been able to tell the news to Sweetie Belle. The filly would probably be bouncing around in joy at her sister accomplishing her dream.

She closed her eyes and sighed. She really missed her sister...

She stopped watching the window and looked down, her thoughts now focused on Sweetie Belle. That was when she saw that she was not alone anymore in the cabin. Indeed, sitting in front of her, reading an upside down newspaper while wearing blue and red glasses and a black fedora with dots of all colours was Discord. Normally, seeing the draconequus would make her groan in annoyance, because when he appeared, problems generally followed, but right now, he was also the only means to have news about her sister. So, despite his sudden appearance making her jump in surprise, she smiled at him.

"Yes. I do have news about Sweetie Belle," Discord said, predicting her question. He then showed an envelope that had been hidden by the newspaper. "For you, my dear."

She took the envelope and looked at it. "A letter from Sweetie Belle?!"

He nodded. "From now on, the mini-me will serve as an intermediary between her and you. And by you, I mean everypony." He gave her a blue box. "Write a letter, put it in this box, and the mini-me will receive it, and give it to Sweetie Belle. Now I must go, I have two more letters to give. Good reading." And he disappeared.

Rarity immediately opened the envelope and started reading the letter.

Hello Rarity!

It's me, Sweetie Belle! I hope that you are alright! I miss you so much! Discord told me that you saw some of my adventures, and that you know what I have become. I know that this was certainly not what you had in mind about my future, but who knew that I would become a hero in another dimension? I hope that you are not mad at Twilight for sending me here, because it was an accident, and my fault. I shouldn't have barged like that. I thought that she was just reading a book, like every time!

Anyway. It took me some time to get used to this weird dimension. We can breathe in water, walk on clouds, go in space, there are those black doors that are turning me crazy, there is food everywhere, the inhabitants love fighting for no reason, and everything is pretty much possible, even the craziest things. Do you know that I had to stop the sun and the moon from fighting each other? Well, in the end, they stopped fighting to save Popstar by stopping that wish-granting planet-sized clockwork star named Nova that was flying toward it. Yeah, you thought that what happened to Ponyville was crazy? Think again.

At least, it's peaceful (well, almost), and many people are nice to me. First, there is Waddle Dee, now named Bandana Waddle Dee, who is the first who helped me the day I appeared in this world. I appeared above Dedede's cake and crashed into it, which made him really mad. But Bandana Dee was able to calm him, and since then, he has been at my side, and has been a great help with learning about this world. Then, there is Dedede. Self-proclaimed King of Dream Land, and has an ego probably bigger than Rainbow Dash's. He can be really selfish (he stole once all the food of Dream Land), and is very brutal. But after being calmed down by Bandana Dee, he accepted to give me shelter, at the condition that I work for him. At first, that was as a servant, but once he saw my magic, and how much potential I had with it, he started training me to fight Kirby, he let me eat at his table, and became nicer and nicer. He is still a jerk sometime, and he can be very rough, but I now trust him. Beside, despite his selfishness, he really cares for Dream Land and the ones under his command. He has helped, or tried to help protect Dream Land and Popstar more than once, and you saw how he helped us saving Ripple Star. There are also Broom Sunglasses, who is fun, but also very annoying; Cape Knight, the captain of Dedede's army, serious, sage, strong, always honest, who helped me training by giving me some good advice; and Knuckle Joe, a very excited, somewhat clumsy, very kind specialist in martial arts who helped me discovering my energy, which you probably saw me using to throw energy balls for example, and who made me much more stronger with his really hard physical training. At this point, I have become friends with at least half of Dedede's army.

I made many other friends, starting with Rick the hamster, Coo the owl, Kine the fish, ChuChu the octopus, Nago the cat, and Pitch the bird, and their relatives. There is Gooey, a Dark Matter that has been able to gain a soul and to become nice. Adeleine, a human girl that can give life to what she paints. Marx, a powerful jester who is a little like Discord. Whispy Wood, a talking tree that likes fighting, but is still nice to be around, and his apples are delicious! Acro the orca. Ribbon, Queen Ripple, and all the other fairies. Meta Knight. A robot named Waly...

The most special of all is clearly Kirby. If there is someone that could represent all the Elements of Harmony, it would be him. He is my best friend in Popstar, and also my rival. We are very similar, while also being opposites in many points. Together, we saved Popstar and Ripple Star from the Dark Matters, destroyed Meta Knight's battleship the Halberd to stop him from conquering Dream Land, explored a dozen worlds, saved a mirror dimension, and fought many powerful foes. He can inhale someone or something to gain an Ability, like Fire, Ice, Wheel, Ninja, Fighter, Mirror, or Mike, and when he goes on my back, his current Ability is shared with me, making me do things that I never thought that I would do one day! Like, you saw me when I became a ninja! And there was that time where I gained jet wings, and I could fly really fast! Thanks to it, I gained the knowledge on how to use my magic to copy those Abilities (provided that I have enough magic), and now, I can shoot fireballs or ice balls from my horn for example. He is one of the main reasons I have become so powerful today. Now, I am considered the fourth most powerful warrior of Popstar behind Dedede, Meta Knight, and Kirby himself. Oh, and I am also Dedede's second in command. I don't know if you knew this.

It's really good living in Dream Land, when it is not threatened. It always seems to be spring, but there are some places where it's like it's always summer, autumn, or winter. One day, maybe, I will show you around. I also wouldn't mind living here once I am an adult. I mean, I can now tell that my place is in this dimension. I am one of Popstar's Guardians, and Dedede's second. I will come back! Equestria is still my home! And I want to see all of you again! And I probably have tons of homework too... But Dream Land is where I want to move on. Hopefully, we will find a way to go back and forth between Equestria and Dream Land.

I love you, Rarity, and I can't wait to see you again. I have plushies of all of you on my bed to help me keep my moral when I feel alone. At least, thanks to Discord, I should feel better. When I will be back, I will cook you a cake. Don't worry, I have learned to cook. The Cook Waddle Dees helped.

By the way... I will just say it now just in case. I have gained weight. I know! The horror! The horror! But hey! I live in a castle where the king could beat Pinkie Pie in an eating contest! And I'm eating at his table almost every day! And like I told you, there is food absolutely everywhere. I can't walk five minute without finding something to eat. And you know how I love ice creams, cookies, and candies. And there is the fact that the food in Popstar is absolutely delicious, making it hard to resist. Without forgetting that in my adventures, I have to eat food to heal. At least, thanks to my training, and all the exercise that I get with it, I only gained a few pounds, and it's so small that I just discovered about it this night. Now that I know about it, I will try to lose it, but I can't promise it because of the reasons I told previously. At least I will try to not gain more weight. So, when I come back to Equestria and you see me a few pounds heavier, please, don't make a scene about it, ok?

Your little sis' Sweetie Belle.

Rarity wiped tears from her eyes, and giggled. "Don't worry Sweetie Belle. Once you come back, I will be too busy hugging you to make a scene about your weight. Oh..." She hugged the letter. "Please Sweetie Belle. Come back quick."

---

Rarity stepped out of the train in Ponyville's station and was greeted by all her friends as well as Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, the fillies and Pinkie Pie possessing big smiles.

"Did you receive one?" they shouted together.

"Are you talking about this letter?" she asked while showing Sweetie's letter.

"Yes! Me and Scoot received one too!" Apple Bloom said.

"What did she tell you?!" Scootaloo asked.

"She told me about what happened the first day, she described her friends, Popstar, a little of what she has done, and told that she would like to live in Dream Land once she is a mare. She also warned me that she has gained a little weight and that she will try to lose it."

"She told us the same thing! Well, except the weight part. She has really gained weight? She didn't seem different when we saw her the other day," Apple Bloom said.

"A little weight. Just a few pounds. Nothing really visible, especially watching from a portal."

"She also told us that she tried to get her Cutie Mark in many things, but failed each time despite doing well most of the time," Scootaloo continued.

Applejack laughed. "That filly is sure not losing north!"

"Yeah. She told for example that she tried ta be a sailor, but she almost sunk the ship," Apple Bloom added.

This made Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie roll on the floor laughing while Rarity sighed. "Why am I not surprised?" She looked back toward the Crusaders. "So, if you received a letter, I suppose that mother and father received one too. Nopony else?"

Her friends all answered negatively.

"I wonder what Sweetie Belle has written to her parents," Apple Bloom said.

"They are on vacation," Rarity replied. "We won't know until they come back." She then looked at everypony. "Now, let's all answer her back."

They all cheered at that.

"Oh! I'm gonna find Twist, Dinky, and all the others from school! They will want to write something too!" Scootaloo shouted before she ran out of the station.

"Find us at Sugarcube Corner!" Pinkie Pie yelled after her. She then bounced in front of Rarity. "Let's go! Let's go! I want to start!"

"Lead the way, Pinkie."

The next instant, they started their way toward the bakery.

"By the way," Twilight said. "How did it go at Canterlot with your new boutique?"

"Oh, I have so much to say!"

---

"Get down from here! You are making holes in the ceiling!" Dedede shouted.

"But it's so much fun to walk upside down!" Sweetie Belle replied.

"You can do it outside! There are many caverns around the castle!"

"Aww..." The next second, she dropped from the ceiling.

Dedede huffed. "I know that you are excited about your new shield-claws to climb the walls, but that's not a reason to turn the castle into cheese."

She crossed her hooves. "One day, I will find a way to walk on walls without making holes, like when I was a ninja."

"Until then, don't walk on the wall or ceiling with those shield-claws. Understood?"

"Yes. Understood."

At that, Dedede left Sweetie Belle, and the filly returned to the ring, actually empty.

"That's too bad," she then heard Discord say. "I loved your Spiderfilly display."

She shrugged. "I will have more occasions to do it. I need to train to be upside down in case I encounter another enemy that can do like Dark Mind."

"That was one crazy move. That's clear. Also..." A magician hat appeared on his head. He took it and put his paw in it, all the way to the shoulder. He searched in it for a moment before he got is paw out, with two envelopes. "You got letters!"

She gasped, and took them. "Thank you!" She immediately opened one and read the letter. Very quickly, tears fell on her cheeks. "It's... It's a letter written by everypony. Rarity, Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, Twilight, the others, but also Cheerilee, and my comrades. They..." She put a leg on her eyes, trying to stop her tears. "They all miss me. They are also happy to know that I am doing well, and that they can't wait for me to come back. Rarity tells that she finally opened a boutique in Canterlot, and that she is proud of me... Apple Bloom and Scootaloo find me awesome and want me to teach them how to shoot energy beams." She laughed at that while still crying. "Pinkie as at least ten parties ready for me... Twilight says that she is doing all she can to bring me back... Cheerilee says that she misses me at school... Th-they are also congratulating me for everything I have done... Th... They... They all... They all..."

Discord patted her. "Hey now. Don't become a mop already. You still have a letter."

"R-right..." She wiped her tears and opened the second letter. "It's... from Mom and Dad. They say that they miss me and that they are proud of me too." She started laughing. "Dad asks me to be captain of a hoofball team for Ponyville. And... Wait..."

When you come back, will you present us to your coltfriend, the pink ball?

"Discord! Give me a paper and a pen! I must answer to my parents!"

"Here you go!" he said as he gave what she asked.

---

A letter appeared in Cookie Crumbles' hoof as the couple was eating in a restaurant somewhere.

"Oh? Already?" She opened it, then laughed.

"What does she says?" her husband asked.

She gave the letter to him. "There. Read."

He read, then started laughing too.

Kirby is not my coltfriend!!!

---

Meanwhile, in the mirror world, a figure approached the mirror at the center of the circled wall that Sweetie and Meta Knight used to join the Kirbys to fight Dark Meta Knight.

"Yes. This mirror is perfect." With his six hands, the figure took the mirror and looked at it. "It's sublime. I'm sure that my queen will love it for her birthday."

At that, the figure started to fly away with the mirror, not seeing the purple energy that it leaked.

Chapter 42: A Colorful Adventure Begins

The few days following the letters were rather uneventful for Sweetie Belle, which was not a bad thing. Outside of her now daily routine consisting of training and passing good times with her friends, nothing really special happened, not even in the castle. The only interesting thing that happened had been when Mirror Kirby came to warn her that someone had stolen the Great Mirror. She had spread the message to everyone else, but so far, they hadn't found it or the thief. Sweetie suspected the Squeak Squad, but good luck to find those rodents.

The day she gets her hooves on them, they will have a bad time.

She also learned that Dedede put the cursed chest in the royal treasury among all the other treasures. She couldn't help but facehoof at that. What if the Squeak Squad comes to steal the treasures, and takes the chest, thinking that it contains something of value? But after that, Sweetie Belle had gotten an idea. Now, if the Squeak Squad tried to steal anything in the treasury, especially the cursed chest, they will have an explosive surprise. She sneakily laughed thinking about that.

Gosh, Dedede was really rubbing off on her. She should stop listening to him forming plans to defeat Kirby.

She didn't tell anyone about Discord. The Draconeequus was clear that he will do nothing to interfere with her new life and her new friends, and will only do something if she was about to get killed, and they would probably be weirded out knowing that they were watched by this unpredictable being. With that, Discord only talked to her when she was alone. At least, when they talked together, they had really animated discussions. He really loved having somepony talking to him (almost) at his level.

Right now, she was strolling around Dream Land, taking some cool fresh air. The stroll was also an excuse to train her shield-claws, climbing trees to sit on their branches and take the view, or even have a quick nap. It was as she was sitting on a branch that she saw Kirby coming, apparently strolling around too.

When the puffball was walking beside the tree where she was, she raised her hoof and shouted, "Hey! Kirby!" Hearing her, Kirby looked around, trying to spot her. She laughed. "Up there!"

He looked up and finally saw her. He smiled and wave his arm. "Hii!"

"Hello! Taking a stroll too?"

He nodded. "Poyo!"

She jumped from the branch and landed beside him. "Can I come with you? I won't mind some company."

He nodded again.

"Thank you." As they started walking together, she continued talking. "You know? I have been able to find a way to contact my family and my friends in my homeworld."

"Poyo?"

"Yes. It was so nice to talk to them, even if it was just by letters. I told them everything I could think of, and in return, they told me what happened in Equestria."

Kirby bounced in joy at hearing that. His friend had contacted her homeworld! He was so happy for her! To congratulate her, he hugged her.

She hugged him in return. "Thank you Kirby. It has been important to me. I really miss them."

Kirby rubbed her back at that, before letting her go with a big smile. Sweetie Belle returned his smile before she spotted something weird in the sky behind him. Focusing on it, she could see that the clouds looked... different. They looked like they had been painted.

"Kirby? Is it normal?"

"Poyo?" He turned around and looked at the clouds. Seeing their state, he raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Poyo?"

As they watched, they saw that more clouds were suddenly taking various colors. Not only them, but the sky above them was changing color too, with some red, purple, yellow, or orange adding to the blue, all the colors swirling around in a chaotic pattern that Discord was probably finding of his tastes. Whatever phenomenon was causing this, it was spreading rapidly, and soon, they could see the earth, the trees, the rocks, and everything else starting to change color too. The whole landscape was becoming like a giant painting made by some painter of one of those artistic movements that liked to put colors everywhere to 'exprime their feelings' or whatever.

Sweetie Belle frowned. "That's new."

"HEEEHEHEHEHEHE!!!"

A sudden, very high-pitched laugh was heard coming from the sky. Both Sweetie and Kirby looked up and spotted some being flying, a paintbrush floating beside them. With one swing of the paintbrush, and another high-pitched laugh, the landscape around the two of them underwent the same transformation than they saw previously, turning into a mess of colors. From where they were, they could already see that the being was a female in some purple robe with a purple witch hat.

"Bad guy spotted," Sweetie Belle said. She started to charge a beam while huffing. "She seems to have fun, but turning the landscape into Colorland is a little too much. Sorry for her, but her fun must stop."

"Poyo."

She looked at the color witch, took her time to aim, and just when the witch stopped to swing her paintbrush again, she shot her charged beam at her. The beam took the witch by surprise and hit her from below, the force throwing her a few meters up. The witch quickly recovered and spotted them.

Both Sweetie and Kirby prepared themselves for a fight, thinking that the witch will come at them, but to their surprise, the witch flew away.

"Hey! Come back here!" Sweetie Belle shouted at the witch, in vain. She turned toward Kirby. "Quick, Kirby! Jump on me!"

"Poyo!"

Kirby did as she asked, and once he was on her back, Sweetie created a shield-platform and jumped on it. With the platform, they chased the witch in the sky. The chase didn't last long, because they saw the witch disappear in a rainbow-framed swirling canvas. Sweetie looked toward Kirby, both of them gulped, and they flew through the portal.

The portal led them... they were not sure where exactly. It seemed to be a painted land that looked like Dream Land, with hills and small mountains everywhere. Green was clearly the main color of this place.

They looked around in wonder. "Do you recognize this place Kirby?"

Kirby shook his head.

They quickly spotted the witch not far, still flying away. Not wanting to let her escape, Sweetie enveloped both her and Kirby in a round shield and charged at the witch at great speed. The witch only saw them coming at the last second when she looked above her shoulder, and was not able to avoid being rammed from the back. Sweetie didn't stop her charge, and the three of them crashed in the green land below, leaving a small crater with them at the center, Sweetie standing beside the witch as she started to fly again, this time facing them.

With the witch this close, Sweetie had no problem seeing her in more details. She couldn't see her face, the witch hiding it behind some pink cloth, letting only her yellow eyes visible. She had long blue-gray hair, and what seemed to be a purple body that she could barely spot under the robe. She could also spot a yellow thing under the robe, but she was not sure what it was. Her robe, while purple, possessed blue and yellow parts at the bottom, and white and yellow zigzag patterns at the center, where it opened to show a small part of her body. There was also a pink fabric at the base of her hat, and golden shoulder pads at both sides of the pink cloth covering her face.

"Alright, witch!" Sweetie Belle shouted. "Bring Dream Land back to normal, and we will let you go. If you refuse..." She took her whip. "then we will force you!"

"HEEHEHEHEHEHE!!!"

"That's not funny! We are serious!"

"Poyo!"

The witch suddenly showed her underside, where the yellow body part moved, revealing it to be some mouth, while the body itself seemed round. The mouth opened and shot some purple energy ball toward them. They easily dodged the ball with a jump, and Sweetie counterattacked by shooting a beam, hitting the witch in the face. It clearly hurt the witch, but despite that, she continued laughing.

"Will you stop laughing?!"

"HEEHEHEHEHEHEHE!!!"

A framed canvas appeared beside the witch, and with the paintbrush, she painted a bomb with a parachute. The next instant, half a dozen of these bombs appeared above Sweetie and Kirby. Taking the occasion, Kirby inhaled some of the bombs before spitting them at the witch while Sweetie destroyed the remaining bombs. The spit bombs stunned the witch, and Sweetie Belle took the occasion to attack her with her whip multiple times before finishing with a charged beam that greatly hurt the witch.

"HEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!!!"

"Shut up!"

"HEEHEHEHEHEHEHE!!!"

Taking the paintbrush again, the witch charged toward them. Then, with a swing of the paintbrush, she splashed colors on them, forcing them to close their eyes. A second swing of the paintbrush, this time directly on their bodies, caused a weird feeling to Sweetie Belle. When she was able to rub off the paint and open her eyes, she looked at her body, but saw that nothing seemed to have happened. She then looked at Kirby and gasped.

Kirby had lost his limbs, turning him into a simple pink ball with a face!

"Poyo?" Kirby tried to move, but it only caused him to roll a little, ending with his face upside down. "Poyo..."

"HEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!!!"

Sweetie looked back at the witch, anger filling her. "Turn Kirby back to normal!"

"HEEHEHEHEHEHEHE!!!"

"And stop laughing!"

Sweetie Belle decided to attack again, and shot another beam at her. But strangely, no beams were shot from her horn. Confused, under the witch's laughter, she tried again, with the same result. Annoyed, she put a hoof on her horn to see what the problem was, only for the hoof to touch nothing.

...

...

...

"YOU TOOK MY HORN?!!"

"HEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!!!"

At this instant, the witch flew away.

"HEY!!" Seeing that the witch was not stopping, Sweetie Belle looked at the Kirby ball.

"Poyo?"

"Sorry Kirby." She took him, tossed him up, jumped after him, and kicked him violently. Kirby found himself flying toward the witch very rapidly.

"POYOOOOO!!!"

"HE?!"

The witch heard him and looked above her shoulder only to be hit in the face by Kirby. Unbeknown to her, Kirby bounced from her face and hit the paintbrush, knocking it away. The witch however quickly recovered from the hit and rammed Kirby with her body, sending him back beside Sweetie Belle before flying away, laughing again.

"COME BACK HERE!"

But it was no use. Before long, the witch was just a speck in the horizon. Defeated, Sweetie Belle sighed and sat beside Kirby, both of them looking down. That witch! Taking away her horn and Kirby's limbs!

She looked at Kirby in determination. "Don't worry Kirby, I don't have my magic anymore, but I can still fight. I will go after her, and force her to bring everything back to normal, including us."

Kirby nodded, before sighing. "Poyo..."

She rubbed him. "Sorry Kirby, seems like you will not be able to do much this time..."

Before Kirby could nod in understanding, he spotted the witch's paintbrush not far. Rolling, he approached it, and turned toward Sweetie Belle. "Poyo!"

Sweetie Belle joined him and looked at the paintbrush. "You think we could use it?"

He nodded, and Sweetie touched the paintbrush to see if it did anything. Just after touching it, the paintbrush started to float before coming beside Sweetie Belle, floating at her left. She then felt in her mind a connection appearing.

"Uh?"

Testing this new connection, she was able to swing the paintbrush with just a thought, creating by the same occasion a rainbow colored line in the air. The line disappeared a few seconds later. She looked at the paintbrush, then at Kirby, and painted another line, starting from the floor before making a slope going up, and walked on it. To her surprise, she started sliding in the same direction she had painted the line, making her go up, until reaching the end where she fell back to the ground. Once on the floor, she saw that Kirby had been able to follow her on the line. At that, she smiled.

"Maybe you will not be forced to remain on my back, finally."

"Poyo!" Kirby shouted in joy.

She looked at the paintbrush. "Thanks to this paintbrush, it will be easy to chase this witch, even without my magic!"

At this moment, the paintbrush floated away and started to paint something in the air.

"Poyo?"

"I don't know Kirby, I'm not the one making it move this time!"

The paintbrush finished painting, revealing to have actually written with rainbow colored lines DRAWCIA.

"Drawcia?" Sweetie Belle tilted her head. "Is it the witch's name?"

The paintbrush bounced up and down in the air, as if to nod.

"Wait... You are alive?"

It bounced up and down again.

"Nice... to meet you... You are going to help us?"

It nodded again.

"But isn't Drawcia your mistress?"

This time, it went left and right, saying "No."

"Oh. You were forced by her?"

It nodded.

"Well then, nice to have you in the team."

At that, the paintbrush returned at Sweetie's left. Sweetie then looked at Kirby, and they smiled at each other before walking/rolling in the direction where Drawcia had flown away.

Chapter 43: I Wanna Play a Game

Author's Notes:

Just a little warning about what I have planned with the bosses of Canvas Curse. If you don't know, in Canvas Curse, without counting Drawcia herself, there is only three different bosses, that we each fight two times. And those are not even real fights, but mini-games. Without revealing what I prepared for them, just know that each boss will be fought only once, every two worlds. I thought that doing two times the same mini-games with the same bosses would be repetitive.

Discord appeared behind Twilight in her bedroom, the mare too focused reading a book on her bed to notice him. He stifled a laugh before taking two cymbals and smashing them together above her head. The sudden violent noise made her fly up, right through the ceiling, leaving Discord bending in laughter.

"Bwahahahahaha!!!"

Twilight's head poked through the hole in the ceiling, and she glared at him. "Sometimes, I hate you."

"Oh, excuuuuse me, princess! I just had to do it! You are just so easy to surprise!"

She flew back, clenching her teeth. "Now, I will have to deal with that hole. Thank you Discord."

Discord snapped his fingers, and the hole disappeared before he smiled smugly. "You are welcome."

She sighed. "Are you here just to mess with me, or do you have something to say to me?"

"Yes, I'm here to warn you that Sweetie is on another adventure."

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Already? It has been barely a week since the last one."

"You can't choose when the next bad guy will appear. But that's why I wanted to warn you first. As nice as it is to watch Sweetie Belle and her friends dominating monsters that would put the likes of Chrysalis or Nightmare Moon to shame, I know full well that some ponies have better things to do."

"You? Taking into consideration what others are doing? Is that really you Discord?"

"Hardy har har. You can thank Fluttershy for this. So, warn your friends, and see if they can all come. But be quick, it has already started. Mini-me told me that they were chasing the bad guy."

"Alright. Give me a minute."

She made a paper and a feather appear in front of her with her magic, and wrote.

Sweetie Belle is on another adventure. Can you come? If yes, then say 'yes' while holding the letter, and it will teleport you to me.
Twilight

She then duplicated the letter into five copies, gave them the spell to bring her friend if they say yes, and teleported them. Five seconds later, and Rarity appeared, quickly followed by Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. Fluttershy came next half a minute later, and after another half, Applejack appeared too.

"So you could all come? I'm glad," Twilight said.

"I warned Big Mac before coming."

"I was finishing preparing Angel's food."

"I couldn't say no at seeing my little sister again."

"And I couldn't say no to more awesome fights!"

"I can't wait to see what is the new bad guy! Will this be another giant eyeball?"

"Please, Pinkie, no! Not all bad guys are eyeballs!" Rarity said.

Pinkie looked around. "Where is Spike?"

"Probably reading his comic books in his chamber," Twilight answered.

Discord snapped his fingers, and Spikes appeared in the middle of the group, reading, indeed, a comic book of the Powerponies.

Feeling that he was not on his bed anymore, he looked up in confusion. "Uh?" He saw everypony united, along with Discord. "More of Sweetie Belle's bizarre adventures?"

"Yup!" Pinkie Pie answered. "Sadly, I don't think we will see her doing 'ora ora'."

"Or 'muda muda'," Discord continued.

"What?" they all asked in confusion.

"Forget it. Let's just watch what is going on," Discord said with a wave of his paw before he opened a portal and made chairs appear for the ponies.

When the portal appeared, they saw Sweetie Belle walking alongside Kirby, with a paintbrush floating at her left. They were in a place that seemed to come right out of a painting, confusing greatly the ponies. But what was more confusing was that Kirby was now just a ball without any limbs, and Rarity quickly spotted that Sweetie Belle didn't have her horn anymore.

"Alright. What the heck happened?" Applejack asked.

"We seem to have missed something important," Discord said.

"You sure missed!" they heard from the portal. At this instant, the mini-Discord appeared at the other side of it, looking at them.

"Report, soldier!" Discord shouted.

Before mini-Discord could say anything, they saw Sweetie Belle punching a Waddle Dee that had been charging at her. When the Waddle Dee fell KO, he disappeared in a puddle of paint, to everyone's surprise, including both Sweetie Belle and Kirby.

"Oh? Enemies are creations of Drawcia here?" She looked at the enemies that followed, and more precisely, at a Waddle Dee at the front, and smirked toward him, making him sweat in panic. "So, that means that I don't have to hold back?"

She swung the paintbrush from her to the Waddle Dee, creating a direct rainbow line. She quickly jumped on the line, gliding on it with just her hind hooves, and prepared a punch, enveloping her hoof with energy. As she rapidly approached the Waddle Dee, the terrified enemy turned around to run away. But too late, and Sweetie Belle was able to hit him on the back. The power of the energy boosted punch added with the momentum of the fast gliding provoked the creation of a small shockwave as the hoof connected with the back of the Waddle Dee, and the poor guy found himself flying so fast that everyone could barely see him. The flying Waddle Dee hit in the way some of his comrades alongside a few Star Blocks before he finally crashed into a wall where he exploded, scattering paint all around the impact area.

The remaining enemies that hadn't been hit, a few Waddle Dees and Bronto Burts, looked at the remains of the punched Waddle Dee in horror, before turning to look at the filly now smirking toward them.

"Still wanna try your luck?"

Drawcia's minions then took a determined expression and all charged at her at the same time. At that, she huffed, and she threw the paintbrush at one of the Bronto Burts, hitting him between the eyes and stunning him, before she bounced at the paintbrush, grabbed it, and with a swing, clobbered a Waddle Dee about to punch her. She then grabbed the stunned Waddle Dee and used him like a club to hit the other Waddle Dees around her before throwing him at another Bronto Burt. She then saw the first Bronto Burt waking up and she prepared to attack him, but the Bronto Burt found himself attracted by a vortex, and his life ended in Kirby's stomach. With one quick charge, Kirby then headbutted a Waddle Dee and bounced on him to hit another Bronto Burt. Using the paintbrush, Sweetie drew a line that Kirby used to go from one Bronto Burt to another, and eliminated them one by one. Sweetie ended the small battle by wrapping her whip around the last Waddle Dee that had remained a little too far and forced him to come closer before she used the paintbrush as a baseball bat and sent the Waddle Dee flying high in the sky where he collided with a flying platform, leaving a paint stain under it.

"There. If Drawcia saw this, I hope that she now understands that she shouldn't have taken my horn, and that she is doomed. Let's go Kirby."

Kirby looked at Sweetie Belle, sweat visible on his head, before he nodded. And so, the two continued, and rapidly passed a door.

Discord waved his paw. "Ouch. She seems pissed. I wouldn't like to be at the place of her enemies."

"I certainly don't want to take the punch she gave to that Waddle Dee," Rainbow Dash said. "It seemed to hurt a lot."

"Yeah. She could destroy my trees," Applejack said.

"So what happened?" Rarity asked. "Why doesn't she have her horn?"

As they saw Sweetie Belle and Kirby fight their way, and even inhale a Waddle Doo to gain an Ability, mini-Discord spoke.

"A painting witch appeared and made as if a foal had painted Dream Land. Sweetie Belle and Kirby fought her, but she used this paintbrush to take Kirby's limbs and Sweetie's horn before fleeing. But Sweetie has been able to take the paintbrush from the witch, and now, they are chasing her."

"A magic user that can change the colors of a whole kingdom and remove body parts?" Twilight asked. "A cousin of you Discord?"

They saw Kirby eating a Wheelie before jumping on Sweetie's back, changing her hooves into wheels, and they both went down a succession of slopes, ramming many enemies in the way.

"Not at all. She had those powers thanks to this paintbrush. Now that she lost it, she may be just as powerful as you when you were an unicorn," mini-Discord answered.

Sweetie Belle and Kirby passed a rainbow-framed portal, and they saw them appear in a new area that was actually a really weird town where the buildings were made of all shapes and colors. There were even pipes in the sky along with floating structures. And the whole place seemed really cartoonish, as if it had been drawn by a filly or a colt.

They all looked at this town before looking at Discord. "Are you sure that this witch is not your cousin? This town looks like your work," Applejack said.

Discord frowned, and a paper appeared in his claw. He looked at it and said, "Nope. No cousin witch." He looked at mini-Discord. "What was her name?"

"Drawcia."

He looked back at the paper. "Nope. I have a cousin Jevil, but no cousin Drawcia. Gosh, it has been a long time since I saw cousin Jevil. I wonder if he is doing well." He then raised an eyebrow. "Wait. Bill is dead? Bah! I didn't like him!"

The ponies exchanged looks, not sure what to think about Discord actually having a family.

Except Pinkie. "You have a family? Could you invite them? We could have a big chaotic party together!"

"It would be best to avoid. Some of them aren't the kind of folks that you want to encounter. Trust me."

---

Sweetie Belle had seen many weird and incredible things since appearing in Dream Land, and this town easily entered the top 10. Really. It looked like a town that a foal would imagine if a pony asked them what would be a city in the future. She could see that the city was even inside a giant dome with the sky painted in it! She knew because she could see the real sky through holes in the dome. Moreover, this town seemed to be full of conduits that Sweetie and Kirby had to use to continue their way at some points.

After taking a door and going through a conduit, they entered a building. The inside of the building was revealed to be full of iron blocks that they couldn't destroy, and they were forced to take a second conduit that led them to a series of cannons in a big room with spikes on the ceiling. After the cannons, they reached a room with three conduits, two of them leading to the same empty room. So they took the third one, passed a room with some Waddle Dees, took another conduit, and entered a similar room where they had to walk on some blocks to make them disappear and reach the next conduit, Kirby eating a Waddle Doo in the room to take back the Beam Ability.

In the next room, they were ambushed by a group of Spear Waddle Dees, the enemies throwing their spears at Sweetie and Kirby from platforms further up. Because she didn't have her horn anymore, Sweetie Belle couldn't create shields to protect the two of them, so they were forced to dodge the spears. Sweetie Belle used the paintbrush to draw two lines, one for Kirby, and one for her, and they used them to rapidly approach the Waddle Dees and attack them, Kirby shooting a whip-like beam that turned around him while Sweetie used both the paintbrush and her hooves. The enemies were rapidly eliminated, and a cannon appeared at the center of the room. Jumping in it, they were propelled up, and they reached the top of the building, destroying the iron blocks in the way, and entered the door.

They were now in the sky above the town, in a UFO-like purple structure. From here, they simply had to continue through a succession of conduits linking a few more similar structures of various colors, each with enemies waiting for them, and even with spikes, before reaching a portal.

The area after the portal was not as crazy as the town, consisting of a ravine in a mountainous place with a big red sun setting. The road was rather straightforward here. All they had to do was to follow the path while eliminating all the minions trying to stop them. With the lines of the paintbrush, they easily passed above holes with air currents and reached the door in just one minute.

The area after the door was a little more complex, because there was no actual floor, only platforms above a big gulf with more air currents. Just as they reached the first platforms, they were attacked by a rocket-like enemy. Kirby seemed to recognize this enemy because he dropped his actual Ability before inhaling the rocket. The next instant, Kirby turned into a pink rocket with a star symbol, and he flew further in the area, leaving a surprised sweetie Belle behind. She shook her head to regain her senses, drew a line, and glided beside Kirby.

"You can turn into a rocket?"

Kirby turned back to normal and landed on a platform before nodding. "Poyo."

Sweetie Belle landed beside him. "You really can turn into anything, uh?"

He laughed at her remark. It seemed like it. Kirby then jumped on her back, and she gained a strange feeling in her hooves. With one thought, her hooves then turned into rocket reactors, and she was propelled up.

"Woooaaaah!!!"

This caused Kirby to almost fall from Sweetie's back, and without limbs to help him, he was forced to bite Sweetie's mane to not fall. Just in time, because Sweetie Belle started to move her hooves to try to gain control of this new Ability, and the same ordeal than with the Jet Ability happened all over again. Before long, she was able to learn enough to be able to fly without losing control, and a few minutes later, she was able to change direction. Now with her fore hooves at both sides of her body, and her back hooves pointing behind, she flew rapidly around the area and found the door in record time. The only problem...

She hadn't learned to land.

"Uuuh... How do I land? HOW DO I LAND?! AAAAHHHHH!!!"

When the dust settled, Sweetie Belle had her face half in the floor and had left a big trail in the earth behind her. Kirby was bouncing a little further.

"Uuuugh... Note to self..." She spat earth. "Learn to land with the rocket hooves... Reminder... Learn to land with the Warp Star too..."

---

Discord exploded in laughter, to the point of toppling his chair. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were laughing too, but not as much.

"Oh my," Fluttershy said. "I hope that they are alright."

"It seems like she is more annoyed than hurt," Spike replied. "Still. Those rocket hooves were sick! I want the same!"

"Absolutely not, Spike!" Twilight shouted. "You would crash and create holes everywhere in the castle!"

He pouted. "After some training, it would be alright."

---

As awesome as the Missile Ability was, Kirby decided to eat a Wheelie in the next area to not risk another accident like this one. Beside, thanks to platforms and bubble blocks forming a path, the Wheel Ability was perfect for this part, and they reached a new portal in a few seconds.

The new area was a gloomy one. They were now in a forest made of dead trees, and were not far from a graveyard beside water. Sweetie also spotted a really spooky town, and the clouds looked like ghosts, with a moon glowing a ghostly yellow. She was not as scared of this area than she would have been at first, but the sinister atmosphere still made her shiver, and she got closer to Kirby.

They decided to pass this area as quickly as possible, and so, Sweetie Belle drew a line that they used to climb a small wall. On it, they discovered a propeller creating strong air currents, and they used it to reach a floating platform. A second propeller propelled them to a higher platform where Kirby ate a Bobo to gain the Fire Ability, better adapted to this area than the Wheel. After two more propellers, they entered a big hollow tree full of small cannons that propelled them at the base. After the tree, thanks to the paintbrush, and the Fire Ability that gave Kirby the possibility to charge forward like a comet, they passed above a succession of gulfs before reaching a door.

The door led them closer to the spooky town, in a maze-like vertical area where they had to go up, passing platforms and using cannons. Some of the passages were blocked by blocks with a lightning symbol on them, making Sweetie suspect that they were only vulnerable to electricity, making her miss her horn. Because of that, they were forced to do a few detours. Because of these blocks, when they found a Sparky in the way, Kirby decided to give up Fire to obtain Spark, thus now being able to destroy the blocks. That was only to discover that there were no more of these blocks before reaching the door, much to their frustration.

Now they really were in the spooky town, and they quickly reached a fork with three ways once they destroyed a few bubble blocks. However, one of the ways was blocked by iron blocks, and another was full of spikes. They decided to take the third path, where there were no mortal dangers, to see if it led somewhere interesting, and they indeed found a cannon that propelled them through the path with the spikes and through the iron blocks. After crashing against a wall, they followed a path further down until they reached a section above a gulf with many platforms with cannons on them. Using both the cannons and the paintbrush, they reached the next section where they had to destroy many Star Blocks and fight a great number of Bronto Burts to reach the portal and exit the area.

And now, they seemed to be back to the first area, with the hills.

"I hope we haven't come back at the start of our journey," Sweetie Belle said as she swung the paintbrush and created a line that they used to continue. "You know, Kirby, I'm surprised that we haven't fought ghosts in this spooky area, not that I'm complaining."

Turned out this path was a succession of platforms above a giant gulf, with some platforms having some green paint hampering them. Thanks to the paintbrush, they had no problem going from platforms to platforms before reaching the door.

The next section was rather familiar for them, consisting of a succession of big platforms and ground parts forming slopes, where they had to go down. Too bad there weren't any Rockys to gain the Stone Ability. Instead, they just used the lines of the paintbrush to rapidly go down, and Sweetie swatted away clouds hindering the path. When Bronto Burts came in great number to try to stop them, Sweetie sent Kirby to deal with them with Spark while she continued destroying the clouds, until they entered some room that was a dead end full of floating bombs with a skull drawn on them. Sweetie dealt with them easily by sending the paintbrush, making them explode and making a door appear.

In the next section, they ended up in front of an unknown static area, and Kirby and Sweetie were not sure what it was, or what it caused. Taking a risk, Kirby rolled into the area, only to have nothing happening to him. Seeing that, Sweetie Belle followed him, but when she entered the area, the brush suddenly lost its colors to their surprise. Sweetie quickly made the paintbrush float out of the area, and the colors returned.

"No way. An area that makes you lose your colors? That's possible?"

The paintbrush bounced up and down to nod.

"Well, darn. This may complicate things. It doesn't hurt you, at least?"

It went left and right.

So the paintbrush returned in the static area, losing its colors again. Sweetie Belle still did a test and swung the paintbrush, only to not being able to create a line.

"Yep. I will hate those areas."

At that, she exited the area, Kirby having eliminated a few Bouncys that had been waiting. Not long after, they entered a section where big bubbles were floating up. Smiling at that, Kirby entered into one and started to float with the bubble, only for the bubble to pop at hitting a big Star Block blocking the way. Sweetie Belle quickly used the paintbrush to catch Kirby before he fell in the gulf below. She then sent the paintbrush to destroy the Star Blocks. The path open, they both entered a bubble and slowly floated up, both of them laughing. Kirby used the Spark to destroy some more blocks blocking the way before they exited the bubbles to continue.

Sweetie Belle giggled again. "I hope there will be more bubbles."

"Poyo."

The fun didn't last, because they quickly reached another static area along a slope. Thankfully, nothing happened while they were in it, and it was rather small, so the paintbrush could float above it without losing its colors. After a section above a gulf full of blocks with enemies, they reached another static area where Kirby ate a Twister just before. Twisters were top-like yellow-orange enemies with floating round arms that turned around themselves at great speed, granting Kirby the Tornado Ability, the same one that one of the Kirbys had used against Dark Meta Knight. With the Tornado, Kirby was able to turn around himself to become a tornado and to fly erratically for a small period of time. It may be useful in those static areas where they couldn't use the paintbrush to go in the air.

It was in this area that they found the portal, leading them to a new area full of volcanoes.

Sweetie Belle groaned. "Yay... Volcanoes..."

Thankfully, thanks to the paintbrush, they were able to glide/roll above the lava, advancing greatly. The last stretch before the first door was a little harder, because there was lava both above and below, forcing Sweetie to be careful where she drew the line.

The next section after the door was even harder. There was very little space, so she had to go slowly to avoid drawing too high, making her remember those games where you must not touch the edges. Luckily, there were cannons in the way making their path easier. They had to watch out for a moment, when they were forced to remain on a moving platform with green paint, to avoid a Gordo in the way, the green paint making dodging it harder. Sweetie was actually forced to take Kirby out of the way, and got hit at his place.

"Poyo!"

"Don't worry. I'm alright. Darn those Gordos."

Jumping from the platform, they had to run to pass a rotating stream of fire in the way, before reaching a series of cannons propelling them up. From here, they just had to take a small path made of stone blocks, with a bridge made of small stone blocks in the way where they found a Maxim Tomato under it. Not being able to levitate it, she had to jump beside the bridge before taking the tomato. She split it in half, and gave one to Kirby before eating the other, healing her earlier wound.

Not long after, they passed a door, entering a section where they had to go up. Barely they started climbing that they saw below them a sea of lava rising.

As they started running, Sweetie Belle shouts, "Again?!"

They climbed, they ran, they climbed, they ran, and they barely payed the enemies in the way any mind. Sweetie Belle abused of the paintbrush to make them go faster, and they were able to remain far enough above the lava despite the many obstacles like a stream of fire. Soon, they reached the portal and entered it before the whole room was filled with lava.

---

They appeared inside a building, the floor, walls, and ceiling all white. They could see a glass-tube above them, the tube going all the way out of the room, above a door. The tube was also linked to a big white board.

"What is this place?"

Before Kirby could answer anything, he was suddenly grabbed by someone really fast, the only warning being the sound of wheels rolling. Sweetie Belle quickly turned around to see that whoever had grabbed Kirby was now jumping and landed beside the start of the tube where they dropped Kirby inside. She was able to identify at this moment who was this guy: round orange body, two round eyes but no mouth, a cap, rollers, a paintbrush. No doubt, she recognized Paint Roller as he had been described by Dedede. His left hand had also two fingers folded down for some reason, making some kind of sign that Sweetie didn't recognize. He was probably another creation of Drawcia, the real one being an ally of Dedede and having no reason to attack them.

Paint Roller then took a canvas and painted a Bomber in it. The Bomber become alive and fell in the tube behind Kirby. Paint Roller then painted three other Bombers, all going in the tube. To avoid the Bombers that started walking toward him, Kirby rolled away, only to be stopped by a metallic door above the white board.

Sweetie Belle sent her paintbrush toward Paint Roller, but he bounced away, dodging it, and landed beside the white board.

"Release Kirby!" she screamed at him.

"Nope! And you should avoid attacking me!"

"Why?"

"Because I wanna play a game. And you can guess that if you eliminate me, then you will not be able to save your friend."

She ground her teeth, before looking at Kirby, the puffball watching the Bombers coming closer in panic. She said, "Alright, I'm listening."

"Cool! It's actually really easy." He pointed at the board. "I will paint dots on this board. With your paintbrush, you will have to connect the dots correctly to form a picture. Do it correctly, and it will open the door in the tube, and let your friend escape until the next room. Connect all the dots of all the pictures in all the rooms, and you win! Easy peasy! Of course..." He pointed at the Bombers. "It's limited in time. So, be quick."

Sweetie Belle smiled. "Connect-the-dots? I like those! Alright, I accept your challenge!"

"Cool! Then, let's start!"

Paint Roller then took his paintbrush and rapidly drew a series of dots on the board in a swirl pattern. He moved away, and Sweetie Belle took his place, quickly connecting the dots to form a swirl. Once all the dots were connected, the door blocking Kirby opened, and they all went to the next room where Kirby was blocked by another door, with another board. On the board, Paint Roller painted dots in a heart pattern that Sweetie quickly connected, opening the door.

"You weren't kidding, you are good."

"Thanks."

In the third room, Paint Roller painted the dots in a zigzag pattern, easily passed. For the fourth, it was a sword. The fifth, some kind of shoe for humans that Sweetie had never seen before. The sixth, a car.

"Wow, this one was actually harder," Sweetie Belle said. "I should ask the real Paint Roller if he will wanna play with me."

The seventh drawing was also a little hard, but Sweetie was able to form an eagle.

"How many pictures remain?"

"I will not say!"

The eighth was easier, the picture forming three spikes. The next one was a little more complex, but the dots were connected to form a Maxim Tomato. For the tenth, she had to think a little for the last dot, but once she recognized the shape, she formed a parasol. The eleventh was the hardest so far, where she had to understand that the four dots in the center weren't to be connected. She lost some time, the Bombers almost reaching Kirby, but in the end, she formed lips.

The next one was thankfully easier, the picture being the one of an open door. But the next one, while not being hard, was rather time consuming, because she had to draw a Gordo, and the next one, a Poppy. The next one was probably the hardest of all. There were so many dots to connect, it took time for her to understand how to connect them. But rapidly, she recognized who she was painting, and from there, she had no problem. In the end, she left the room with the completed picture of Dedede.

But the next room had a bad surprise. There wasn't a board, but Kirby was reaching the end of the tube. However, there was no exit. Instead, there was a big spike at the very end. And no apparent way to get him out of there.

She turned toward Paint Roller. "Hey! What the heck!"

Paint Roller laughed. "Wahahaha! Did you really think that I would let you save him?! You won, so you can go, but you have to say 'bye bye' to your pink friend!"

Sweetie Belles looked at Paint Roller in shock, before her shock turned into anger. She then drew a line going from her to him, before jumping on it. Paint Roller tried to run away, but she threw her paintbrush, hitting him at the back of his head and stunning him on the floor. Before he was able to go back up, Sweetie reached the end of the line, jumped, and fell back on him with a powerful energy-boosted kick on his back, almost making him bend in two despite being a ball. The violence of the attack made him drop his paintbrush and his canvas.

Sweetie looked at the canvas, then at her paintbrush, and got a wonderful idea, making her laugh sneakily. She took the canvas with her hooves, went in front of Paint Roller, and said with the most evil smirk ever, "I wanna play a game."

This made Paint Roller gulp.

Sweetie Belle then used her paintbrush to paint something on the canvas. Eventually, she finished drawing, and out of the canvas, a giant bomb a little over the size of Paint Roller dropped, with two parts protruding from it at the sides. However, the bomb was not lit. Sweetie Belle quickly painted something else, and before long, she had two ropes.

"I don't think I wanna play your game..." Paint Roller said in fear.

But Sweetie Belle didn't listen to him, and before long, Paint Roller found himself attached to the bomb, his arms attached to the parts protruding from it with the ropes. Sweetie Belle was now standing beside the end of the wick of the bomb, holding a torch, still with that evil smirk.

"Here are the rules: escape the bomb before it explodes. If you escape, you live. If you don't escape, you die. In both cases, the bomb will destroy the tube and Kirby will be saved." She smiled sweetly at him. "Easy peasy."

She lit the wick, and ran out of the room.

Paint Roller looked at the fire getting closer.

"Nononononono!"

The fire got closer.

"Mistress Drawcia please! Save me!"

Closer.

"Someone! Anyone! Help!"

Cloooser.

"NOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

Sweetie Belle, hidden in the previous room, heard him screaming, and then...

BOOM!!!

The whole building shook, and Sweetie could see the explosion passing the door, while hearing the sound of the glass of the tube being broken. Once everything calmed down, Sweetie Belle returned in the room. Judging by the paint spread, Paint Roller hadn't been able to escape in time.

She laughed. "You lost." She then saw Kirby rolling toward her, a little burned, but nothing bad. "Are you alright?"

He nodded. "Poyo."

She hugged him. "I'm glad." She released him and looked at the portal at the end of the destroyed room. "Let's go."

Kirby looked at her, then at the destroyed room, sweating, and nodded.

That filly could really be scary sometimes. Dedede was a REALLY BAD influence on her.

---

In Twilight's room, silence reigned after what they witnessed.

"Note to self:" Discord said. "never piss off Sweetie Belle."

Chapter 44: A Bouncy Battle

They are dropped by the portal in a pathway not far of a big ruined structure, before the entrance of a tunnel. Without a word, they start to walk inside the tunnel, using the paintbrush to pass above giant metal balls threatening to crush them.

While doing so, Sweetie Belle thinks about what she has done with this fake Paint Roller. Fake or not, that was a surprisingly sadistic moment coming from her. Well, Paint Roller has asked for it, but she knows that the old Sweetie Belle wouldn't have done what she has done. She would have knocked out Paint Roller to make him pay... No, she would have been angry, but she would have let him go to directly find a way to break the glass tube. But to actually tie him to a bomb to make him taste his own medicine in a more hardcore and sadistic way... What would the ponies think? What would her family think? No, worst. What is Rarity thinking? Mini-Discord has probably warned the real Discord about her new adventure, who in turn has warned Rarity and her friends, who are probably watching her right now.

They pass a stone door just in time before it closes, and find themselves at the base of some red structure built in the rock, where a small cannon propels them up. A second cannon propels them to a second part of the tunnel where they have to avoid more metal balls by hiding under platforms below them.

She has... changed, since coming to this world. In many ways. She has far less scruples to harm others. Before, she couldn't hurt a fly, unless she became REALLY angry, but now, she doesn't think anymore before punching an enemy. Of course, it's a consequence of Dedede training her to fight Kirby, by forcing her to punch a Waddle Dee. Punching that Waddle Dee has broke something that has made her less hesitant to punch the next one. From there, she has started to really fight while training, and by the time she has had her first adventure, against Dark Matter, the only reason why she would first hesitate before punching an enemy has been because they haven't been really her enemies, but friends forced to fight her, and even then, after a moment, that hesitation has disappeared. But against the Meta Knights, when they have tried to conquer Dreamland not long after, she hasn't hesitated one second before attacking. She has even started liking fighting by this time.

They pass above water, avoiding a boulder falling from the ceiling, before entering another small cannon that propels them on a small platform at the start of a big room. From there, they have to destroy a few star blocks, and fight their way through a few Pactos, enemies with a big fanged mouth with little stubs as limbs, jumping from holes under the platforms to try to eat them.

Getting used to fight doesn't explain however why she has acted so sadistic against Paint Roller. Actually, the instant she has learned that all those enemies are creations of Drawcia, she has started a real slaughter against them, attacking and destroying them with absolutely no remorse, and has even smirked, taking pleasure at being able to go all out against them, knowing that they aren't really alive.

As they return in front of the red structure, she looks up, seeing the entrance, while Kirby drinks a bottle hidden below.

It may be because she is angry at Drawcia, and by extension, her creations, because she has taken her horn (and Kirby's limbs), and she wants to make her pay. Paint Roller has also almost killed Kirby, so it could also explain why she has lost her cool against him. The fact that they are just lifeless creations made of paint is just an added bonus so she can blow off steam by pulverizing them, rather than just knocking them out, which leads to the same result anyway.

And it may also be because... she knows that she has lost a part of herself during what happened with Zero. After Zero, she has stopped caring about what happens to the bad guys she fights. When the Dark Matters have come back for the third time, she hasn't batted an eye when they have been destroyed by Ribbon's crystal, and has been actually happy at seeing them explode. Against that creature of magma that they have fought in the volcano, while sad that they have had to kill it, in the end, she has quickly forgotten about it. The weird Dark Matter from Ripple Star, she has taken joy in seeing it disappear in pieces. Zero Two, while she has been saddened to discover his real backstory, she has had no remorse giving the killing blow, before learning about it, she has had a deep satisfaction at seeing him suffer at each blow, and his death has been quickly put behind. Dark Meta Knight, she hasn't cared. Dark Mind, because it was a mirror version of Zero, she has had some pleasure seeing him disappear in her giant beam. For Drawcia, while she will try to convince her to stop this folly, if she refuses, she will not care if the following fight ends up killing her too. She knows too that if she had fought Marx after Zero, then she wouldn't have had a breakdown at his 'death' like she has gotten. She would have accepted it, and moved on.

Like Kirby, she just doesn't care anymore about the fate of her enemies. If they die, they die, end of the line. If they live, then good! As for Drawcia's creations... Well, again, they aren't even truly alive, so more reason to not care about them. Contrary to Kirby, she has developed some pleasure at seeing an enemy that deserve it to suffer.

And so, this sadistic episode would be the result of all that: anger, not caring, and wanting to see him suffer. Still, she will make sure to avoid another episode like that. Knowing that she can now take pleasure in harming an enemy is already disturbing, but doing things like tying someone to a bomb, only psychos do this! No more 'death games', if she kills an enemy, it will be in a fight.

She already knows that she will take great pleasure fighting Drawcia.

In a way, she is really becoming like Dedede. The penguin seems to possess some sadistic amusement in harming his enemies. But she will keep true to what she has said to Meta Knight this famous night: while she doesn't care, and even take pleasure, she will only kill if this is really the right thing to do, or the only way. She will not become someone that will kill all the enemies that cross her path without thinking.

"Poyo?"

She blinks, and looks down to see Kirby watching her, not without some worry. She has been standing there without moving for a couple of minutes.

She smiles at him. "Sorry Kirby. I was just thinking about something."

Kirby rolls beside her before rubbing himself against her. In return, she hugs him, her smile growing. Even if she has stopped caring about her enemies, even if she has changed, she will never stop caring about her friends. This, she knows.

After a few seconds, she stops the hug and uses the paintbrush to draw a line between them and the entrance to the red structure. She goes first in case there are any dangers, and Kirby soon follows. Entering the structure, they quickly find out that the inside is not lighted at all, the only light coming from the entrance, leaving them almost in the dark. If Sweetie had her horn, she could have used her light spell, but now...

"Oh! Of course!"

She takes the canvas that Paint Roller has... kindly given to her, and that she has kept on her back under her cape with a small rope, and starts to use the paintbrush to paint something on it. While she is not as good at painting than at drawing, she still has no real problems painting a lighted lantern. With the power of the paintbrush, the lantern gets out of the canvas, she catches it, and they now can see what is in this room, and where to go.

Exploring the room, they rapidly find the door before a dead end, and they enter another room, this one lighted, so Sweetie gets rid of her lantern. At the other side of a hole, there is a cannon. Above them, a ceiling made of stone blocks. Above the cannon, a hole. By two and two, they conclude that they have to use the cannon to go up in the hole. To their confusion, the hole only leads to a dead end, and a headache at hitting the ceiling. Falling back down beside the cannon, Sweetie Belle decides to use it as a cannon should be used to: blowing holes. She returns under the ceiling made of stone blocks, and paints a second cannon, this one shooting cannonball. The cannon fires, and the cannonball blows a hole in the ceiling. She can hear the cannonball destroying more blocks in the way, and sometimes, she can hear explosions, meaning that it has hit bomb blocks. For good measure, she fires a few more cannonballs, each going at a different angle, blowing more holes and destroying more stone and bomb blocks. At a time, the ceiling made of stone blocks is fully destroyed, and a second cannon falls, destroyed, beside the painted cannon.

They can now see a static area, along with many levels of stone blocks full of holes. From there, they can spot the exit at the very top. At this, they push the destroyed cannon in the hole, push the painted cannon right under the exit, jump in it, and let it propelling them toward the exit.

They land on the floor of the next room, where they discover a spiked fan in the way, under the part of the ceiling where they have to go to continue. Carefully, Sweetie wait until the right moment and draws a line to reach the next level of the room before the fan destroys it and hurts them. They have to do this a few more times, before reaching a new section of the room where they have to use air currents created by propellers to go up while avoiding the fire projected by cannons. In the way, Kirby decides to eat a Rocky, thinking that his Stone ability will be very useful as a ball. At the end, they have no problems reaching the door, eliminating a Bomber in the way.

The next room is rather small, and full of enemies. The perfect occasion for Kirby to use his Stone ability and crush a good number of them by falling and rolling on them as a small boulder. Sweetie Belle easily deals with the survivors, thanks to her whip. The portal is just after them.

They are now in a cave, the colors here contrasting. Sweetie must say, even if Drawcia is crazy, she knows what she creates with her painting! She can also spot ponds, making her understand that they may have to swim at some point. The first part of the cave is rather easy and fast to pass, consisting or Shotzos, some spikes, and many square-shaped stone-like enemies looking like Kabus trying to fall on them, like those one eyed green bloc-like enemies from their previous adventure, excepted those ones take one second before falling, leaving them enough time to glide rapidly under them. In the end, all they do is glide, glide, and glide again without stopping while following the path until reaching the door, where they destroy a couple of Spear Waddle Dees guarding it. As in, Sweetie Belle kicks the first one with so much strength that she projects him to the second, and both of them end up as paint stain on the wall.

And now, they are on a platform above water. Jumping in it, they discover a small problem: without limbs, Kirby can't swim.

"Poyooo..." he groans.

Sweetie frowns. "I hope we will rapidly get you back to normal. You are really limited in this state. Now I am glad that Drawcia only took my horn. I don't know what I would have become without my hooves."

Kirby imagines Sweetie Belle without her hooves... and isn't sure what to think about the image. At this moment, Sweetie Belle grabs him and start to swim under the water. Deciding to help her, he turns into stone, and his weight help them reach the bottom of the water faster. From there, Sweetie swims until reaching a pipe dropping them in another pond, this one full of Blippers. Not far, they find another pipe leading them in a small room with even more Blippers, falling boulders, and a Maxi Tomato. Avoiding the boulders, Kirby lets himself float up before turning into stone to crush the Blippers. At the same time, Sweetie Belle simply punches any Blippers getting too close, even sending the boulders on them. Once all the Blippers eliminated, the door appears. They eat the Maxi Tomato, and pass it.

And now, they are on star blocks, both small and big. Using the Stone ability, Kirby destroys countless blocks under them, until reaching a floor. From there, Sweetie Belle destroys around thanks to her whip. Exploring, they find more blocks in the floor, and Kirby uses again the Stone ability so they can go further down, where it seems to be the right way. After some time, they reach a static area, and Sweetie is forced to hold the paintbrush. At least, in this part, there are not many blocks, only a few blocking some of the ways. Choosing one, they destroy the blocks in it, and eventually exit the static area, only to fall in another section full of blocks. After a minute of destroying the blocks and fighting enemies hidden among them, they find the portal.

Now, they are in a different cavern, there one looking like it has been drawn by a foal using colored pencils.
"Well... This is an art form... I suppose..."

just in front of them is a red door, with three colored switches on the wall beside it, one red, one blue, and one yellow. Sweetie presses the red one, thinking that it will open the door, only for the switch to turn blue. She raises an eyebrow, and presses the switch again, this time turning it into yellow. Another press and it turns back to red. Having an idea of what to do now, she presses the blue switch two times, and the yellow one one time, turning them into red switches. The door opening indicate that this is the right thing to do.

After this door, they open a second door, this time by pressing a normal switch, before reaching a water section again. Grabbing Kirby, Sweetie Belle swims and fights the Blippers until reaching the end. Out of the water, they press another switch opening a spiked door, then pass two doors opening and closing alone at regular intervals. After the two doors, a mechanical claw grab suddenly grabs Kirby from the ceiling, and she rapidly clings to him. The claw leads them above an electrical floor, before dropping them in front of a room with a floor made of stone blocks, and a wooden pillar at the center. Kirby crushes it with Stone, destroying the blocks and revealing water under them, but nothing of importance.
After the room, they have to destroy a bomb block to open the way, causing Blippers to also fall on them. Seeing them coming, Sweetie swings the paintbrush to send them away. They pass another small water section, then above two holes, and then a section with cannons, before finally reaching a black door.

In the next part of the cavern, they have to run to avoid being crushed by falling boulders, having to press a switch in the way to open a door, and having to destroy a bomb bloc to open the way to a new water section with a strong current where they now have to avoid saws. After the saws, they have to open another door with a switch, followed by a spiked door with another switch, before entering a room without currents, but full of doors and switches. To their annoyance, the switches don't always open the right doors, forcing them to do some small detours. After this room, the current reappear, leading them to a pipe, then to another that make them exit this water section. A last pathway force them to rapidly glide on a line without stopping to avoid falling boulders and holes. At the end, just before the door they are almost crushed by one of those squared stoned Kabu half hidden in the ceiling.

For such a childish area, it is certainly full of traps.

Following the door, it doesn't take long for them to enter a new section with water, Kirby's stone form helping them reaching the bottom where there is a pipe. In the room that follow the pipe, there is a ceiling full of stone block, and a red door with colored switches at the bottom, the switches guarded by Glunks. Eliminating the Glunks, they quickly open the door, leading to a dead end with another switch. Pressing it causes the destruction of the stone blocks, opening the way. From there, they just have to follow a passage with another strong current, and many enemies, ending with another pipe leading to the room with the portal. Problem, the portal is carried by the current in the room. Seeing this, Kirby quickly turns into stone, and Sweetie clings to him while fighting the enemies coming at them. After some waiting, they see the portal coming, and Kirby returns to normal before they intercept it, and enter it.

Judging by the gears and various machines in the next area, they are now in a factory, a very grey, and empty one.

"Hopefully, this one is not as creepy as the one we saw in that frozen Earth."

They start their exploration, already reaching a small cannon. going in it, they are propelled into a small hallway with bouncing floor, walls, and ceiling all the way until they fall on a platform with green paint, where they shake their heads to regain their senses, before Sweetie giggles.

"I will ask Dedede to install that in the castle."

They then pass a laser, and enter a hallway with Blados, cousins of Gordos with blade instead of spikes, and more lasers, before they enter a door to enter another hallway with a big hole with Shotzos of star blocks. Sweetie uses the paintbrush to destroy the star blocks and make the Shotzos fall before drawing a line and using it to pass above the hole. After the hole, Kirby sees another rocket-like enemy and decides to give up Stone to eat him, thinking that the missile could be useful. They take the cannon that follow, propelling them in another cannon that propels them, to their surprise, to a bumper. They bounce on a few more bumpers before hitting the ceiling. There, Sweetie Belle catches Kirby and puts him on her back, gaining the rocket hooves and using them to hover while she looks at what is following.

Bumpers everywhere, with a few cannons and many enemies.

"This must be Pinkie's best dream come true." She smiles. "And I love this!"

She charges toward the nearest bumper as fast as she can. Before hitting the bumper, she throws Kirby at another bumper, and the two of them are now bouncing around, ramming the enemies. To help them, Sweetie also uses the paintbrush to draw lines to make them bounce toward a better direction.

Why isn't there something like that in Equestria?

---

"Why don't we have something like that?!" complains Pinkie Pie.

"Probably because nopony thought of building something like that," answers Twilight.

"I can make one," says Discord. "I will make sure to do this once this ends. It will be a success among the young ones."

Pinkie bounces in joy around Discord. "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!"

"Uh. Usually, it's Twilight who does that," he says.

---

After a couple of minutes bouncing around, Sweetie and Kirby reach the door. Back on the floor, they are both laughing.

"Now I HAVE to ask Dedede to build one!"

"Poyo!"

They continue laughing as they pass the door, appearing at the bottom of a big vertical room with a few platforms above them, and many star blocks beyond. As they feel the floor starting to rise, they stop laughing.

"Oh oh..."

They look at the floor, then up at the star blocks. Understanding what is going on, Sweetie Belle quickly uses the paintbrush to destroy the block before they are crushed between them and the floor. Once there is some space, she puts Kirby on her back to regain the rocket hooves, and starts to fly up to gain a lead from the rising floor. She has to pass many levels of floor and platforms full of obstacles, mainly explosives and stone blocks with bomb blocks to destroy them. Blados eventually join the party, before she reaches a red door with the colored switches. She quickly turns the switches red, only to discover another door, this time blue, after this one. Opening it by turning the switches blue, she destroys some more stone blocks before finally reaching the portal, passing it before being crushed by the rising floor.

She flies out of the portal, only to crash in a totally dark area, Kirby bouncing from her back. On the floor, she groans, saying "Ugh... Seriously... Kirby? Are you alright?"

"Poyo!"

"By Celestia, I can't see you! This is worst than this dark room in those ruins!" She takes the canvas. "Darn. I can't even see what I'm painting. How will I do...? Oh! I know! I will paint a sun! It shouldn't be too hard to paint one, even in the dark."

So, using the paintbrush, she slowly paints a yellow circle, before surrounding it as best as she can with yellow lines to represent the light. Once she thinks that it's good, she let the paintbrush's magic giving life to the painted sun, and soon, it rises, lightening the area. She then can see three things:

One. She is really bad at painting in the dark. The sun is weird-shaped, and the yellow lines aren't all attached to it, some of them even crossing. At least, it works.

Two. They are in an area similar to the one with the spooky town.

Three... They are surrounded. Dozens of Waddle Dees with many Waddle Doos and Bronto Burts are looking at them.

"For Drawciaaaa!!!"

"Hyyaaaaaa!!!"

They all charge at both Sweetie Belle and Kirby, burying them under their number. The pile around Kirby quickly explodes, the puffball having turned into a missile before exploding immediately after hitting an enemy. A beam from a Waddle Doo, however, knocks his Missile ability away, leaving him vulnerable. Before they can jump on him, the enemies constituting Sweetie's pile are suddenly propelled in the air by a powerful force, that is none other than Sweetie Belle expelling her energy all around her in a powerful shockwave. She then see Kirby surrounded, and throws a Giga Blast, eliminating a few of them. Taking the occasion, Kirby inhales a Waddle Doo, gaining the Beam ability. He follows this by shooting his whip-like beam all around him, giving him more space. At the same time, Sweetie wraps her whip around a Bronton Burt and rams him into his comrades around her before releasing him.

Their surprise attack having failed, the remaining enemies don't last long against Kirby's beams and Sweetie's whip and hooves. By the time they leave, a painted lantern in Sweetie's hoof, all that remain are paint everywhere on the floor. A few minutes later, after much gliding, walking on platforms, avoiding spikes, and making fall a few Shotzos toward the end, they leave by a black door.

In the next part, in a tower that is not as dark, they decide to rest a little.

"I must give it to Drawcia, that was a smart move. Between that, and Paint Roller, she is crafty. Even Vul's tentatives to kill us weren't that smart. We should stay on our guard from now on."

Kirby nods. Drawcia has certainly proved herself to be redoubtable in a different way. Rather than trying to kill them with power and strength, she uses clever traps and cowardly moves. Too bad for her, she hadn't counted on Sweetie's own power, even without her magic, and her getting the paintbrush.

After a few minutes, they start climbing the tower, and rapidly reach the top where they pass another door. The next section after the tower is more problematique. They are outside of the tower, in front of a wall covered in spikes. They have to go down, but the path is full of Gordos and spiked platforms. With the help of propellers releasing air currents to keep them hovering in the air, they are able to slowly glide until the next door at the base of the tower.

They appear in another dark area. Thankfully, Sweetie has kept the lantern, and doesn't have any problems seeing the electrical floor and ceiling in the path in front of them. Using carefully the paintbrush again, she passes them and reach the door to another area less dark, at the top of the tower again, on the other side. Yet again, they have to go down while avoiding Gordos, but this time, there aren't any spikes, only bubble blocks that pop at contact. They drink the bottle at the base, and pass the door just behind it, entering yet another dark area. But with Sweetie's lantern, they see that there is nothing. After advancing, however, they enter a small room where the exits close, and dozens of parachuted bombs start to fall on them. Sweetie uses the paintbrush to draw lines under the bombs, so they explode on them. Quickly, all the bombs are destroyed, and the exit opens, leading to the portal.

The new area is now a copy of that futuristic town. Maybe it's even the same... Not questioning too long about it, they advance and quickly reach a platform with the green paint. as soon as they are on it, it starts moving up, leading them to a second similar platform that moves too. After the platform are two cannons, leading to a third platform lifting them above an electrical floor. Above them are star blocks. Surprise, a Blocky destroys one of the blocks and almost crushes Kirby. sweetie moves him out of the way, and pushes the Blocky beyond the edge of the platform, making him fall on the electrical floor. She then uses the paintbrush to destroy the remaining blocks, dropping more Blockys on the electrical floor.

After that, another cannon propels them up, at the start of a pathway covered in spikes, forcing Sweetie Belle to be careful again, drawing a line as straight as possible between the spikes, until entering a conduit. They pass a small room that somehow possess air current, and enter a second conduit. When they exit it and fall on another platform with the green paint. From there, they have to pass from moving platform to moving platform, while Sweetie has to use the paintbrush to protect themselves from Shotzos, many, many Shotzos. At the end is the door.

They now enter a weird room. Behind them is a red door, but no colored switches. The floor, the wall in front, and the ceiling are yellow with bombs drawn on them. There is also a bomb block in the floor. They destroy it, destroying the floor and revealing another yellow wall, and a conduit, which is the only way right now. Taking it, they reach a hallway with blocks in the floor and the ceiling that regularly let spikes out of them before retracting them. With the paintbrush, they pass it, and reach another conduit in the ceiling that lead them in front of another yellow wall, forcing them to go further up beside a wall covered in spikes. They enter another conduit, and destroy a yellow floor. They fall on more blocks with the spikes, and Sweetie quickly jump with Kirby on a line before the spikes get out. Slowly going between a few levels of those blocks, they reach a cannon that propels them on a green painted platform. Jumping from platform to platform, they enter a static area, and jump inside a conduit leading them in front of a red door with colored switches. sweetie presses the switches until they are all red, opening the door.

They enter a conduit behind the door, slide up between bubble blocks, and destroy a bomb block in a wall, destroying a yellow wall in the opposite direction, letting them where they have started, where they see that the red door has opened, only to now spot a blue door, and there is a normal switch in front of it. Sweetie presses it, but as she has guessed, it doesn't open the blue door. Instead, it creates stone blocks around the conduit that they have used earlier, and destroy the yellow wall beside it, revealing another switch. Pressing it, they hear that it destroys another wall, but they aren't sure which one. Well, they haven't much to go. They go up beside the same spiked wall than earlier, and enter the same conduit leading them to the room with the many levels of spiked blocks, only this time, the yellow wall that has been above them has disappeared. So they go up, and destroy another yellow ceiling, causing a cannon to drop on a stone platform.

The cannon propels them through iron blocks, and they landed in front of another static area. Many other static areas follow this one, with enemies waiting for them in each one, until they reach a blue door with colored switches. Opening it by turning the switches blue, they destroy the yellow floor behind it, pass another room with more bubble blocks, and press in the way another switch that destroy another yellow floor further down, leading them back to the start. This time, they see that there is a yellow door blocking the way, much to their annoyance, but luckily for them, they see that the way above it has opened, revealing colored switches. Once they are all turned yellow, they hear the yellow door opening, and they don't lose time passing the black door just behind.

They are now outside, with many star blocks blocking the way. They have no problems destroying them and the enemies among them, even if they have to be careful because destroying some of the blocks reveal holes that they don't want to fall in. Following the path, they drop two Shotzos before having to go from platform to platform until reaching another building with more star blocks blocking the way. After the blocks, they discover the portal, and leave the colorful city.

---

They appear in another white building, this one seemingly constituted of white blocks, with the only way to go up. They pass some weird metallic door, only it to shoot some weird colored beam at the paintbrush before closing below them, leaving them in a room full of green star blocks with a few yellow star blocks with two stars, and some enemies at the top.

"Are you alright, paintbrush?"

The paintbrush simply floats for a few seconds, before it starts to draw a line, only, it is not drawing a rainbow line, but a red line with a circle at the start and at the end, confusing both Sweetie Belle and Kirby. The paintbrush draws another line, identical to the previous one. Sweetie decides to test it and jumps on it, but when she lands on it, the line bends like rubber, and she ends up bouncing on it, causing the line to disappear. She makes the paintbrush draw another line, looks at it, then at the blocks, then at Kirby, and facehoofs.

"Really Drawcia? A Breakout game? Are you an evil witch, or Button Mash's long lost sister?" She sighs, and looks at Kirby. "Looks like you will play the role of the bouncing ball. It will be more effective with you than with me. Watch out for the enemies."

He nods, before looking at her with a raised eyebrow. "Poyo poyo?"

She tilts her head in confusion at what he asks. He looks up toward the closed door in the ceiling, which is the exit. She understands. "Oh. Yes. How will I go up?"

He nods.

She puts a hoof under her chin. "Mmh... I think I know. Once the door is opened, I will bounce you back to me, then I will put you on my back, and I will bounce from line to line until the door."

He smiles and nods, before looking up, ready. Sweetie nods at this, takes him, draws a line, and throws him at it, making him bounce up. After destroying a few blocks, they quickly discover that they aren't forced to destroy all of them to open the door. It indeed opens when Kirby actually eliminates all the enemies in the room. The door open, Sweetie does as she has said, and soon they enter the next room, with more enemies, more blocks, and with some spikes. In this room, they discover blue blocks with three stars, and red blocks with four stars. The thing is, the number of star shows the number of times Kirby must hit a block before destroying it. Sweetie can help him by sending the paintbrush damaging the blocks, gaining them sometimes. Eventually, they also discover yellow blocks that explode not long after being hit, and bubble-like blocks that appear and disappear regularly.

A few rooms later, they enter a room divided into a few sections one above another separated by blocks. Because of this, Sweetie lose sight of Kirby, and she is forced to follow him using the bouncing lines, even if the door is still closed, so she can still help him. At the end of this room, instead of a metallic door like the previous ones, there are black chains. Once Kirby eliminates the last Bronto Burts before them, the chains disappear, and they enter the next room.

In the next room, Kracko is waiting for them.

He doesn't let them time to understand the situation. Barely they enter the room, he shoots a lightning at Sweetie Belle. Grinding her teeth, she pokes his eye with the paintbrush, forcing him to close it. With Kracko now vulnerable, she makes Kirby bounces toward him, and Kirby uses his Beam ability to hult him before he bounces from him, causing a part of his cloud to disappear. Kracko opens his eye and charges at Kirby, but Sweetie is able to make him bounce away, and with a few more lines, she makes Kirby bounce back toward Kracko. However, seeing him coming, Kracko surrounds himself in electricity, shocking Kirby and making him lose the Beam ability.

Kracko is then surprised by Sweetie ramming him, the filly having used a bouncing line. As she hits him, she punches his eye before bouncing away. His eye closed again in pain, she bounces Kirby back toward him, and Kirby successfully rams him in the eye. Kracko, his eye still closed, start shooting lightning all around him, and badly hurts both Sweetie and Kirby. He is rapidly hit again by Kirby, and Sweetie starts bouncing around the room before charging toward Kracko. Kracko yet again surrounds himself of electricity, but Sweetie Belle just grinds her teeth as she rams again the eye, and pass through the cloud with it. On the floor with the eye, she flattens it against a wall, and pummels it with a rain of powerful jabs until it turns back into paint.

Better this way. Sweetie hasn't wanted to let him use his full power against them, like his lightning rain, of his wind. It's already hard enough to dodge his lightning while bouncing, Kirby doesn't have an ability anymore, and she doesn't have her magic. It would have been too dangerous to let the fight drag.

Kracko's defeat opens the portal in the center of the room. Sweetie Belle puts Kirby on her back, and bouncing on another line, she passes through it.

Chapter 45: Minecart Racing of Death

The portal drops Sweetie Belle and Kirby in what seems to be a frozen cave, with mountains visible in the background. Despite being slightly hurt by their fight against this Kracko made of paint, they don't lose any time to start their way to find the next portal. They almost immediately have to run to escape falling and rolling icy boulders, until they are able to avoid them by reaching the end of the slope, where they can jump to a level of the cave below which goes in the opposite direction. So they go, and the boulders crash on the wall behind them.

After a rather big jump down a vertical section of the tunnel, they find a small cannon that propels them up, at the entrance of a room. Here, Kirby spots, and eat, a Como, a yellow spider with a brown stripe on his body, three eyes, a pair of pincers, six floating hands, and two feet, going down from the ceiling hanging by his web, and gains a new ability. Kirby tests it against another Como, trapping him in a cocoon of web. Kirby decides then to go on Sweetie's back, to see how this new ability will be for her. Once on her back, Sweetie doesn't have any physical change, but after a quick test on a third Como, she sees that she can now throw threads like Kirby to create webs and trap enemies in cocoons. However, she quickly discovers another thing with this new ability: she can climb walls, and walk on the ceiling, like a spider. To avoid Kirby from falling, she uses a web to attach him on her back.

Giggling, she starts to sing for herself.

Spider-filly, spider-filly
Does all she can to be silly

---

"And now, she gets to be like Spider-mare!" shouts Rainbow Dash.

Sweetie and Kirby enter a cannon that propel them through iron blocks in the ceiling, where they drink a bottle to heal before destroying a bomb block, opening the way.

"You can't complain about this," says Applejack. "We already got our time as superheroes in that comic."

"Let's not forget about Mare-Do-Well!" adds Pinkie.

"Mare-Do-Well doesn't count because I didn't get to be her," says Rainbow Dash.

"But you still did superhero stuff back then, as you!"

"Eh, right."

Discord smirks toward her. "You know, with one snap, I could give you superpowers."

She waves at him. "Eeh. No thanks. I'm already kinda a superhero. My superpower? My speed."

Rarity rolls her eyes. "Get your head any bigger and you will lose this superpower."

After avoiding some more boulders, they see Sweetie Belle and Kirby entering another cannon, propelling them through more iron blocks in a long straight path. Landing at the top of a slope, they run down it, avoiding even more boulders, before reaching a door after a hole, Sweetie using a thread to propel herself and Kirby above it.

"Hey. Who is ready to bet what, or who, they are gonna fight next?" asks Rainbow Dash.

"Are you kidding?" asks Applejack. "We know by now that they could fight absolutely anything! Trying to guess what will be next would be like trying to guess the lottery!"

They see that Sweetie is now forced to break some fragile walls to continue.

"Well... This adventure is starting to be a little long. Maybe next time, they will fight Drawcia," says Fluttershy. "I mean, that's what I think."

"I don't know," says Discord. "I feel like there will be one last boss before the big bad. Only two bosses seems a little short. Mmh... But what could they fight next? A robot? A monster made of paint? A clone of someone else, like Dedede, or Meta Knight? They could even fight a clone of a previous bad guy, like Zero."

"I'm betting on Dedede!" shouts Pinkie. "So far, they fought Dedede in almost all their adventures, so I'm sure they will fight him again!"

"They didn't fought him last time," says Twilight.

"Which increase the chances that they fight him this time! Two successive adventures without fighting Dedede would be sad! He is Kirby's rival! They HAVE to fight! Even if it's just a clone!"

"Dedede being Kirby's rival doesn't mean that Drawcia will specifically create a clone of him to fight Kirby," says Rarity. "She can choose between absolutely everything in the universe. Why would she choose Dedede?"

"Because he is powerful, and has a grudge against Kirby?"

By now, Sweetie Belle and Kirby are reaching a tunnel made of star blocks. Destroying some of them, they see stalactites falling from the ceiling above, and a few Bouncys below. They don't destroy the remaining blocks, and walk until reaching another wall to destroy. After the wall, they jump above a propeller creating an air current propelling them up so they reach a small tunnel.

"So Pinkie bets on a paint clone of Dedede? Then I bet on Dedede too!" says Rainbow.

"I'm not entering this," says Twilight.

"Me too," says Rarity.

Sweetie Belle and Kirby pass a door after a big room with floating platform and a gulf. They appear before a switch which, once pressed, makes some ice fall from the ceiling to form a stair and free the way. From there, they have to press more switches hidden in the room to be able to continue.

"Dedede may be powerful, but Meta Knight is apparently more powerful!" says Applejack. "Why not create a clone of the most powerful guy who has also probably a grudge against Kirby and Sweetie Belle? So I'm betting on Meta Knight!"

"Ugg... So true," says Pinkie. "Now I'm not sure anymore! Dedede or Meta Knight? The two are possible!"

"Please! Don't make me doubt!"

Discord writes something on a board. "So, we have Pinkie and Rainbow on Dedede, Applejack on Meta Knight, and Fluttershy on Drawcia."

"I-I was just trying to guess! I don't want to bet!"

"Too late, my dear. What about you Spike?"

"Mmh... It's hard to choose... Oh! I know! Why not a clone of Sweetie Belle?"

"Ooh! I like it! I note! This would be a great showdown before the final battle!"

Meanwhile, after going down for a moment, Kirby and Sweetie fall on a platform with the green paint. The platform then starts to move, and Sweetie has to use the paintbrush to protect her and Kirby from falling stalactites.

"But what will the winner win?" asks Spike.

"I will let all of you decide." He smiles at them. "Unless you want me to decide."

"No thanks," they all say.

Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle and Kirby leave the icy cave, jumping in a portal.

---

They reappear in another cave, this one looking like the one they have gone in just after those ruins after Paint Roller. They appear on ground above water, and they can see that they have to go in to continue. Spotting a Rocky, Kirby gives up the Spider ability, and eats the living rock. Now with the Stone, he goes on Sweetie's back again, letting her turn into stone, and the filly jumps in the water, the weight of the stone making her fall all the way to the bottom, until reaching stone blocks and star blocks. that they have to destroy to continue.

Sweetie uses the paintbrush to glide above spikes in a small pathway, and seeing that they have to go up from there, Kirby leaves her back, turning her back to normal so she can swim back to the surface while avoiding falling boulders, again. Out of the water, it doesn't take long before they reach a second section of water, this one full of saws, with a small current, and a boulder at the end just before reaching the surface again. For this last one, Sweetie has to destroy it with an energy boosted punch, because the path is too small to avoid it by swimming around.

They rapidly reach a third section of water, the path this time blocked by horizontal doors. Thankfully, all they have to do is literally fall on the switches with the help of the Stone ability to press them and open the doors, revealing the black door leading out of this part of the cave.

The second part is without water and seems to be a straight path with some small slopes. So they start to walk and...

Oh! A Wheelie!

Gulp!

It's definitely faster to go on a straight path with the Wheel ability! Now with wheels instead of hooves, it only take a few seconds to reach the end of the path, where they fall in the level below going in the opposite direction. They roll through a few blocks, and press a switch hidden among them. Thinking that it may lead to something interesting, they follow the explosions in the air, using a line painted by the paintbrush to roll above holes, and reach the other side of the path where the explosions destroy a few stone blocks, opening the way to the level below while they see more blocks appearing and blocking the way behind them. At the level below, they find a second switch in front of a wall of stone blocks, and pressing it destroy them, but also the path of stone blocks that has been just behind, revealing spikes below. Again with the Wheel and the paintbrush, Sweetie rolls above the spikes and destroys a few blocks in the way just in time before a new wall blocks the way, while more stone blocks are destroyed so they can go to another level below. There, they have to roll again above more spikes after pressing another switch. At the end, they enter a cannon just before the stone blocks under it are destroyed, and when the cannon expels them, it has fallen in the level below. They are propelled through iron blocks just before another wall is created to block the way. In the end, they have done well to follow this challenge, because they find a Maxi Tomato alongside a last switch opening the way.

As they eat, Sweetie says "Scootaloo would live for moments like that!"

Once done eating, they go down a hole in the floor, and enter a static area, where they land on a platform with green paint, in a round room full enemies, including Bronto Burts, Spear Waddle Dees, Soarars (dart-shaped yellow flying creatures with just two eyes and nothing else), and parachuted bombs. Sweetie jumps from the platform, and uses Wheel to roll all around the room, including the walls and the ceiling thanks to her speed, avoiding the bombs that eventually explode reaching the ground, while ramming all the others. Once all the enemies are eliminated, the door appears on a floating platform at the center of the room, and Sweetie has to time her jump to land on it, the wheels screeching as she stops before rolling beyond the edge.

"WOOOHHHH!!! Take that! I'm on a roll!"

She rolls through the door, and barely she as she exits it at the other side, she continues rolling in the following tunnel, ramming everything in the way. At the end, she has to jump on a platform above before rolling in the opposite direction. Two more platforms later and one tunnel later, she reaches a room full of star blocks. Using the paintbrush, she rolls through them until reaching another room just above that is also full of blocks. Exiting the room, she rolls under spikes in a small pathway, and when she reaches the end, she jumps on another platform in the level above and rolls in the opposite direction, until reaching a tube like in that colored city. Once out of the tube, they fall in a long vertical tunnel with some enemies easily knocked out with some good wheeled punch before reaching a second tube.

the tube leads leads them in a small room where they have to destroy a bomb block in the ceiling, causing a few enemies to drop on them, which doesn't get Sweetie, and opening a hole in the floor. Jumping in it, she restarted rolling, having to use the paintbrush to roll above a gulf before having to go up, where they have to avoid some kind of giant green sea-serpent getting out of holes in the walls to try to eat them. In the worse case, a good punch in the head convinces them not to try again. At the end of the climb, they find the portal, and Sweetie rolls through it.

Rolling out of the portal, she immediately hits a wall, stopping her and revealing that they now are in a small room with almost no space to roll, and the only way to go is up through a few platforms. They can also see that they are now in an area similar to that ravine with the sunset.

She jumps on the platforms, and once at the top, she destroys a wall of stone blocks. Once the wall is destroyed, she gets a strong wind in the face, forcing her to put a hoof in front of her eyes to better see what is awaiting her. Not too much actually. A few platforms, with enemies on them. Using the paintbrush, she quickly rolls to pass this section, the wheels great at fighting the current. She doesn't even use the cannons that are on some of the platforms.

She rapidly reaches a wall, where there is no current anymore, and she goes up to go through a pathway to pass it, where she has to destroy another wall, which bring back the current in her face. From there, she rolls again in the air with the paintbrush, this time having to avoid floating saws.

it doesn't take long for her to reach a black door, where she and Kirby quickly drink a bottle beside it. After the door, they end in a place with stone blocks above and below them, the ones below actually a bridge, and a Twister. Sweetie destroys the bomb block, destroying the stone blocks above and revealing that they have to go up in a vertical section. Quickly, Kirby discards Wheel to eat the Twister, gaining Tornado, and he signs Sweetie with a nod to go on him. Understanding, Sweetie Belle clings to him, and just as the stone bridge is destroyed as a result of the explosion of the bomb block, Kirby starts to spin around himself to become a tornado, Sweetie doing all she can to not being propelled, or to not lose what she has eaten. Thanks to the tornado, they are easily able to go up, reaching another stone bridge with more stone blocks blocking the way. They destroy them, and do this a third time, before reaching a new section.

Here, the current is back, and the way is blocked by some orange... robotic-like block with a face in the middle of a wall of electricity coming from round prods on it. They could easily go around it, but Sweetie decides to try to find a way to deal with this new obstacle, just in case they encounter one later that they can't go around. Thinking for a few seconds, Sweetie throws the paintbrush at the block, pushing back the block, but not destroying it, only causing it pain if the eyes closing is any indication. At least, it's pushed, so Sweetie quickly throws the paintbrush at it again before it goes back to its initial position, pushing it back even further. More hits, and the prods are finally expelled from its body, the block crashing in the ground while the prods are attracted toward the ceiling and the ground, where they are destroyed.

After the block, Kirby uses the Tornado again to go more up, passing star blocks and avoiding those green sea-serpents trying to eat them. They pass another orange block, going against more currents, then go up yet again using Tornado. After passing a few more star blocks, they encounter a new, curious enemy: an orange, balloon-like creature with a blue bottom and four round 'feet', two orange and two yellow. Curious, Kirby gives up the Tornado to eat this thing, and effectively gain a new ability making him inflate like a balloon, becoming really light and bouncing on the walls. He inflates more and more, ramming a few enemies, until he 'pops', creating a small explosion that eliminate nearby enemies while he returns to his normal size. Sadly, it bouncing on the wall is not really that effective to climb up, and Kirby's increased size makes him more vulnerable to the projectiles of the Shotzos that they spot further up.

But now comes the second test: the effect of the ability on Sweetie Belle, and the filly really doesn't know what to think it will give her. Will she turn into a bouncing balloon too? Hopefully, it's something else. To her surprise, when Kirby goes on her back, she doesn't become round, but she does become a balloon, a balloon with her normal filly form. She can still move like a normal pony, but with her being far more light, she can bounce higher and further, and thanks to her hooves, she can control the direction where she wants to bounce. The main downside is that now her body does this annoying noise that balloons do when they are pressed or rubbed.

Thanks to Balloon, she bounces on the walls and the lines created by the paintbrush to go up, using controlled trajectories thanks to her hooves to avoid the Shotzos and the sea-serpents. Another downside that she encounters while bouncing up is that her punches don't hurt that much anymore, only pushing the enemies back. This downside is easily solved by enveloping her hooves in energy to punch, the energy still making them effective.

They pass the black door at the top, leading them in a small cavern with only one way to go. Following the path, they reach a gulf with currents going up. Thanks to her lightweight, the current makes her float up, and from there, the next section is just an ascent thanks to the current, pressing switches to open doors, watching out enemies in the way, until they reach the end of the current, below bladed Gordos floating in the way like fans. At this point, the path does a 180 and they now have to go down, another current pushing them. In the way, they pass beside a Maxi Tomato that Kirby eats, before entering a cannon on stone blocks that Sweetie destroyed just before. The cannon propels them through around blocks, and they now are at the start of another path going up, with more currents. Passing star blocks and enemies, they reach the top, and destroy a wall of stone blocks to continue. They are now at the bottom of a big space with floating saws and a few more enemies. Bouncing around them with some smart use of the paintbrush's lines, they reach the portal at the top.

Aaaand back in a dark place! Time to paint another sun! Yet again, in the dark, the result is not pretty, but at least, it give enough light so she can paint a lantern. Now that they can see something, they see that they are just beside a spiked door in a ruined area, with now switch close, forcing them to go the opposite way to search it. Sweetie has to bounce above an electrical floor in the way before reaching the switch in front of spikes. Returning at the now open door, they follow the path until reaching a room full of those Blade Gordos, with propellers creating currents that make her float.

Carefully passing the room, they arrive at a saw turning rapidly in the way, too rapidly. She paints a Bomber and throws it at the saw, destroying it and opening the way. She does the same thing to the following saws, until they find another spiked door, with its switch being further, in a small room with electricity coming from the floor and the ceiling. She just throws the paintbrush at the switch, not risking anything.

Back at the door, they pass it, and pass between electrical blocks in the floor and the ceiling, before passing a black door leading to a lighted area. Just in case, Sweetie keeps the lantern, before advancing, only to be stopped by a blue block with an arrow pointing up, the block seemingly blocking the way, seeing as there is nowhere to go. She looks at the block in curiosity, then wanting to see what it will do, she throws the paintbrush at it. The paintbrush hits the arrow, and the next instant, the blocks goes up, opening the way, and when it's stopped by the ceiling, the arrow now points down.

Not paying attention to the block anymore, they pass through a tube, and after a small hallway, they are stopped by three more of those blue blocks. Hitting the arrows, she makes the three blocks go up, revealing a fourth block, this one going forward, freeing the way. The next room has another block, and when Sweetie hits its arrow, she has to bounce above it to not be crushed between it and the wall behind her. Moving this block frees a Gordo that almost gets her, the filly dodging it with another bounce, only to see that there is yet another block blocking the way down, and this one goes up. However, the first block that has been moved into this room blocks its way, so she first have to move it, returning it to the previous room, before moving that last block.

Now able to continue, they go through another tube, and reach a new room, this one being in a static area, with lasers coming from the floor, and those blue blocks at the top. Using the paintbrush, she is able to move down the block, making them block the lasers so they can continue. Passing a third tube, they now have to follow a path with many obstacles, starting with a laser, followed by blue blocks, and spiked floors.

After a spiked floor, they reach a green button in front of green blocks. Pressing it, the green blocks disappear, revealing behind them a pink and green button in front of pink blocks. Having an idea of what it will do, Sweetie walks beside it before pressing it, making the pink blocks disappear, and the green blocks reappear behind her, as she has guessed it would do.

Now, they enter a room with two doors in the ceiling, and a laser at the end, a switch in the laser's path. using a line to block the laser, Sweetie quickly presses the switch, opening the first door, which drops another switch with another laser. Pressing it open the second door, dropping a green button, with yet another laser. By pressing it, she makes the green blocks at the exit of the room disappear, letting them continue. Passing another tube, they enter a static area, where switches open doors that actually into holes, while also opening a spiked door at the end, just before the black door.

Barely they exit the door that they have to jump in a small cannon above a gulf to enter a giant static area full of cannons, forming a real cannon maze with a few bumpers in the way, to Sweetie's annoyance. When they exit the area, they enter a hallway with Bouncys. Following it, they enter a tube, and land on a platform with green paint. The platform starts to move, and Sweetie has to use the lines of the paintbrush to protect themselves from many dangers, simple enemies, cannons shooting fire, and boulders. After all this, the platform leads them in before the portal.

Aaand back in a volcano area.

She is gaining time with those duplicates of the areas. I hope we will reach her soon, because this is starting to become annoying. Without them, we would already be back home. At least, the 'puzzles' make it more entertaining.

She advances, Kirby still on her back until she sees one of those mechanical claws, or grapnel, or whatever, going down to catch her. She is lifted, and thanks to the grapnel moving, she passes above lava surrounding the part where they have appeared. The grapnel releases her above a solid platform above a gulf, and she has no choice from there to glide on a line drawn by the paintbrush to pass above the gulf, and inside a tunnel of lava, until reaching another platform.

Here, a second grapnel catches her and drops her on another platform with a bottle of energy drink. Another ride on a line later, they reach a platform with a small cannon that propels them on solid ground, on a slope. At the top of the slope, she spots another grapnel above lava, and uses a line to go under it so it can grab her and lift her elsewhere. She passes above more lava, and she has to attack a few Bronto Burts having the bright idea of attacking them while they can barely move because of the grapnel, before she is dropped on a lone platform above the lava. She has no choice but to continue using the paintbrush.

After some gliding, they reach a propeller that propels them up, beside a grapnel. The ride with the grapnel doesn't last long, because it releases them a few meters later, above the lava. Quickly, Sweetie Belle draws a line to avoid being burned alive, and she uses it to reach solid ground. In this place, there are two static areas, with a small non-static path between them, going up toward a platform with a white enemy that would have its place in an icy area. Kirby sees it as a chance, so he signs Sweetie Belle to let him go eat him, because the Ice ability could be useful in this area.

When Kirby comes back with Ice, Sweetie Belle says "I'm not sure how I will be able to use the Ice without my horn."

Despite this, Kirby goes on her back, giving her her ice form. Feeling the ice power in her, Sweetie start to think of a way to use it. Kirby can use the Ice ability to breath ice, or to surround himself in some sort of freezing aura, so she is probably not limited to only shooting ice balls from her horn.

She approaches the lava, the only way to continue, where she spots the door. To reach it, she normally would have to use a line very close of the lava because of the static area just above going all the way to the door, and it would be very risky. She rises a hoof, and gulping, she slowly puts it on the lava.

The point where she touches the lava becomes solid lava rock, forming a small platform. Grinning, she puts a second hoof, and it forms a second small platform. A few steps later, and she is now walking on lava!

She laughs. "Some ponies say that they can walk on water! Please! I can walk on lava!"

Kirby joins her in the laugh.

"And you know what is the next step?" she asks.

"Poyo?"

"Walk in the air!"

He tilts his spherical head. "Poyo?"

"I may have an idea now, thanks to this. I may not need shield platforms anymore! But first, I need my horn."

At this, they pass the door.

---

"Now I'm curious to see this." says Applejack.

"Could she really walk in the air?" Rainbow asks Twilight.

"That's the thing. I don't know. Yes, an unicorn can self-levitate, but walk in the air, it's never happened. If she has really found a way... It may be one of the greatest magical discoveries since the time of Starswirl!"

Pinkie puts a hoof under her chin. "Mmmmmmmmm... It has something to do with her walking on lava, even if she doesn't really walk on lava, but on solidified lava. I'm sure she could really walk on lava thanks to the Fire ability. So... Walk in the air... Maybe thanks to the Wind ability?"

"You mean, the Tornado?" asks Fluttershy.

"Yes! The Tornado! But for Sweetie Belle, it's really more a Wind ability!"

"Walk in the air using the wind?" proposes Twilight. "No, how could she walk on the wind?"

"Solid wind?"

Twilight is about to rebut her, but she stops herself before putting a hoof on her eyes, groaning. "With this world, it is possible..."

Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle has jumped from platform to platform above a pit of lava, before going down a slope while avoiding flamethrower turning on themselves. Right now, she is walking on lava again, just passing a fire wall for the brief seconds that it has stopped before it restarts.

"You know girls, when I watch Sweetie Belle like that, I think that we are really lucky," says Applejack.

"How so?" asks Rarity.

Applejack waves at the filly walking on more lava, before starting gliding on a line above a gulf. "Our adventures don't last that long, we aren't forced to go through dozens of areas with icy caves or volcanoes, we only pass a few traps, and generally, they aren't fatal like those electric floors or spiked walls, and we don't fight that much. In that adventure alone, Sweetie Belle has done more that we have done since we got the Elements. And it's not even her first adventure like that! It's her fourth! In just a few months!"

Sweetie Belle is now slaloming between Gordos above a gulf.

"Really, we got it easy compared to her," she continues. "I don't know what to think."

Discord turns toward her. "Not all heroes go through big adventures around the world. Sometimes, it's just a big climatic, or anticlimactic confrontation against the big bad, and sometimes, it's just being at the right place, at the right time, to do the right thing. But remember that you still saved Equestria a great number of times, and this is not nothing." He smirks. "But it's true that Sweetie Belle is now in another league. The only thing that you have in common is that you fight beings of immense power. Nightmare Moon or Tirek had nothing to envy to the likes of Zero or Dark Mind."

After walking on more lava, Sweetie reaches a new section with a small volcano expelling fireballs. She then jumps in a hole, entering a room with those enemies that look like square blocks trying to crush her. She has to make them fall in holes in the floor to get rid of them.

Rainbow huffs. "'Fight'? Let's rather call it 'shoot the rainbow and we call it a day'. And when it's not a rainbow, it's a shield powered by love. We barely fight, and when we fight, we lose. But her, she fights, and she wins. I think that's a big difference."

"True. True." He then turns into some kind of half human, half goat being. "Do you want me to train you into becoming heroes like her?"

"Two words: no thanks!" says Pinkie.

Twilight shakes her head. "We don't need training. We are already great heroes as we are."

"We may still need to train fighting, a rainbow will not always save us. The wedding was a close call," says Applejack.

Discord takes a paper. "Whoever want some good training will have to see me so we can discuss the schedule."

"I'm in!" shouts Rainbow.

By now, Sweetie has passed a door, entering a tunnel where lava regularly rises from cracks in the floor in the lower parts. The tunnel being rather straightforward, it doesn't take her long to reach the end, where she finds, and enter, the portal.

---

Sweetie Belle and Kirby are back in that area that seems to have been drawn by a kid, on stone blocks, beside a Rocky that Kirby immediately eats. There has been many water sections the previous time, so it may happen again.

It doesn't take long to reach one. Barely they destroy the floor of stone blocks, they find themselves having to swim down in water through star blocks. With Sweetie now made of stone, they quickly reach the bottom, where they fall on spikes after destroying a star block hiding them. Thankfully, her stone body makes her invulnerable to the spikes, to her joy. Walking on the spikes, she rapidly find herself on those blue moving blocks. One press later, and the block she is on goes down.

From there, it's one big descent through many obstacles, having to pass Gordos, mobe blue blocks, destroy star blocks, and press a switch to open a path until entering a small tube that gets them out of water, in a short hallway. There, they enter another tube, and they return in water, this time with a current. They have to go up, so Kirby has to leave Sweetie Belle so her body isn't made of stone anymore. The filly has to destroy many star block in the way, then stone block, before having to avoid the Gordos with blades. After the Gordos, she has to move a blue block, trapping a Gordo, before they can pass a black door.

Again in water, they are now face to Blippers, Glunks, and floating mines in a long tunnel. to pass all this, there is some kind of accelerator on the floor that propels them forward when they walk on it, ramming the enemies in the way. After a second accelerator under spikes, they pass a saw before having to press a switch to destroy stone blocks in the way, also revealing an electrified ceiling. Somehow, the electricity doesn't spread in the water, thankfully.

They pass more electrical floor and ceiling, then destroy more stone blocks, either with switches or bomb blocks, then pass a saw, then more electrical path with more saws and even fragile walls before reaching the door.

Drawcia really wants them dead now.

Now out of water, they only have to break a floor made of stone block before returning in it. Already, they have to fight their way through Blippers, pass an electrical fan, they walk or swim under spikes. they reach the end of this section of water, only to enter another under star blocks, also full of aquatic enemies. with even falling boulders. Passing a succession of walls of stone blocks, they enter a tube, leading them in another section of water full of Glunks with spikes in close spaces. After the spikes, they have to go through moving holes in electrical walls, then walls of star blocks, before entering the portal.

---

They appear in a tunnel, beside two tracks. Immediately, they spot something not good at all: explosives EVERYWHERE! Further down in the tunnel, they see Dedede placing them.

"Dedede?"

---

"Ah! We won!"

"Darn..."

---

The penguin hears her call and spots them, surprised.

"What?! You are already here?" He then growls before pressing a button on a remote control, activating a countdown in all the bombs. "No matter!" He jumps in a minecart. "It should be enough!" As the minecart rolls beside Sweetie and Kirby, he shoots at them "I stuffed this whole mountain in explosives! When I go out, I will close the door, and you will not escape! BWAAHAHAHAHA!!!"

"No way! Quick Kirby!" Sweetie jumps with Kirby in a smaller minecart on the second track, and it starts to roll, following Dedede's. However, they rapidly reach the end of the tunnel, entering an immense cavern with the tracks above bottomless pits, and when Dedede spots them following him, he orders his minions to destroy their track. "Horsefeathers!"

"Poyo!"

"Don't worry Kirby! Leave it to me!"

just as their minecart reach the destroyed part, she start drawing a line, the minecart successfully rolling on it, to Dedede's dismay.

"That can't be right! Minions! Attack! Attack!"

Countless flying enemies start to charge at them to stop them. Sweetie Belle tries to not pay attention to them, trying instead to avoid them by painting the track around, which cause her to lose time. She leans the minecart forward as much as she can to gain speed, and before long, they are catching up to a surprised, and angry Dedede, his track also having many turns making him lose time.

She draws her track close to his and she starts attacking his minecart.

"H-hey! You wanna play like that?!"

He swings down his hammer at them, and Sweetie is forced to make her minecart roll away to not be crushed, only to be rammed by a Bronto Burt, making her lose speed. Dedede then throws his hammer at them, and Sweetie has to roll around it as it falls. To her surprise, Dedede has more hammers to throw at them, and soon, it starts raining hammers, adding to the difficulty. thankfully, some of the hammers hit Dedede's minions.

To regain speed, she draws a slope going down, then end it with a loop. As she catches Dedede again, she sees another hammer about to fall on them. She jumps, and spin kicks the hammer to send it hitting Dedede in the head, stunning him a little as stars turn around his head. Back in the minecart, she barely avoids a boulder falling from the ceiling of the cavern, a gift of Dedede's minions. Gordos appear among the enemies, forcing her to keep an eye on the way.

"Poyo!"

She makes the minecart go to the right, avoiding a second boulder.

"Poyo!"

Another boulder avoided. She then fire a Giga Force Blast at the ceiling, making the cavern shake and causing countless boulders and stalactites to rain everywhere, crushing many of the enemies, but also forcing her to constantly go left and right to dodge them. Some of the boulders fall on Dedede's track, creating holes in it. His minecart bounce above a first hole, and the shock of the landing helps Dedede recovering his senses. seeing the holes and the falling boulders, he makes his minecart jump above a hole before hitting a boulder with his hammer, sending it at Sweetie Belle. She avoids it by making a slope.

Darn! She is losing! She can see the exit of the cavern, and Dedede is getting closer to it. The penguin is laughing, assured of his victory. Grinding her teeth, she quickly paints a straight line for her minecart before sending the paintbrush in front of Dedede's minecart. There, she draws a line on his track, and makes it go to the left, right into a wall!

"Wh-?! Nononononono!!!"

BAM!

His minecart explodes against the wall, and Dedede is now flattened against it.

As Sweetie laughs, she restarts drawing her track before her minecart reaches the end of the line she has drawn, and before long, she passes Dedede who is now falling in the pit. She reaches the exit and start to go as far away from the mountain as possible.

A few seconds later, the whole mountain explodes.

As debris start to rain everywhere, and a giant wave of falling rocks come behind them, they reach the portal, and pass it.

Chapter 46: Drawcia

Sweetie Belle and Kirby, still in the minecart, roll out of the portal, roll on a switch, and jump out of the chariot in panic as it is crushed under falling ice forming a stair. As sweetie gets back up after the jump, she looks at the crushed minecart visible through the transparent ice, then back at where the portal has been, rubbing her head.

"Boy... That was intense. Blowing a whole mountain to kill us, Drawcia is crazy. And if we had come a little too late, she would have succeeded."

Kirby nods. Knowing that their enemy can go this far to kill them is scary. And it shows that she must really be stopped.

They look around, and quickly see that they are in another ice cave in the cold mountains. Remembering all the area they have traversed until now, it was either that, or the factory one. Now that they are in the ice mountains, this means that the next area should be the factory. Knowing that there are so little areas left makes them smile, because it means that they are close to the end of their adventure.

The downside... Who knows what kind of traps is awaiting them in those last areas.

With this in mind, they jump up the icy stare, and Kirby gives up the Stone to eat a Chilly, gaining Ice. After that, they have to search for a new switch to drop a wall of ice and free the way. Once done, they go up in a pathway full of spikes, then glide through another, smaller pathway with spikes getting out of blocks in the floor and the ceiling. At the end of this path, there is an accelerator that would propel them back into it if they walk on it, so they have to go around before pressing a switch that destroy a wall of stone block just after it, revealing a dead end hidden behind it with another switch. Pressing it causes ice above them to drop, opening the way.

Going up, they find the path yet again blocked by ice, so they have no choice but to take another path full of spikes. At the end of this path, in a big room, they find a switch. With nothing else to do, they return to where the ice has been blocking the way, and find that they can continue. After passing another section full of spiked blocks, they have to avoid another accelerator, followed by falling stalactites, and a third accelerator. Reaching the level above, they spot the black door at the other side of some ice blocking the way. Yet again, they have to go through another path to find the switch, this one with falling icy boulders. Pressing the switch at the end, they return to the ice, and they finally reach the door.

They appear in front of a giant static area with two green painted platforms waiting for them. Jumping on one, they have to wait on it as it moves through the static area while they are assaulted by many enemies, forcing Sweetie to fight with all she has until reaching the end. once out of the static area, they have to pass a few other that are forcing them to jump on small floating ice blocks between platforms while avoiding Gordos. Thanks to the Ice, they don't slip on them. After this section, still in a static area, they ignore the moving green painted platforms to directly walk on the floor, simply jumping here and there to reach the door.

They now are in a room partially submerged, the exits blocked by green blocks. Searching for the green button, they find it after destroying a fragile wall just under where they have appeared. From there, they have to navigate through a puzzle maze made of the buttons activating green and purple blocks with a few traps and obstacles, alongside a water section at the bottom.

Many annoying back and forths later, they find a green button opening a path toward a purple button that forces them to go under a squared falling block enemy above spikes and a few saws. With both the green and the purple button pressed without having to press any of the green and purple ones that are everywhere in this maze, they now can go everywhere, and it doesn't take long for them to find the portal.

As predicted, they are now in a factory, starting in an empty room where they have to destroy a fragile wall to get out. Entering a tube, they enter a long hallway with the floor going up and down, threatening to crush them against the ceiling. Thankfully, holes in the ceiling prevent them to get this fate. Strangely enough, the enemies and obstacles, Shotzos, Gordos, lasers, or spikes, for example, are phasing through the moving floor as if the floor doesn't exist for them! In the way, Kirby eats a Needlous, some kind of larval creature with a yellow and black striped body and spikes on their back that can curl into a ball like a hedgehog before rolling around, gaining Needle. Thanks to the needles, they can grip the ceiling if they need to avoid something while making sure that any enemies getting closer are turned into cheese.

About the spikes, a little further, the whole hallway is covered in these, forcing Sweetie and Kirby either to use the paintbrush or to jump on floating platforms. This section is rather long, with many Shotzos in the way, but eventually, they reach the end of the hallway where the door is waiting for them.

The door leads them in front of a static area. Passing Gordos, they follow the path forced to walk, until they reach a grapnel that lift them above spiked floors and hole. Looking down, they see that the second hole is actually where they have to go as it doesn't end in a dead end, so Sweetie hits some buttons on the grapnel, forcing it to release them. After a small drop, they are now in front of three successives robotic orange faced blocks with the prods and the electric wall. Destroying and passing them, they reach another grapnel, and like with the first one, they have to wait until they pass above the right hole before forcing it to release them. As they drop, they finally exit the static area.

They then enter a room with floating mines and balloon bombs, a metal door in the floor at the center, and four small walls made of stone blocks. Putting two and two together, it's easy to guess that they have to use those mines while avoiding the balloon bombs that explode at contact to destroy the stone blocks and find the switch to open the door.

Pushing a first mine to a first wall, the following explosion reveal the switch. Pressing it, they hear a door opening, but they can see that it is not the door in the floor, meaning that there are more than one door. Probably four, one for each wall. And indeed, behind the three remaining walls, they find three more switches. once they are all pressed, they can reach the black door.

In the new part of the factory, they start by following a hallway, fighting a few Spear Waddle Dees, passing a few lasers, before landing on a moving green painted platform going down. Seeing more lasers coming as they follow the path of the platform, Sweetie Belle has to use the paintbrush to block them before they reach the end. At this moment, they have to go either up, or down. Up, they discover that it's a dead end, so they have to go down, landing on another platform, this one not moving, in a room entirely covered in spikes with electrical blocks forming a giant electric cube at the center.

Jumping from the platform, they fall beside the electric cube and fall on bubble blocks, forcing Sweetie to quickly use the paintbrush before they disappear under them to exit this room. Quickly, they reach another green platform that move above a bottomless pit, with more lasers in the way. The platform doesn't go all the way to the other side of the pit, so when it stops, they have to glide on a line, using it to pass another laser. Yet another laser is in the way, this one coming from the ceiling, which forces Sweetie to create a ramp, and as they jump while approaching the laser, she draws another line to block it. Once pass the laser, she quickly draws another line under them, leading them back on the ground.

Now they have to go up in a path that they see has electrical walls. Using a spring to propel them up a little, they carefully glide up between the walls, and rapidly pass this section. After a small walk, they jump on another moving green platform beside an electrical wall. Moving down, they reach the bottom end of the wall, and spot at the other side the portal randomly teleporting in a room formed by those electrical wall. Gliding through the hole, they enter the electrical room and go after the portal, only to miss it as it teleports, almost making them ram into the electrical wall behind it. Annoyed, Sweetie makes a rapid turn and spots again the portal. Gliding around the room, she waits until the portal appear close to her before rapidly gliding into it with Kirby, leaving this Tartarus darned place.

It turns out that this is not the last area, because they find themselves now in a space area! There is solid floor here, but it's black with small colored squares.

Sweetie Belle sighs. "Of course. All that remained was a space area." She then looks at the background. "At least, it's beautiful, and very... cubic. Is it Cubism?"

Kirby puffs some air. "Poyo poyo..." It's not time to get distracted by the art...

Getting the message, Sweetie Belle giggles before starting gliding in a path covered in spikes. Reaching an opening in the ceiling, she sees the path continuing up, still with spikes everywhere. At the end, there is an intersection, and the two new paths are still covered in spikes. Spikes. Spikes everywhere! Choosing one of the two paths, they follow it, and continue to go up, entering a new path going diagonally.

"Darn it! This whole area is like a giant game where we must not touch the edges! That's so stressful!"

Carefully, she goes up, then down, then up again in the diagonal path, before reaching a last straight way leading to the door, but very compact with barely enough space for them to enter without touching the spikes, forcing her to be very slow. She is happy to reach the door, hoping that the next part will not be as stressful.

They appear in front of an enemy giving Missile, and seeing the big space they are in, Kirby find it a good choice to eat it to gain this ability. Now giving Sweetie Belle the rocket hooves, she has to search the immense area, and avoiding many obstacles in the form of bombs, missile enemies, Gordos, burning floating cubes, and many other enemies. She has seen the Green blocks at the place they have appeared, so it is easy to guess that she has to find the green button to make them disappear. And if there are green blocks, it's very probable that there are also purple blocks too, so she searches a potential purple button too. Not going too far to not get lost, they rapidly find the green button, but as they have guessed, they now have to find the purple one. Flying around, going beside some cubic burning 'star', they eventually find the purple button at the opposite side of the green one. Returning where they have appeared, they now see red doors with colored switches. Turning all the switches red, the way to the door is finally opened.

They land on a platform in what seems to be hyperspace, sweetie's eyes going wide at seeing the space move so fast around her. But as she looks back, she see a wall of... grey space matter or whatever approaching, seemingly erasing everything it touches. quickly flying away of this horror, she has to avoid meteors and cubic platforms covered in spikes before entering a tunnel that she has to rapidly follow as the wall is rapidly catching up. there are some spikes in the tunnel too, but nothing compared to the first part. Or they have thought, because after some time, the floor and the ceiling of the tunnel get entirely covered in spikes as wide and tight spaces are succeeding one another.

They exit the tunnel, only to have more cubic platforms covered in spikes in the way, in greater number, leaving too much space to fly between them. with the wall still following them, Sweetie Belle can't slowdown, and by the time she reaches the portal, she is covered in scratches.

---

As Sweetie Belle passes the portal, the ponies release their breaths.

Rarity fans her head. "Oh... I will have grey hairs before the end of..." She then sees the new area where Sweetie Belle and Kirby appear. "AAAAAAARGH!!! What is this horror?!!"

Sweetie Belle, Kirby still on her back and hovering in the air thanks to her rocket hooves, is now in... probably what Discord must think is a masterpiece. The ground is a mess of colors, and the background... it's chaos. It's not as colored as the ground below Sweetie, being mainly brown or orange, but it's no less a mess, this time of objects forming what seems to be building, stairs, or even ladders going in all directions. At all this, they can add the atmosphere that just feels... wrong.

"Before anypony says anything... Yes, I like the style of this world -let's call it that-, but it's also giving me the heebie-jeebies," comments Discord. "I can't feel anything coming of this but pure folly. At least, my chaos has some feelings in it, but there... It's empty."

"And now, they are about to fight the being that created this," says Twilight, frowning. "This fight may be worse than the one against Zero Two. At least, Zero Two wasn't crazy to the point of making Discord pass for someone sane. I don't believe that I'm saying that."

Spike is shaking. "Brrrr... Discord is not the only one having the heebie-jeebies because of this place. I wouldn't want to be Sweetie Belle. Just watching makes me want to run away."

It seems like sweetie Belle has resolved herself, because she starts advancing, clearly nervous. Quickly, they discover something else that makes this world even more 'empty': there is not a single enemy. Not even a Waddle Dee. After passing a path covered in spikes, again, they reach a door up a stair.

Entering a new part of this crazy world, the filly spots an empty portrait, a void instead of an image. But as she approaches...

Hehe hehehe hehehe!

"Eep!"

A ghostly face appears in the void of the portrait, with two round, blank eyes, and a white, wrinkled, wicked mouth, uttering a frightful giggle as it stares at Sweetie Belle and Kirby without moving.

"Uhh... I think that I need to change my pants..." says Pinkie.

"You don't have pants," replies Applejack.

"Oops... Right..."

Sweetie has her whip ready to attack the portrait, but it just remains here, staring, doing nothing else.

"Alright. Drawcia has just beaten every other bad guys in the creepy domain," she says.

"Poyo."

"If it's not gonna attack us, then let's just forget it and continue."

"Poyo."

More of those creepy portraits follow the first one as they start to glide up.

Hehehe hehehe!

Hehe hehehe hehehe!

Hehe hehehe hehehe!

Hehehe hehehe!

"They are turning me crazy!" shouts Rainbow Dash. "How is Sweetie Belle resisting this?!"

"I don't think she is..." answers Discord. "Look at her face."

Sweetie Belle is clearly becoming annoyed with these portraits, if her gritting teeth and frown are any indications. And as she reaches the final room possessing no less than five portraits...

Hehe hehehe hehehe!

Hehehe hehehe!

Hehehe hehehe!

"RAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!"

Crack! Crash! Bam! Crack!

"Yep. She was not resisting."

By now, Sweetie Belle is in the middle of the remains of the five portraits, huffing. "Who is laughing now?!" she screams.

Kirby is rubbing himself against her, hoping to calm her. "Pooyo. Pooyo. Pooyo."

"Th-thanks Kirby." She takes a big breath. "I'm calm. I'm calm."

Rainbow Dash waves her hoof, gulping. "I wouldn't want to be there if she has a temper tantrum."

"I don't remember her getting so violent when she got angry," says Rarity.

"Probably comes with her learning to fight," replies Applejack.

"Or she was REALLY annoyed against those portraits," continue Pinkie.

"Let's not forget that they are at the end of a long adventure full of mortal dangers that must have been taxing on her mind," adds Twilight.

"That's right."

"Yeah..."

At this moment, Sweetie Belle approaches the portal, this one bigger than the others, with a frame possessing various colors forming chaotic patterns.

She passes it. Everything turns black

...

...

"HEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!!!

Chill creeps up everypony's backs. They now can see Sweetie Belle on the colored floor, Kirby still on her back, and yet she doesn't have the rocket hooves anymore. Then Drawcia materializes like a ghost in front of them, and from her, the world forms around them, the colors and forms warping, going left and right while cascading.

"Drawcia!" shouts Sweetie Belle, pointing the paintbrush at her. "Give Dreamland back its normal appearance! And give us back my horn and Kirby's limbs! It's our last warning!"

Drawcia answers with another laugh before she reveals her body under her cloth and shoots from it one of her purple balls. Sweetie Belle swings the paintbrush, forming a line in the path of the ball. It bounces on the line, to Drawcia's surprise, and it hits her, stunning her.

Sweetie Belle takes her canvas and lets the paintbrush float beside her as she takes her whip too. "Alright then! Let's go Kirby!"

"Poyo!" shouts the ball in determination. He then charges toward Drawcia as she is still stunned, and rams her, sending her back in the air. Quickly, Sweetie Belle follows Kirby, bounces on him, and punches Drawcia in the face, sending her back crashing on the floor. Kirby charges her again, dealing one last hit, before Drawcia regains her senses and flies up.

"HEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!!!"

Suddenly, the background turns red, and a canvas and a paintbrush appear in the air. She paints a parachuted bomb, and the next instant, a dozen of those bombs appear above Sweetie and Kirby. Sweetie Belle uses her paintbrush to explode them, then starts to paint something on her canvas as the background turns green. A Shotzo soon appears beside her, and it starts shooting at Drawcia. The witch avoid the projectiles, and her canvas reappear, making the background turn red again. She paints a hole, and next, holes appear in the floor, including under the Shotzo who falls in before the holes disappear. Sweetie Belle takes the occasion that she is busy to kick Kirby toward her, and like in their first encounter, Drawcia find herself hit in the face by a pink ball. The background turns back to 'normal'.

"I didn't think that I would see a paint battle like that," says Pinkie.

Drawcia creates some kind of mini versions of her, at least a dozen that start to fly toward both Sweetie Belle and Kirby to attack them. As Sweetie is busy fighting them, Drawcia then charges toward her. The filly sees her coming, and after a swing of the brush to get rid of the little pests, she turns around. When Drawcia comes close enough, she is greeted by a buck that send her back, only for her to be rammed in the back by Kirby, and she ends belly on the floor.

The background turns green again as Sweetie Belle starts to paint something. A black cloud appears above her, and shoots a lightning toward the witch. As the cloud shoots a second lightning, Drawcia flies up to avoid it, and she shoots a purple ball to destroy the cloud. She makes her canvas appear, and paint spikes on it. The ground under Sweetie Belle then starts to form a bump, and she quickly jumps aside before a giant colored spike rises from it. More spikes follow this one.

"HEEEHEHEHEHE-HEEE?!!"

Paintbrush in the face! She shakes her head to get rid of the paint now blinding her, leaving her vulnerable to an assault of the two heroes. Again, Sweetie kicks Kirby so he hits Drawcia, this time on the belly. After this, the filly glides on a line to approach the witch, before she bonks her on the head with the paintbrush, sending her crashing on the floor. She follows this by hitting her many times with the whip, greatly hurting her as she is rammed again by Kirby.

Drawcia flies up again, and as the background turns red, three canvas with three paintbrushes appear in the air. On them, she paints a Spear Waddle Dee, a Bronto Brut, and a Cappy, and rapidly, the arena is invaded by a dozen of each. However, Sweetie Belle smirks, and starts to paint, the background turning green. And then, Dedede appears, and she jumps on his head.

"YAH!"

The painted Dedede smirks, and swings his hammers around him, sending flying many enemies. Drawcia counters it by painting again on the three canvas, and the arena start shaking as she paints Paint Roller, Kracko, and Dedede, and the three beings appear below her.

Sweetie's Dedede sees his clone and charges at him, and the two clash. This leaves him open to Kracko who shoots lightning at him, eliminating him. Angry, Sweetie Belle takes her canvas again.

And Zero Two appears behind her.

"Woah nelly!"

"Eep!"

"Did she just invoke her worst enemy just like that?!"

The painted Zero Two looks down at the three worms in front of him. Paint Roller paints himself something to counter that, but he is not able to paint something better than a Dark Matter who is quickly slapped away by Zero Two's wing. Kracko shoots another lightning at him, and while it seems to hurt him (this is a painted clone after all, not the original), Zero Two still attacks by shooting his explosive projectiles at them. The three clones are destroyed, and Zero Two turns toward Drawcia. However, the witch shoots no less than five purple balls, which are enough to eliminate the clone of the leader of the Dark Matters. But as he explodes, Sweetie Belle jumps from behind him, a giant painted sword in her hooves above her, and she swings it down at Drawcia, slashing her vertically, but still not killing her.

The witch is about to shoot more purple balls at Sweetie Belle.

She has forgotten Kirby.

Sweetie Belle quickly uses the paintbrush to create a wall between her and the pink ball, just in time as Kirby unleashes a giant explosion.

As Drawcia has been busy with Zero Two, Sweetie Belle has given a Bomber to Kirby, knowing that it would give him an ability that she has never seen until now, but that her friends has described as extremely powerful.

The Crash ability.

The explosion covers the whole arena, with Sweetie not being hit thanks to the wall. Of course, Drawcia is not protected by a wall, so she takes the explosion fully. When the explosion ends, the wall disappears, letting Sweetie and Kirby see Drawcia seemingly exploding as her body turns white and the background turns dark red.

But then, she starts to laugh again, and her body transforms. As the laughing continued, her body turns into some purple ball with her hair and her eyes, but then, the laugh turns more erratic, more crazy, and her body turns into a pinkish red as it fully forms a ball, the eyes and the hair disappearing. They all remark then that there is an aura around it still forming her original body, but that is also changing form to also turn into a ball that is expanding as Drawcia's body gets smaller and starts shift, the laugh becoming... gurgly.

Then everything becomes white.

"I don't like this..." says Applejack.

The gurgly laugh becomes even more distorted, soon becoming electronic-like. The white disappear, and they can see Sweetie Belle and Kirby again. The world around them has changed. It's now entirely white or grey, still warping, but now more erratic, and as Twilight would say from her experience in the mirror world, pixelized.

Above Sweetie and Kirby is... a giant ball of paint, mainly pink and purple.

Five yellow eyes appear at the top.

A giant yellow mouth opens below them.

SCREEEEEEEEEECH!!!

"AAAAAHHH!!!"

Whether it's Sweetie Belle, Kirby, the ponies, or Spike, they all jump back at hearing the screech coming from Tartarus. Even Discord has a little start as he shouts "Yike!"

Drawcia, or whatever she is now, then jumps, disappearing beyond the white 'pixels' above, before reappearing in the background, screeching again. She then expels from her body three balls, blue, yellow, and red, that quickly approach Sweetie Belle and Kirby. Once close enough, the balls are actually revealed to be creatures made of paint strangely looking like Dark Matters, four flaps opening to reveal a single eye.

The blue one then flies up before diving toward Sweetie Belle, ice surrounding it, the yellow one starts to shoot an energy beam in a circle around itself, and the red one has fire appearing around it and charges at Sweetie. The filly quickly jumps out of the way of the blue one, then rolls to the side to avoid the beam of the yellow one, before jumping up to let the red one pass below her before it exploded.

Drawcia screeches again, before she starts bouncing around while approaching Sweetie Belle, until she tries to crush both her and Kirby under her weight. They quickly run/roll away, Drawcia hitting the 'ground' behind them a second later. She then returns to the background, and expels more of those paint things with an eye, two blues and a yellow.

Thinking quickly, Sweetie wait for them to open their eyes before she throws the paintbrush at them, effectively launching them back at Drawcia, seemingly hurting her. Drawcia then teleports beside Sweetie and Kirby, an X shaped hole forming in her body, and out of it come familiar crescent-shaped blades, those ones looking like rainbows. The first one surprises Sweetie Belle, cutting her, and she quickly steps back with Kirby to avoid the others.

Once Drawcia stops, Sweetie Belle create a line toward her to approach and punch it, but before she is able to come close enough, she teleports away.

"Drat!"

More of the balls are coming, two reds, a yellow, and blue. She is able to send back one of the red ones and the yellow one, but she has to avoid the last red and the blue. Drawcia then tries to crush them again, but now that they know the attack, they have even less problems avoiding her, and this time, Sweetie takes the occasion to punch her strongly, seemingly stunning her as she starts to spasm. So she punches her more while Kirby rams her, causing dozens of drop of paint to be expelled like blood, covering them a little.

Eventually, Drawcia teleports away out of harm's way, before dividing its body into many balls of paint that are expelled in the sky as everything turns orange. The balls then start to rain on Sweetie Belle and Kirby, and they can hear the crazy witch's distorted laughter as Sweetie uses a line to protect herself and Kirby. Soon, all the ball disappear, and Drawcia reforms in the background, screeching again.

Quickly, Sweetie Belle takes her canvas again, and as everything turns green, she paints while avoiding being crushed again.

And Drawcia, in her first form, appears beside her.

The two Drawcias glare at each other.

"HEEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE!!!"

SCREEEEEEEEEECH!!!

The two fly up, and Sweetie Belle sighs while laughing. "I love this ability, but darn, it's draining."

Drawcia charges toward her clone, but the clone easily flies around her before she shoots a purple ball at her. The background then turns red, and Drawcia covers herself in fire before flying around like a comet, almost ramming Sweetie Belle and Kirby as she tries to destroy her annoying clone.

She stops, and sends no less than six of her minions, two of each color. In return, Drawcia Clone sends the mini versions of her at them, and they destroy each other, the mini Drawcia disappearing while the eyeballs of paint are sent back to Drawcia.

She is then hit at the back by Kirby ramming her thanks to Sweetie kicking him. Sweetie then wraps her whip around him, and does circles with him, hitting Drawcia more. She teleports away, and divides her body to make raining balls of paint again. Sweetie rapidly puts Kirby on her back before she jumps on Drawcia Clone. She then creates a line to protect themselves from the rain. Once the rain stops, Drawcia Clone flies toward the real one as she reforms, and rams her in the mouth, stunning her.

"Drawcia!" then shouts Sweetie. The clone turns around to look at her, and Sweetie signs toward the paintbrush, then toward Kirby.

The ball blinks in confusion. "Poyo?"

"HEEEHEHEHEHEHE!"

Drawcia Clone joins Sweetie Belle, and together, they use the paintbrush on Kirby. One swing, two swings, three swings, and Kirby is now covered in pink paint. The pink paint then expand, forming a ball as big as Drawcia, before Kirby's face appears on it. As Kirby then rams Drawcia with all his weight, Sweetie paints a Bomber, with a giant (creepy) smile on her face.

Holding the Bomber, Sweetie Belle looks toward Kirby who is rammed back. "Kirby!"

He turns toward her. "Poyo?"

"Eat!" She then throws the Bomber at him. She then turns to Drawcia Clone, and they both nod.

Kirby eats the Bomber.

He flashes white.

SCREEEEEEEE-

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

"Oh... Sweetie Belle invented the nuclear bomb model Kirby. Why am I not surprised?" says Discord.

Twilight facehoofs. "Why must it always end in explosions?"

"Because explosions are awesome!" shouts Pinkie.

"And the bigger they are, the more awesome they are!" continues Rainbow Dash.

"As long as it doesn't happen somewhere like Equestria, then I suppose that I can't argue against that," says Applejack.

Once they can see what is happening again, they see that the background has yet again changed, now becoming an agglomeration of the backgrounds of all the area that Sweetie Belle and Kirby have traversed. Sweetie Belle, actually, is coming out of a metal painted shelter by a big door alongside Drawcia Clone. And Kirby, now back to his normal size, is simply looking up at the real Drawcia as she moves erratically around as if small explosions are happening in her body.

After a last sudden move, the eyes and the mouth disappear, and she starts to lose size. In a last effort, she returns to her normal size with the eyes and the mouth, and screeches. But then, the same portal that Sweetie and Kirby have used to join Drawcia appears behind her, and it starts to suck her inside, the witch doing all she can to resist, vainly. Soon, she disappears inside it, and it starts to shake, the whole world shaking around with it.

And then it breaks, and disappears into nothingness in a big pillar of light.

And everything disappears into light, only leaving Sweetie Belle and Kirby in a rainbow void. Even Drawcia Clone has disappeared. But now, they are back to normal, Sweetie Belle now having her horn again, and Kirby having his limbs.

The filly looks around in worry. "What now? How do we get out of here?"

At this, the paintbrush floats away from then, and points in a direction. A rainbow beam is shot from it, and it opens a portal. At the other side of the portal, they can recognize Dreamland.

Sweetie Belle sighs in relief and turns to the paintbrush. "So it's over?"

It bounces up and down, before starting to float away.

She frowns. "You... aren't coming with us?"

It's a no.

Looking at the paintbrush sadly, Sweetie Belle says "I understand. You will return wherever you come from, right?" She sighs again. "Well then... Thank you, Paintbrush."

Kirby nods at the paintbrush. "Poyo."

They walked toward the portal, before turning again toward the paintbrush. "I hope that we will see you again one day. We know someone that could better use you in Dreamland."

They then see the paintbrush starting to disappear in light. They wave at it.

"Goodbye!

"Poyo!"

And it is not here anymore. Quickly, they pass the portal, appearing on the road where their adventure has started, everything is back to normal.

Mini Discord appears on-screen.

"And so ends another colorful adventure! And I must say, holy moly, I wasn't expecting this final! And as our heroes return to their homes for a well deserved rest, I end with this: that's all, folks!"

And the portal closes.

The ponies look at each other, wondering the same thing: what could top Drawcia?

Chapter 47: Here Come the Squeaks!

"To Sweetie Belle!" shouts Dedede, raising a glass.

"To Sweetie Belle!" shout his soldiers and servants, raising their own glasses.

"Enjoy!"

And the party slash banquet in honor of Sweetie Belle, heroine of the day starts. Everyone starts drinking and eating without restraints, knowing that their second in command has yet again saved the world in the name of the Great King Dedede, and laughter and discussions quickly fill the banquet hall. Some even start singing songs praising the filly and the king.

Sweetie Belle herself is seated at Dedede's left, taking a piece of cake with her face on it. Her meal is interrupted by Dedede suddenly crushing her in a bear hug, the penguin even rubbing his face against hers.

"H-hey!"

"I can't tell you how proud I am of you! You not only saved the world, you did almost all the job! For once, you beat Kirby at being the more heroic!"

She puts a hoof on Dedede's cheek to make him stop and giggles. "That wasn't a competition, you know? And I had the help of the Paintbrush. It is the one that did almost all the job. Without it, I would have been like Kirby."

"But it is through your use of it that you led the both of you to victory! You are the real hero of this adventure!" He releases her and taps her on the back, knocking her forward almost making her crash on her cake. "Stop being humble and enjoy being number one for once!" He then puts an arm around her neck and points the other in front of him, toward the future. "Soon, I know it, WE will be number one. We will be at the very top, and nobody will resist us."

Sweetie Belle raises an eyebrow at him in suspicion. "I hope that you aren't planning to steal everyone's food again."

Dedede doesn't move, but she can see sweat appear on his head. "O-of course not!"

"No need to steal food anymore!" says Bandana Dee at Sweetie's left. "With Sweetie Belle saving Popstar more than once alongside Kirby, and King Dedede helping, I'm sure that the inhabitants now respect us. No need to force them anymore."

Dedede points at Bandana Dee. "Exactly!"

Sweetie Belle deadpans. "Wasn't there something about you deserving all the food of the kingdom because you are the king?"

Dedede and Bandana Dee become still, before the king starts laughing and taps Sweetie Belle on the back again. "That's in the pass! I know better now!"

Sweetie Belle looks at him before smiling. "I hope."

She doesn't say it, but Dedede perfectly understand the remaining of the sentence. Or else... But he doesn't say anything, returning to eating his food.

At this moment, an unexpected guest enter the hall. Adeleine looks around before she spots Sweetie Belle.

"Adeleine?" asks the filly.

As Adeleine runs toward Sweetie Belle, Dedede raises an eyebrow. "What are you doing here?"

But Adeleine ignores him, and once in front of Sweetie Belle at the other side of the table, she asks "What happened?! Why was everything turning into paint?! I'm sure you know! Was there a magical paintbrush involved?"

"What? How do you know about the paintbrush?"

"I knew it! Only the Magical Paintbrush has the power to do this! I can't believe that it was there!"

"So, you know what is the paintbrush?"

"Of course I know! This paintbrush is the origin of the power that me and other artists use to give life to our arts!"

"Really?!"

"Yes! Now, tell me! What happened?! How was the Magical Paintbrush used to turn Dreamland into Paintland?!"

And so, Sweetie Belle tells her about Drawcia, how the witch used the paintbrush to turn everything into a land of paint, how she and Kirby were able to take it from her and how it chose her to use its power, and their fight against Drawcia. She doesn't forget to tell about the paintbrush disappearing after opening a portal back to Dreamland. All the while, Adeleine listens Sweetie Belle without saying anything, gasping at the apparition of Drawcia, and getting disappointed once she learns about the paintbrush's disappearance.

"That's too bad... The legendary Magical Paintbrush finally reappears... only to disappear again. Probably to avoid being used by someone else with bad intentions."

"Don't worry. I'm sure we will see it again after this adventure. And I told it about you, so maybe it will think about it and come back to let you use it."

"Me? Using the Magical Paintbrush? This... This would be a dream come true!"

"Maybe one day. But I'm curious. You know about the paintbrush's history, right? Where does it come from?"

"I don't really know where it comes from exactly, but I do know some things about its history, and also Drawcia's."

"Really? The two are linked?"

Adeleine nods. "Yes. Drawcia was one of the creations of the Magical Paintbrush."

Sweetie Belle looks at Adeleine, mouth open, before she says "That... makes sense actually. Drawcia disappeared in a portrait, so she was probably a painting given life. So it's most probable that the paintbrush created her."

Adeleine nods again. "The Magical Paintbrush was created by a very powerful mage who loved art. As any artist, the mage had a deep desire to give life to his creation. With the paintbrush, this desire could come true. It is said that his first creation with the paintbrush was not a painting, but a sculpture of clay. It's only later that he would create two paintings using the power of the paintbrush. However, barely he finished the two paintings that something, we are not sure what, corrupted them, the second painting being more hit by corruption than the other. The artiste couldn't resolve himself to destroy his creations, and so, he separated and hid the two paintings in unknown locations. Nobody know what happened to his first creation, the sculpture of clay. Following this, the artist transferred his knowledge to apprentices, spreading the magic of giving life to arts. Stories say that before dying of old age, he did something to the Magical Paintbrush to give it its sentience, but nobody is sure of what. He could have transferred his soul, or a part of it, or simply used his magic to animate it. The paintbrush disappeared soon after."

Sweetie Belle looks at Adeleine in awe. "Wow..." She then frowns. "I guess that one of the two corrupted paintings was Drawcia. Now I'm worried knowing that there is another painting like her somewhere. And the worst is that we don't know if Drawcia was the first painting, or the second."

"Probably the second," says Dedede as he eats some meat. "She turned into a giant scary ball of paint, right? And she clearly wasn't all there in the head. That smells heavy corruption alright. And if despite all that, she is just the first, then I don't want to imagine how will be the second."

Sweetie Belle gets chills at this. "Yeah... Let's hope that she was the second painting. And then, there is this sculpture of clay. We don't know if it got corrupted or not, and if yes, how much."

"And we don't know what corrupted them too!" says Bandana Dee. "It could be another powerful monster!"

Sweetie Belle rolls her eyes. "Come on Bandana Dee. This corruption screams 'Dark God', one way, or another. It would explain why Drawcia could create Dark Matter-like minions in her second form, without forgetting her cutter blades attack that really looked like Marx' own cutter attack, which he gained from Nova whose powers come from the Dark God."

"Beside," continues Dedede. "All our adventures so far had something to do with the Dark God, so it is only right to think that he is the culprit in this case too."

"The Dark God may be the origin, but remember that he created many abominations like Zero. One of those abominations could be the cause of Drawcia being corrupted," replies Bandana Dee.

"True..." say both Sweetie Belle and Dedede.

The filly turns toward Adeleine. "Thank you for telling us this Adeleine. Now we know that there may be more enemies like Drawcia coming."

She smiles. "You are welcome." She then smiles sheepishly. "Hum... I forgot to mention that the artist had a sister who loved knitting and... Well, let's just say that there may be a pair of corrupted knitting needles somewhere too."

Sweetie Belle groans while putting her hooves on her eyes. "Any other corrupted objects?"

"Not that I know of."

"Evil knitting needles. I don't believe that I'm hearing that." Sweetie Belle then takes a big breath. "Anyway... I wanted to ask you something."

"Yes?"

"You see, thanks to the paintbrush, I now have some knowledge of how to use my magic to give life to art."

Adeleine squeals. "You want me to train you?!"

she nods.

"I accept! Oh my gosh! My own apprentice!"

Dedede then talks. "She knows only how to paint. From her story, you could also give life to sculptures. You should ask a sculptor in our army to help you learn how to sculpt."

Adeleine nods. "Dedede is right. I specialise in painting and drawing, but not in sculpting."

"Painting first, sculpting later. In a battle, painting will be more convenient."

---

This night, in Sweetie Belle's chamber.

"You are becoming a real swiss knife, you know?" says Mini-Discord. "Soon, you will be able to do anything."

Sweetie Belle shrugs. "You are more a swiss knife than me. You can do anything just by snapping your fingers."

Many tools suddenly pop out of Mini-Discord's body. "True." He then materialises a paper. "By the way, I told myself that you could need this."

"What is this?"

"A list of known or potential foreshadowed threats. With Adeleine's revelations, they are starting to accumulate. It should help you keep them in mind." He then gives the list to her.

Big bad guy:
-The Dark God

Known threats:
-Abominations created by the Dark God
>>>May include something that corrupted Drawcia
-Cylinder-shaped machine that can grant wishes
-The Child of the God that exterminated the others before being sealed
-Whatever is in the chest
-The Squeak Squad
-The other corrupted painting (sister/brother of Drawcia)
-Corrupted knitting needles

Potential threats:
-A crown
-A spaceship
-Other Clockwork Stars
-Whoever has taken the mirror (it may not be the Squeak Squad)
-A sculpture of clay that may or may not have been corrupted

Sweetie Belle looks at the list and says "You are right. This is starting to be a lot. I didn't even think of this rogue Child of the God as a threat that I may encounter, but knowing my luck, whatever is keeping him sealed will break, and I will have to fight him. Knowing that this guy can destroy worlds, I'm not in a hurry to encounter him. You should do a copy of this list and send it to Twilight, so they know what may come. You should put in some descriptions just in case they don't know what those threats are or why they are a threat or potential threat."

Mini-Discord salutes. "Aye aye!"

---

Later, Twilight is reading the list.

"Seriously? Evil knitting needles?"

---

A few days later...

Sweetie looks at the dummies hanging from the ceiling at various heights above the boxing ring. There are ten of them, and half of them have been partially hidden behind wooden walls that are hanging from the ceiling too.

Then she jumps. As she jumps, her horn lightens, and the next instant, she jumps again, while still in the air! Three jumps later, and she reaches the first dummy that she kicks, destroying it in one hit. Immediately, she turns to her left and runs in the air. To anyone watching, they could see that each time that she steps in the air, the air under her hooves turn green before it seems to explode in a small cloud that quickly disappears. She runs around a wall, and destroys the dummy behind it. After much more running and jumping in the air, all the dummies are eventually destroyed, without Sweetie Belle touching the floor once. As she lands in the ring, she hears someone applauding behind her. Looking, she sees Knuckle Joe on one of the stands.

"That was awesome!" he shouts. "I can't believe that you can now really walk in the air!" He then tilts his head. "But I still don't understand how you do this."

She sighs. "I solidify the air by compacting it with my magic. It's like when we use air to inflate balloons. The air pushes whatever material the balloon is made of as if it is solid, because there is something in the air that is pushing the material to gain place. And so, I'm compacting what is in the air until it is compacted enough so there is no place for my hoof anymore. Because there is no place, my hoof steps on the compacted air as if there was a real solid platform. It's all I can say. For more details in how it works, you will have to wait to talk to Twilight."

"But how can air become solid?"

"I told you! There is..." She stops herself and sighs. "Just accept the fact that air can be solidified. I had to accept the fact that we can breathe in the water."

"Ok."

"Sweetie Belle!" they suddenly hear. When they look at the entrance, they see a panicked Bandana Dee running toward the filly. "Sweetie Belle! The castle is attacked!"

"What?!" both Sweetie Belle and Knuckle Joe shout.

The fighter then jumps from the stand, landing in front of Bandana Dee. "I'm gonna stop this! Tayoooo!!!" And he runs out of the room.

Sweat appears on Bandana Dee's head. "I haven't even told who attacked us and where they are..."

Sweetie Belle jumps above the ropes of the ring and lands beside him. "Well tell me."

"The Squeak Squad, and Kirby."

"Eh?!"

"The Squeaks were spotted first. Right now, the big one is battling our soldiers in the hallways, and the old one is on the ramparts. Some of the small ones are spreed everywhere. No idea where are the last two members, the fast one and Daroach. As for Kirby, he came just after, fighting without distinction our soldiers and the Squeaks."

Sweetie Belle raises an eyebrow. "That's weird. I mean, for Kirby. Why is he attacking us?"

"No idea. The king is waiting for him in the throne room."

She nods. "Then I will deal with the Squeak Squad." She smiles. "I have been waiting for this day for some time now. And I think I know where is Daroach. Let's go to the treasure room."

Bandana Dee facepalms. "Of course! It's obvious!"

They then hear a big explosion, which quickly makes Sweetie laugh. "Ahahahah! They activated my trap! Quick Bandana Dee!"

He nods, and both of them run out of the boxing room, direction the treasure room. With the treasure room not being far of the boxing room, it doesn't take long for them to reach it, where they can see smoke coming out of it. The guards at the entrance have been knocked out.

Entering the room, Sweetie Belle use wind to blow away the smoke, revealing the various treasures that have been thrown around the room by the explosion, and the members of the Squeak Squad lying and groaning on the floor around a certain chest.

There are three of the small mice, who possess round bodies without legs and possessing only a small tail similar to a tadpole. But they still have the face and the ears of a mouse. One of them is yellow, another is blue, and the last one is red, and the three of them are clearly knocked out by the explosion.

Then, there is a yellow mouse possessing a big head on a smaller body, with a white face and white belly. Contrary to the small ones, he also possesses two legs, which are orange, and two arms. He wears shining red sunglasses that are sharp at the edges, and a red cape.

And then, there is the last mouse. Like the yellow one, he possesses a head on a body, but the head is smaller. All visible parts of his body are the same grey, and they can see that he has floating paws disembodied, and the forepaws have each three long claws. He has a red hat, which his big ears are digging in, and wears a jagged red cloak with a bell under his chin.

This last mouse is the very one that Sweetie Belle has wanted to fight since she has first heard of him, the leader of the Squeak Squad, Daroach.

The yellow mouse starts to speak. "Uuugh... What was that about not worrying about traps in this castle?"

Daroach answers. "That... was an error of judgement... I didn't think that that idiot of a king would be smart enough to trap the chest."

"Hey!" shouts Bandana Dee in anger. "The king is not an idiot!"

Hearing him, Daroach and the yellow mouse looks from the ground toward them, Daroach revealing that he possesses yellow slitted eyes.

"Darn, we have company," says Yellow.

"And not just any company," says Daroach. "Sweetie Belle. King Dedede's second in command, and second greatest hero of Popstar."

Sweetie Belle smiles. "And the one that got the idea of the trap. Who would expect something as simple as a Bomber dropping from the ceiling?"

The two mice get up, and Daroach speaks again. "I should have guessed that things would be different with you. You will not let this chest be taken away."

"Of course. I have been told that this chest contains something dangerous, so I will let nobody open it."

"Eh. I suppose that infinite power can be considered dangerous in the wrong hands."

"Infinite power? This is what is in the chest?"

"That is what I found out."

"And I can guess that you will use this infinite power to steal all the treasures of the world."

He chuckles. "You really are a smart one, uh? Why don't you leave that stupid king and join us? Your skills would be better used among us. You would become rich. And you would be in pleasant company." At the last part, he wraps himself in his cloak, taking a pose, before grinning and winking toward her.

She huffs. "I will not leave Dedede, I don't care about becoming rich, and I certainly don't want to become a thief. Rarity would be ashamed of me. And I'm already in pleasant company."

"Uuh... Sweetie Belle," says Bandana Dee. "I think that he was flirting with you." He looks at Daroach. "And that's disgusting! She is just a child!"

"Wha-?!" The shock causes Daroach to fall on his back, and the yellow mouse is bending in laughter.

"Maybe you should ask the lady's age before flirting boss!"

Sweetie Belle blushes, before taking her whip. "Anyway! I will stop you!"

Bandana Dee takes his spear. "Yeah!"

Daroach quickly gets back up. "Spinni, wake up the Squeakers, take the chest, and get out of the room. I will fight them."

The yellow mouse, Spinni, salutes. "Yes boss!"

"Do you really think that we will let you escape with the chest?" says Sweetie Belle.

Daroach then gets out from under his cloak a wand that he points up, blue energy gathering. "Yes!" He then points the wand at Bandana Dee, and it shoots a beam of ice at him. Bandana Dee is not able to dodge it in time, and he finds himself trapped in ice.

Before Sweetie can do anything to help her friend, Daroach teleports and appears in the air in front of her. He then takes a bomb from under his cloak and throws it at her. Sweetie Belle protects herself with a shield, and at this instant, she sees Spinni jumping above her holding the chest with the squeakers on it, the mouse landing behind her before running away at a terrifying speed.

She grits her teeth. "Darn it."

Daroach then teleports behind her, following his underling. Sweetie Belle looks toward Bandana Dee, still frozen, before she exits the room, chasing the Squeaks. She quickly creates a shield to jump on it, its speed enough to catch up to the mice.

The red Squeaker sees her coming and quickly warns the others. Spinni looks above his shoulder just in time to jump above a lightning bolt.

"WAAH!"

Daroach turns around and shoots another beam of ice at Sweetie Belle, but she is able to dodge it before counterattacking with an explosive ball that Daroach avoids by going down, holding his hat.

"I will not let you escape!" She fires a fireball at Spinni, and the mouse barely dodge it, his cape catching on fire.

"Hey! My cool cape!" He shouts.

At this moment, they can see that they are approaching more mice. Four more Squeakers; a giant fat blue bipedal mouse wearing a red bandana covering his eyes, a red shirt, and an eyepatch on his left eye, with a tooth extending out of his mouth, and his navel protruding below his shirt; and a white Squeaker-like mouse on the blue one's shoulder, with a green mustache and swirling red glasses.

"What is going on?" says this last mouse.

"Shut up and run!" shouts Spinni as he passes beside them. "Fury on our butt!"

As the big blue mouse turns around to watch Spinni as he runs away followed by his boss, he doesn't see Sweetie Belle spewing a stream of fire from her horn toward them. The next instant, the big guy is running with his butt on fire, howling in pain.

"Great Scott!" shouts the white mouse. "Run! Run you big snail! I don't wanna die so young!"

"You are 75!" replies the big blue.

"Exactly! That's too young for me! Aaah!" he lowers himself just in time to avoid a lightning bolt. "Darn that puffball! If he hadn't destroyed my flying saucer, I would already be out of here!" He then headbutts the big blue. "Faster!"

"I'm running as fast as I can! I'm not Spinni!"

He then gets slammed from the back by a shield, propelling him forward. Daroach sees him coming and takes the chest from Spinni's hands before teleporting. Spinni, however, is not able to dodge, and he finds himself against the big blue's belly. Soon, they hit a wall, cracking it, with Spinni finding himself crushed. The old mouse has been able to remain on the big one's shoulder, and immediately headbutts him again.

"Wake up!" Another headbutt. "Wake up! She is coming!"

Daroach appears at this moment and shoots another ice beam at Sweetie Belle. As the filly dodges again, he then throws the chest at her. Not seeing this coming, Sweetie Belle is rammed by it, expelling her of her shield. Daroach quickly catches the chest as Big Blue is able to remove himself from the wall, revealing a flattened Spinni.

Daroach approaches them. "Storo, Doc, Spinni, are you alright?"

"What?" asks the white mouse, Doc.

"Are you alright?!" shouts Daroach.

"I'm alright! I wasn't hurt! No thanks to this idiot!" He headbutts again Storo, the big blue.

"Stop it!"

"As you can see, he is alright despite the hit. However, I can't say the same about Mr Cool Dude over there. At least, he seems to have lost some weight."

Storo then grabs the flattened Spinni, takes a big breath, and blows the yellow mouse's mouth, inflating him. With Spinni back to normal, he then slaps him on the cheek, effectively waking him.

"Oww! You didn't have to hit so hard!"

"She is coming back!" shouts a yellow Squeaker.

Without a word, all the Squeaks run away, yelling in fear (excepted Daroach), just in time to avoid Sweetie Belle charging at them with an energized punch, the filly hitting the wall instead, blowing a hole even bigger than Storo (and the guy is as big as Dedede!) in it, to the Squeaks' horror.

As Sweetie turns toward them with promised doom in her eyes, the mice run away, Daroach throwing a dozen bombs at her. The filly is able to protect herself against the explosions, and chases them again. At this instant, Daroach points toward a room.

"This way! In the throne room! We will be able to escape through a window!"

However, as they enter it, they get another bad surprise. Looking at them, in front of a defeated Dedede, is none other than Kirby, with the Sword ability.

The puffball sees the chest, frowns, and points his sword at it. "Cake!"

Daroach facepalms. "Who is the idiot who stole Kirby's cake?"

Storo sweats and rubs a finger against his cheek. "Uuuuuh... I wanted a snack, so I ordered the Squeakers to find food."

He is headbutted by Doc. "You idiot!" He then headbutts the closest Squeaker. "You idiot too!"

"Owie! it's not me who stole the cake!"

"I don't know who did it among you, so one of you had to pay!"

At this instant, Sweetie Belle enters the room behind them. "I got you!"

Daroach points at one of the windows. "Over there!"

Storo is the first to go, using his big bulk to pass through it and break the glass, opening the way to the others who quickly follow him.

"We must not let them escape! They took the chest!"

At this, Dedede looks at her in shock. "What?!" He then growls, grabs Kirby, and runs toward the broken window. Spotting the Squeaks on the ramparts, he flings Kirby toward them. Scoring a strike, the squeaks are all expelled of the rampart, and they all fall with Kirby in the chasm around the castle.

Sweetie Belle creates a shield and jumps on it. "I'm following them! I will not let them escape!" And she flies toward where they have fallen.

Dedede looks at her for a moment until she disappears, before he huffs, crossing his arms. "Someone steals his cake, and the first culprit that he thinks of is me. After everything we have gone through together." He then smirks. "My new hammer is almost finished. With it, next time, I will be the winner. He will regret attacking me."

Chapter 48: Nature Notch

Author's Notes:

I realised that I forgot to mention what ability Kirby possesses at the end of the previous chapter, so I edited it to add it. For info, at the start, Kirby possesses the Sword.

As soon as he has heard about the castle being attacked by the Squeak Squad, Mini-Discord has sent the warning to his real-self who has immediately teleported to Twilight. Now the alicorn has sent the word to all her friends, and as they wait, Discord has already opened the portal to see what is the situation, seeing Sweetie flying down the mountain, entering a tunnel in the side.

"So this time, she is facing a band of thieves that are actually giant mice?" asks Twilight.

"Yup. Here, they are in the list of threats." Discords then shows her the list, pointing "The Squeak Squad" on it. "And they have stolen this chest." He points at "Whatever is in the chest". "She may end up fighting two threats in one go."

Twilight looks at the list. "It depends of what is in this chest."

"Nothing good, apparently."

They see Sweetie Belle passing beside platforms before spotting a door and entering it. Now in a cavern, she follows the path, unconscious creatures littering it. Yep, Kirby has been there. At the end of the path, she enters another door, going deeper into the cavern. She then has to use a few cannons to continue.

It's at this moment that Rarity comes at the same time than Rainbow Dash with Scootaloo on her back.

"What did we miss?" asks the blue mare.

"Nothing much," answers Twilight as Sweetie Belle reaches the end of the cannon path, going down two ladders before entering another door, entering a part of the cavern that is full of crystals.

"What is it this time?" asks Rarity.

"Mouse thieves stealing a cursed chest," answers Spike.

"Really?" asks Scootaloo. "After her previous adventures, it sounds a little lame."

"Not every adventures involve things like fighting a powerful overlord wanting to conquer everything or saving the world from some incarnation of darkness," says Discord.

At this moment, Sweetie Belle passes another door, entering a room where she finally catch up to Kirby fighting a bunch of mouse-like creatures, including one wearing sunglasses and a red cape that is throwing shurikens, while the others are mostly little yellow mice that are somehow able to jump in mid-air. Without saying anything, Sweetie fires a lightning bolt at the bigger mouse, shocking him in the middle of one of his jumps.

When he falls back on the platform, the yellow mouse quickly gets up before turning toward Sweetie Belle, sweat appearing on his head once he sees her.

"Ooh-ooh... You followed us?"

"Of course! Did you think that I would let you escape with the chest?"

"Darn!" He then quickly looks around before jumping to avoid Kirby's sword. "I was told that there was a treasure in this room, but so far, there is nothing! All I got is trouble!" He then looks at Kirby, then Sweetie Belle, gulping. "I'm outta there!"

He jumps in an attempt to escape, only to slam against a shield that Sweetie Belle has materialized in the way.

"Oh?" says Sweetie Belle before giggling as the mouse slips down on her shield before falling. "Were you looking for a big blue chest?" She sticks her tongue at him. "I got it first. I explored all the areas around the castle, and brought back to Dedede all the treasures that I found. They were all in that treasure room, but you prefered to leave them to take that chest. By the way, you are not escaping."

"Curse youuu..." says the mouse on the flour. "Squeakers! I need some h..." He sees all his Squeakers unconscious and assembled into a pile beside Kirby who is tapping his arms together to get rid of the dust.

"Poyo."

"Whaaat?!"

Kirby then looks at him, looking as if his eyes are glowing with bad intentions as he starts to walk toward him. "Poyo. Cake."

"I don't have your stupid cake! Go bother Storo!"

He finds himself with the end of Kirby's sword just in front of his face. "Poyo."

Kirby is joined by Sweetie Belle, her whip cracking beside her. "You will lead us to the others, Spinni. 'No' is not an answer."

The mouse laughs nervously, sweat pearling from him. "W-well... How about... THIS!"

Quick like lightning, he throws a smoke bomb, covering everyone in smoke. Despite coughing, Sweetie Belle is able to form wind to disperse it, only to see that Spinni is not here anymore.

"Woah..." says Scootaloo, stars in her eyes. "A real ninja retreat..."

Rainbow Dash giggles. "Seems like those thieves wi-" She is interrupted by Kirby suddenly yelling, arms raised, fire almost coming out of him.

"RAAAAHHHHHH!!! CAAAAKE!!!"

And he immediately runs, giving chase to the running away mouse, quickly followed by Sweetie Belle shouting "Wait for me!"

"What... was that?" asks Rainbow Dash.

"Apparently..." says Discord. "he got his cake stolen."

Pinkie pops out from behind him. "Then it's no wonder he is so angry! I would be really angry too if somepony stole my cake!"

"So you got your cake stolen?" asks Sweetie Belle to Kirby.

"Poyo!"

She deadpans at him. "Let me guess. You thought that Dedede was the one who stole it? This is why you assaulted the castle?"

"Poyo!"

She facehoofs. "I know that Dedede stole food in the past, but you shouldn't jump to conclusions like that."

They open the way by destroying a bomb block.

"Poyo! Poyo! Poyo!"

"I know that he was the more likely culprit. I wouldn't be surprised if he really did it to annoy you. But again, without a real proof, you should have simply come to the castle to investigate, ask to me and Dedede, and find out the truth."

They stop in front of the door, Kirby looking down in regret. "Poyo..."

Sweetie Belle rubs his back. "Hey. It's alright. It's not too bad." She smiles widely. "If you want to apologize, then I know exactly what you could do. You see, the Squeaks stole some treasures from Dedede in various fortress, and they stole another chest in the castle. I'm sure that he will be happy if we bring them back. You will get back your cake at the same time, and everyone will be happy. Unless..." She smiles sheepishly. "Unless they ate your cake before." Before Kirby goes back in a rampage over his cake, she quickly adds. "If it happens, we will gladly give you one! I will ask the cooks, and even help them!"

She is hugged by Kirby, the puffball almost getting the air out of her lungs. "Poyo!"

"You-you are welcome Kirby. Now we should go before the Squeaks are able to go too far."

Kirby releases her and nods before they both pass the door, appearing in another part of the cavern of crystal, in front of some underground fortress.

"Eh. He is lucky that Sweetie has gotten better at cooking," says Scootaloo. "He would have died of poisoning."

Rarity huffs. "I wouldn't be surprised to see that Kirby could eat Sweetie's cooking even before she learned to cook."

At this instant, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Apple Bloom finally come.

"Howdy everypony. I hope we haven't missed too much."

"Well, a little," says Rainbow Dash. "They fought some kind of ninja mouse thief. He escaped with a smoke bomb."

"Oh my..." says Fluttershy. "I hope the mouse hasn't been hurt too much."

"Eheh. I know that you love animals, but this mouse wasn't a simple animal. He could talk, throw shurikens, and is a thief. If it can reassure you, he was able to escape just before getting the beatdown of his life. I can't promise that this will be the same next time they encounter him. Kirby is really pissed off at them."

"You don't steal cake without consequences!" shouts Pinkie Pie. Then, her expression becomes crazy. "You steal my cake, you are gonna have a bad time."

They all gulp.

---

Turns out the fortress is another one of Dedede's fortresses, housing many of his troops. When they recognize Sweetie Belle, they let them pass, not causing any problems. They are even guided through the fortress, making easier their exploration of it. Sweetie Belle asks them to get them through the treasure room, getting a hunch. A few door, switches, and hallways later, they enter the room, effectively finding Storo holding a chest.

Seeing them, Storo only has one word to say. "F***..."

---

"Thank you for the censure Discord," says Rarity.

"You are welcome."

---

Leaving a badly beaten Storo behind for the troops in the fortress to take care of, sadly not finding Kirby's cake on him, Sweetie Belle and Kirby exit the fortress, finding themselves at the start of a beautiful field of flowers with some ruined structures. They quickly find a Wheelie that Kirby eats to gain Wheel, before jumping on Sweetie's back. Now rolling at full speed in the field, they quickly enter another tunnel that leads them... to a desert. Environments change very rapidly in Dreamland.

They quickly have to fight a Gao Gao, a big blue round animal with a light blue belly and long forepaws ending each with three claws. As the Gao Gao jumps toward them, claws ready to slash, they jump away before charging at it with the speed of Wheel, sending it on its back. Sweetie Belle then quickly jumps a dozen times in the air to gain height, to Kirby's surprise (and also to the ponies'), before she falls back to the Gao Gao, landing on it with a kick, immediately knocking it out. Kirby ends this by eating it, gaining a new ability coming with a brown animal suit really similar to the Gao Gao, long front paws included, but not as long.

He is hugged by Sweetie Belle, the filly rubbing her head against the fur of his suit.

"Poyo...?"

"Sorry Kirby. I couldn't resist."

The claws reveal themselves to be very useful to dig in the sand to find hidden objects, and also to continue their way, even finding a small red chest buried in the sand. Kirby eats it so they don't have to hold it all the rest of their adventure.

Entering a buried ruin, they encounter Doc, in a red flying saucer, searching the ruins for treasures alongside a few Squeakers. "You are not serious!" he shouts, still not seeing them. "An old buried ruin, and not a single treasure! In my time, each time that we entered a ruin, there were always tons of treasure! Curse those archaeologists!"

"Hey! What's up, Doc?" says Sweetie Belle to gain his attention.

But he doesn't seem to hear her, the old mouse still flying around while mumbling about him getting through dozens of ruins always finding treasures when he was young. Sweetie looks at Kirby, and they both shrugged, before the filly charges her magic and shoots a giant explosive ball, hitting the flying saucer which starts to lose control.

"Aaaah! Mayday! Mayday! Old genius about to crash! Sneaky attack! I need reinforcement!"

The flying saucer bounces on a wall, then on the ceiling, before falling on the flour, bouncing on it a few times until it rolls on its side, then stops. The glass of the cockpit opens, and Doc jumps out of it, red in anger, smoke coming out of him as he looks around.

"Who dared attacking me from behind?! Show yourself, you ruffian!"

He finally spots Sweetie Belle and Kirby approaching him, the filly smiling and waving. He deadpans.

"Oh... It's you..."

"Eeyup. I did try to get your attention, but you didn't hear me. Maybe you should use your genius to do something about your ears."

"How dare you?! You little hooligan! This is no way to talk to your seniors!"

"Seeing that you are my enemy, I don't care. And now that you are out of your saucer, you should worry about something else."

At this, Kirby readies his claws, shouting "Cake!"

"Forget your cake! Storo has probably eaten it by now!"

Bad thing to say... The next instant, he finds himself having to jump away to avoid Kirby's claws hitting the ground where he has been not even a second earlier.

"Waaah! Hey now! No need to get so violent on me!" Another dodge. "Hiaaaa! Stop it! Put away those pointy things!" Yet another dodge. "Kyaaa! Squeakers! To me! You are about to lose my genius! I don't wanna die before achieving my dream to create a machine to time travel!"

At this, a little over a dozen of Squeakers come from all the ruin, surrounding Doc. He then jumps on a yellow Squeaker.

"You! You get me out of there! As for all of you, attack! Give me time to escape!" The Squeakers look at him in horror. "It's an order! Without me, the gang will be nothing! I have to escape! And for this, you need to remain behind and sacrifice yourself!" He looks down at the Squeaker under him. "Now go!"

While the Squeaker holding Doc runs away, the other yellow Squeakers jump on Sweetie Belle and Kirby while the green ones take bombs, and the few blue ones take giant bombs. Sweetie Belle quickly goes beside Kirby and surrounds the both of them in a shield before expanding it, slamming all the yellow squeakers with it. Seeing that the yellow ones have failed, the green and blue ones throw their bombs. Kirby jumps and spins on himself, forepaws extended, and the bombs are hit by them, getting them thrown around, mainly back at the Squeakers, littering the area with explosions.

And with this, the fight is already finished, but it has been enough for Doc to disappear. They both huff in annoyance.

Not long after, they exit the ruin and pass a door, only to appear in another ruin. Barely they appear, they have to hide under a platform to avoid a giant boulder rolling above them. Avoiding another boulder up a slope, they pass a door that lead them to another part of the ruins, where they have to destroy a wall of stone blocks thanks to a bomb block. However, this causes a boulder to fall behind them, and they have to quickly run down a slope to escape it. Eventually entering a section too small for the boulder to pass, they however have to escape another not long after, finding a chest, and quickly entering another door that get them out of the ruins, only to enter another cavern, this one gloomy and half in water.

Despite having to jump above many pits, the path is rather small, and it doesn't take them long to enter another door leading them to a totally different cavern, this one with jets of fire, and no water. But they don't remain in this part long before they take another door, this time ending up in a part of the cavern with lava.

This surprises Sweetie Belle. "I didn't think that this would be this quick before we enter an area with lava. I'm surprised there is even a lava area this close to the castle, even if it's underground."

Not losing time, they continue their way, walking on stone bridges above the lava, and jumping above it a few times. In the way, they reach a door that leads them to a small room with another chest, before returning there. Not long after the door, they find a wall of stone blocks in the way, and destroying it, they find a door leading them in front of what Sweetie recognizes is a Big Metalun, which is a living piece of metal with four small limbs and a single big eyes.

The Big Metalun starts to very slowly walk toward them. Kirby decides to attack him, using his claws to cut him. This barely damage him, but it's the best that he can do. To help him, Sweetie Belle uses a Vulcan Jabs, doing some more damages. Once Kirby jumps away, Sweetie shoots lightning, and stops once Kirby comes back, spinning. Seeing that the Big Metalun still has a long way to go, Sweetie Belle looks at Kirby and signs at her back, getting an idea. Nodding, Kirby jumps on her, and Sweetie Belle becomes what is pretty much a horsewolf, with paws instead of hooves, sharp fangs, slitted eyes, and badly brushed fur, mane, and tail.

Testing her new paws first to get the feeling, she then cover them with her energy before slashing at the Big Metalun, giving him greater damages. She avoids a metallic punch, then quickly starts to jump around, storming the Big Metalun with dozens of slashes, until he falls on his back, having enough. Kirby then jumps from Sweetie's back, releases the Animal ability, and eat, not without difficulty, the Big Metalun, gaining a metallic heavy body, the ground shaking a little when he jumps.

He then looks at Sweetie Belle, making her sweat.

"No. No. No. No. No."

And yet, Kirby still jumps on her back, making her bend her legs. It doesn't last long, her body quickly turning into metal, giving her more strength to lift Kirby. She then looks at herself, grinning.

"Now, you can call me 'Iron Filly'!" she shouted, making Kirby giggles.

Because of her now really heavy body, she can't jump very high, and she has become slower. Seeing that they have to get up to continue, this quickly reveals to be a problem. Luckily she has learned to jump in the air. It takes her far more jumps than it should, and it tires her more, but she is eventually able to reach the top of the ledge where they are able to use their weight to destroy a few iron blocks in the ground, opening the way to a small room where there is a barrel. Destroying it, they find a new chest.

Thinking that they wouldn't need the Metal ability anymore, Kirby gives it up, and they are both able to climb a ladder to a door leading out of the tunnel, back in the field of flowers. Kirby quickly inhales a Boxin, a bipedal mole-like creature with red boxing gloves, gaining Fighter.

Eventually, they reach a field with a few holes, with a pie cooling down on stone. As they approach, Storo suddenly jumps out of nowhere, takes the pie, eats it, and jumps away, stunning both Sweetie Belle and Kirby.

"He escaped the fortress?"

At this moment, a giant female blue-grey mole pops out of one of the hole, the mole possessing glasses, a bouquet of flowers on her head, and a red kerchief around her neck. She looks at the place where the pie has been, and seeing that it's not here anymore, looks toward Sweetie Belle and Kirby, becoming red in anger.

"Oh oh... uh... Wait, miss. We aren't the ones who..."

Too late, the mole returns in her hole, and comes back, starting to throw various objects at them, starting with an oil drum, a rock, another rock, a bomb (!), and a big screw. A shield from Sweetie Belle is enough to protect the both of them.

"L-listen, miss mole. We don't want to fight you."

But then, the mole jumps from her hole, revealing that she possesses a pouch on her belly, and a pig-like tail. They quickly run away before she falls on them, which causes her to get stunned. Sweetie Belle and Kirby look at each other, before they start to run away. However, the mole eventually regain her senses, jumps back in a hole, and pops out of another holes in the way, throwing more objects at them. Seeing that they avoid everything, the mole then takes a giant broom and starts to swing it at them. Kirby however uses the fighter ability to break it, making the mole even more angry.

"If you would just listen to us, this would not happen!"

The mole throws what remains of the broom at them, easily dodged, before she returns in her hole. Sweetie Belle then looks at Kirby and points up. Understanding, Kirby inflates and starts to fly, followed by Sweetie Belle on a shield. When the mole gets back out of her hole, she looks around to search them before spotting them flying away. She throws more objects at them, but they are easily dodged, until they are too far for her to reach. The mole then starts to wave angrily at them, probably cursing them as they escape.

Irritated, Sweetie Belle thinks Once I see Storo again, he is so dead.

Chapter 49: Cushy Cloud

"You know, despite the whole 'getting attacked for something they aren't responsible', it was funny to watch," says Rainbow Dash.

"I agree," says Discord. "Actually, that whole chase against those mice is hilarious so far. Storo's expression when he was found out in that fortress, knowing that he was screwed, was just pure comedy gold. It was even more hilarious to see Storo get his revenge by eating this pie and tricking that giant mole into attacking Sweetie Belle and Kirby. Boy, I feel that I will love the rest of this adventure!"

"Well, it's a cat and mouse game! We couldn't wait any less!" says Pinkie Pie.

"At least, Sweetie Belle and Kirby didn't attack that mole in return," says Rarity. "It would have been wrong to attack someone who has been tricked into becoming your enemy."

"I hope that they will be able to correct the misunderstanding and become friends," says Fluttershy.

"Yeah... They will have to wait for that mole to cool her head. She didn't even want to listen," says Applejack. "I wouldn't want to be in Storo's place once Sweetie Belle and Kirby find him."

"I can't wait!" shouts Scootaloo. "Sweetie will totally put his butt in fire!"

"I think that she will kick his teeth out of his mouth," replies Apple Bloom.

"Or she will plant his head in the ground."

"I have better! She will make him eat something she has cooked!"

"Hasn't she gotten better at cooking?"

"She will just cook like she cooked before. She must remember how to burn fruit juice."

"Oh! Or she will let Kirby eat him!"

"Pfff!" they suddenly hear from Spike. "Obviously, she will throw a giant laser at him!"

"She will make him eat a bomb!"

"She will trap him in ice!"

"She will punch him so hard that he will fly in the sky!"

"How about we wait and see what she will do to him?" proposes Pinkie.

The three young ones look at Pinkie, then at each other, and nod. Spike then says "And then, we will see who is right."

"Yeah."

---

Following the direction taken by Storo after eating the pie, Sweetie Belle and Kirby eventually end up climbing a small mountain, and upon reaching the top, they see that they have reached a new area that seems to be littered by columns of stone going all the way to the sky, beyond the clouds that are totally covering it and letting a few rays of light pass here and there. They can see at the base of the mountain a lake and on the other side a forest.

For Sweetie, this is an unexplored area, so she has no idea what is waiting for them.

Rapidly going down the mountain punching everything that gets in the way, they enter a tunnel where they spot in the ceiling, above a star block, a part that seems different. Destroying the star block reveals an angled surface, and Kirby quickly understand what must be done and points at it while looking at Sweetie Belle.

"Poyo."

"What?"

He sighs before seeing a Laser Ball coming at them from behind. "Poyo!" he then shouts in joy before giving up Fighter to eat the ball, giving him an ability that Sweetie Belle has never seen but has heard of: Laser. It gives Kirby some kind of visor on his left eye, from which he can shoot a laser. At this, he signs Sweetie Belle to watch before turning to the angled surface. He fires a laser at it, and the laser is deflected by the surface at a right angle, right into the part of the ceiling that is different, destroying it and revealing that it has been a block.

"Of course! I could use the angled surfaces to deflect my beams like mirrors! Why did I never think of it?"

And so, she shoots a beam which gets deflected, destroying another block. Another laser and another beam later, and they can hear that they have hit a bomb block, destroying something. Sweetie Belle then creates a shield before jumping on it, Kirby jumping on her back, giving her a visor similar to him, which surprisingly doesn't change her vision. They use the shield as an elevator, going up through the hole in the ceiling which is actually a secret path. Following it, they have to destroy star blocks, then jump on some kind of block in the floor that gets destroyed once they are on it, letting them reach a hidden red chest, much to Sweetie's pleasure.

They exit the secret room by destroying another bomb block, opening a way where from there, they follow the tunnel. In the way, Sweetie discovers an interesting function of her visor, a cursor appearing to help her target the enemies for the lasers that she shoots with it. Testing more of the visor, she discovers than with just a thought, she can change her vision, giving her an infrared vision, and a night vision, so she will always be able to see her targets. This will be really useful if they enter a dark room.

At this moment, they enter a room full of star blocks, and destroying them eventually reveals a black door to continue their way. Now entering a part of the tunnel that is full of crystals, like in the previous area, they have to pass a few giant star blocks before going down a ladder that leads them in front of iron blocks. They could not mind the blocks and go down another ladder, but who knows what may be hidden behind them? In front of the blocks is an Acchi, some kind of salamander which has its red back always on fire, and that is bigger than most other inhabitants of Popstar, about the same size than a Mr Frosty. Before the creature can do anything, Kirby eats it, and thanks to the fire ability, he is able to charge like a comet through the iron blocks, destroying them and opening the way to a dead end with another small red chest.

Sweetie Belle starts to giggle. "We will leave nothing for the Squeaks to take." She then smirks. "They will regret stealing from us."

Once Kirby eats the chest, he answers Sweetie Belle with a fist/hoofbump while laughing. "Poyo!"

They go down the ladder and take the door not far after in a small room. Still in the crystal cavern, they reach a hole in the floor, the only way to continue, and they spot at the bottom a yellow Squeaker carrying a big blue chest.

That's new. No Spinni, Doc, or Storo? Well, I suppose they can't always be with the Squeakers.

They jump down and land just in front of the Squeaker, and before he is able to do anything, barely letting him time to get shocked at their appearance, Sweetie Belle uppercuts him, and the Squeaker finds himself stuck in the ceiling.

Another chest stopped from being taken by the Squeaks. Perfect.

But then, just as Kirby eats the chest, sudden explosions cause the fall of a few boulders that now block the path, and they can hear something rolling behind them. Turning around, they see a giant round boulder rolling toward them, with Spinni walking backward on it, his arms crossed and laughing.

"You have fallen into my trap! Prepare to be turned into pancakes!"

"I wouldn't mind pancakes, but I don't want to become one."

Sweetie Belle puts herself in front of Kirby before flexing her right front hoof, energy accumulating around it.

This makes Spinni sweat. "Hey hey... You are not about to do what I think you are about to do, right?"

At this moment, the boulder is now just in front of the filly who starts yelling as she gives a punch that stop it right where it is. Under Spinni's falling jaw, cracks appear and spread, and soon, the boulder turns into a pile of rubble. The mouse is able to jump away before he finds himself a part of it, but instead, he finds himself just in front of Sweetie Belle, the filly smiling sweetly at him.

He laughs sheepishly, sweating all the water of his body. "Uh... Hey."

She giggles. "Hey." She then takes his sunglasses, revealing his small, adorable eyes, and puts them on her eyes. "I take that... AND YOU TAKE THIS!" She punches him in the face, sending him into the pile of rubbles that are sent everywhere at the force of the impact.

When the rubbles stop raining and the dust settles, Spinni can be seen twitching on the floor, missing half his teeth as he mutters "Is... Is that you granny? Why is there so much light behind you?"

---

...

...

...

"That was awesome."

"Is that all you can find to say?"

---

Once Kirby has cleared the path thanks to his comet charge, they leave Spinni behind to continue. No need to ask him anything anymore because, first, he wouldn't be able to answer, and second, it's clear that Daroach is the one possessing the chest (and hopefully, Kirby's cake. As stupid as it would be, Kirby prefers thinking that than his cake being eaten by Storo), and so, they will have to continue to follow the direction taken by the Squeaks until they catch their leader.

They exit the cavern just in front of the lake, and they spot Doc's flying saucer at the other side, flying a moment in the sky before going down, probably to search a treasure, or to prepare a trap, or the two.

Anyway, they now know where to go, so they start running, jumping above the water at many points until entering a door. Following the door, they have to jump in the water, Kirby getting his fire ability replaced by his swimming goggles with a snorkel, which of course is only here to decorate.

Passing through some kind of underwater tunnel, they spot stone blocks with a bomb block at a point in the ceiling above a Gordo. destroying them reveals a door that leads them to a room with crumbling blocks hiding a red chest. It's not long after they exit the room that they get out of the water and pass another door, and it's not long after the door that they end up confronted by a Boxy, a big creature that looks like a box with a red bow, a jagged mouth, and a stem with a couple of leaves as a 'tail'.

The Boxy charges at them, only to take a double fire punch in the face from both Kirby and Sweetie Belle, sending her back a few meters totally stunned. Taking the occasion, Kirby gives up Fire and eats the Boxy, gaining a top hat, to Sweetie's confusion. Kirby sees her expression and laughs, before taking the top hat and showing the inside to her, showing that there is nothing. He then taps the hat three times, and out of the hat fly three doves, leaving Sweetie Belle with her jaw dropping. She approaches Kirby to look into the hat, not seeing anything again. But when she looks back at Kirby to ask him how he has done it, a clown head on a spring pops out of the hat. The clown is vaporised the next second by a Force Blast from a very scared Sweetie Belle, which makes Kirby jump in fright. They both look at the hat and what remains of the clown, then at each other, before they roll on the floor from laughter.

"So you can now use magic?" asks the filly.

"Poyo!" confirms Kirby, getting a rabbit out of the hat.

"Wait... This reminds me of Trixie. Is this the same kind of magic that she used? With tricks? Like, you disappear behind a wall, but there was a trapdoor under you?"

He rubs his head and nods.

This makes Sweetie raises an eyebrow and hesitantly looks back inside the hat. "But then, how did you make those doves or that rabbit appear inside this hat?" She takes it and puts a hoof in it in search of... something, only to see that she is able to put her hoof all the way to her shoulder, and yet she doesn't touch the bottom of the hat when said hat is only half the length. Stunned, she gets her hoof out of it and starts shaking the hat, causing another dove to fly from it, followed by cards falling, confettis, rings, a wand, and even an anvil. She looks at the anvil, then at Kirby. "I... don't think that those are just magic tricks. No matter the trick, you just can't make an anvil fall from your hat like that. Those are actually magic magic tricks."

Kirby just shrugs while laughing. "Poyo."

Sweetie decides to give back his hat before continuing. But then, Kirby jumps on her back, giving her her own top hat, and her cape turns black. Just shrugging at this, she jumps on a platform where Kirby throws cards at the enemies in the way, cutting them.

They pass a door, and in the following section full of platforms above the water, Sweetie Belle lets Kirby attack the enemies while she runs and jumps, taking in the way a bottle of energy drink and storing it inside her hat. Another door later, and they finally find Doc in his flying saucer, the old mouse just lifting a blue chest thanks to some sort of tractor beam.

And this time, he sees them, and laughs. "Too late. First one coming, first one leaving with the treasure."

"Yoink!" Sweetie Belle takes her hat and points it toward the chest. Out of the hat suddenly comes out a grapnel that grab the chest and brings it back to her. Kirby doesn't lose time to eat it before they both smile smugly at Doc. "Hop! There was a chest, now it's not here anymore! Did you love our magic show?"

They can see Doc becoming red and they can swear that they hear steam hissing from him like a kettle. "RAAAHHHBLAGABAGAGLARGH!!! I will show you a magic show! In direct, I will turn the white pony and the pink puffball into roasted marshmallows!" At this, his whole flying saucer gets covered in electricity before it charges at them.

Sweetie Belle then holds her cape beside her. "Nothing behind it!" And at the last second, she pulls it aside, revealing a brick wall that Doc crashes on, destroying it and damaging his saucer. "And suddenly, there is a wall!"

Kirbe applauds, laughing. "Poyo! Poyo!" He then throws his hat toward Doc who is now out of the saucer. The hat engulfs him, and he gets out from Sweetie's hat, the filly grabbing him.

"Let me go!"

"And now, our last magic trick! I will make this old mouse fly without the need of his flying saucer!"

She takes her hat, and out of it drop a rocket. Seeing this, Doc starts to panic. "Are you crazy?!"

"Don't worry. It will not explode. It will just make you fly very far. Now, are the rope and the fire ready, Kirby?"

Kirby shows her a rope and a lighted match. "Poyo!"

She takes the rope in her magic. "Thank you my dear assistant." She then use her magic to attach Doc to the rocket. Once done, she takes the match. "Are you ready everybody?!"

"Poyo!"

"No! I'm not ready!" shouts Doc.

"Then let's go!" She then lights the wick, both her and Kirby starting to laugh.

"We... We will see who will have the last laugh next time!" The rocket then fires into the sky. "YOU WILL SEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..."

Sweetie Belle and Kirby take their hats and shout "TADAAAAA!" before bowing, the many creatures that have watched the show applauding.

---

"That was a very fun magic show!" says Discord as he applauds alongside Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo. "The only problem is that it was too short."

"I agree!" say Pinkie and Rainbow.

---

Leaving the lake behind, they now spot Storo climbing a mountain. Well, time for more mountain climbing!

Climbing up through a succession of slopes with some giant Waddle Dees on the last one, they enter a tunnel. Passing a door, Sweetie Belle uses her infinity jump to go up the only way while avoiding falling Foleys, plant creatures with a yellow round body and two leaves on it that they use as propeller to fly, only to discard them to fall on unsuspecting victims to explode like Scarfys. After quite the climb, they destroy a few star blocks in an alcove, revealing a door that leads them out side, beside the top of a smaller mountain with a red chest on it. Taking it, and seeing that there is nowhere else to go, they repass the door, and take another door a little further up, returning outside.

Here, there are many platforms suspended with ropes that go all the way to... the sky. Go figure. Kirby uses his cards to cut them, causing some of them to fall in chasms with the creatures on them. On the way, they enter another door that has been hidden behind star blocks in a small tunnel, entering a room inside the mountain with a Golden Waddle Dee, extremely rare. Golden Waddle Dees have the particularity to drop a chest if they want, or if they are beaten, for some reason. Guessing that the Squeak Squad must be targeting them to gain their chests, Sweetie Belle knocks him out with a single small punch, muttering "Sorry," before Kirby eats the dropped chest. They leave the now normal Waddle Dee, and exit the room.

Thankfully, the Golden Waddle Dees don't mind this. For them, it's like a game.

Back outside, they find another door after some more platforms, entering another mountain. Here, they climb a series of slope before finding a door that must be opened with a switch that is in a small tunnel under it. Sweetie Belle shoots the Switch with a beam, and they pass the door, finding a big blue chest. With the chest in Kirby's stomach, but now stuck in this room because of the door closing behind them, they find a bomb block above them that open the way. In the next room, they find the one that they have wanted to see: Storo, the big mouse now equipped with a hammer.

"You will see why they call me the 'Brawn'. I will smash you, and take all your treasures!"

Sweetie Belle huffs. "You don't scare us. You are nothing compared to Dedede."

Storo jumps, hammer ready to crush them. Sweetie Belle quickly jumps aside and use her magic hat to drop an anvil where she has been. The hammer hits the anvil, only to bounce on it with a big DONG! Storo's whole body starts shaking for a few seconds before he drops the hammer. The hammer still shaking then starts to drill a hole in the ground, disappearing in it before Storo's stunned expression, and Sweetie and Kirby's laughs.

"Hey look! Your hammer turned into a jackhammer!"

Storo looks at the hole, still hearing his hammer drilling, then looks up at Sweetie Belle and Kirby. "Uuuuh.......... Parley?"

Sweetie Belle giggles. "Alright, we will not hurt you..." She then takes her hat, and with a violent shake, she sends hundreds of seeds on Storo.

"What?"

"Them, however, I'm not so sure."

And suddenly, a few dozen doves fly out of the hat, toward Storo.

"WAAAHHH?!! ACH! OUCH! OW! STOP!" He starts to run around the room, waving his arms to get rid of the doves pecking him for the seeds.

Leaving him at his suffering, Sweetie Belle and Kirby pass the door. Now really high, air currents start to appear as they run on the mountain. After a small trek, they find a wick, with the cannon not far behind at the very top of the mountain. Using fire, Sweetie Belle light the wick, and they jump in the cannon which propels them toward the clouds.

They land on a platform, with some cloud blocking the way. Destroying it, they find a chest. Passing the door behind the cloud, they are back beside the cannon, and they pass another door to another, higher mountain with a few Metaluns, metal version of Rockys, bigger too, sliding down the slopes. Upon reaching the top of the mountain, they finally spot him: Daroach, flying into the clouds.

"Here he is!"

Quickly, they use a Warp Star to follow Daroach in the clouds. Upon reaching a platform in the middle of the clouds, at the start of a cloud tunnel, they land (or rather, crash) on it and start running. Following the path in the clouds, they find, surprisingly, another chest hidden behind stone blocks.

After passing a door, they suddenly hear the now familiar laugh of Spinni, coming from above the ceiling, which is not made of cloud so they can't pass it.

"Yes! A treasure! And those two spoilsport are nowhere to be seen! The boss will be happy!"

Sweetie Belle looks at Kirby and hushes him while trying to hold her giggle. She jumps on a shield and quickly starts to fly along the path, opening a door and avoiding Gordos in the way. As they reach a dead end, Sweetie Belle presses another switch, which destroys a part of the ceiling. They hear Spinni shouting "What?!"

They fly up, and Sweetie Belle shouts "Surprise!" before putting her hat in Spinni's way in the middle of one of his jumps, seeing by the way that Spinni has a new pair of sunglasses. She rapidly takes Kirby's hat and puts it above her own. When Spinni falls in her hat, he gets out of the other, only for Sweetie to turn her hat up so Spinni falls in it again, trapping him in an infinite fall. Using her magic again, she takes the chest from Spinni's hands, and to make sure that he doesn't escape, she gets the two hats closer until they are side by side, now Spinni truly trapped.

"Curse youuuu!!!" they hear him shout, making them laugh.

Letting the two hats float like that beside her, Sweetie Belle walks toward the edge, and once beside it, she puts the two hats above the abyss. She then separates the hats, and Spinni now falls in said abyss.

He will be alright. There is a cloud a few hundred meters below.

Sweetie Belle still decides to drop a bowling ball, just in case.

"I love this ability, Kirby," she says while laughing.

The laugh doesn't last long, because upon entering the door that follow, they enter a very violent storm, at the heart of the clouds, with lightning raining all around them. There are still white clouds, but now, some of the clouds they walk on are black with lightning creeping in and around them, forcing them to be careful, some of them even disappearing under them. After a few doors, they have to catch a cloud carrying a chest, forcing Sweetie Belle to use a shield to help her.

Two doors later without anything happening, they finally catch Daroach, the leader of the Squeaks staring at them, annoyed, but also amused.

"This is the first time that my Squeaks are given so many problems, but I am not surprised, knowing who we are against this time. You are up to your reputation."

"Then give us the chest, Kirby's cake, and all the treasures that you have stolen from Dedede's fortresses!"

"Cake!"

Daroach huffs. "I don't know what Storo has done of your cake. He may have already eaten it, or he may have let one of the Squeakers bring it back to our hideout. But don't expect us to give it back, I know that you are also after the chest containing the infinite power. As long as you want to stop us from opening it, we will not make you any gifts."

This clearly upsets Kirby.

"As for the treasures and the chest, you already know my answer. If you want to take them back, then you will have to find them, and defeat us. Speaking of defeating us..." He snaps his claws, and Kracko, made of the storm clouds surrounding them, comes behind Daroach. Beside the storm clouds, there are some differences, like there are only four long spikes coming out of the cloud, and they can spot... something poking out of the cloud that seems mechanical above and below. "Let's see if you can even defeat him." At this, he disappears.

Kracko (?) then charges toward them, starting the fight. After dodging him, Kirby starts to throw his cards while Sweetie Belle shoots her explosive music notes, the explosion making a chaotic cacophony. Some of Kracko's cloud is destroyed by the assault and his eye disappears, revealing that this is not really Kracko, but Doc inside some flying machine, the mechanical parts poking out of the cloud being actually holes from where the clouds composing this fake Kracko are expelled.

"Well, time to stop playing around!" shouts Doc. "I will show you the full power of my genius! My Mecha Kracko is more powerful than the original, shooting lightning bolts that can reach one billion volts! Now let's see who will have the last laugh! MWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!"

At this, the cloud and the eye reform, and electricity appears at the end of the four spikes, surrounding Mecha Kracko in an electrical shield. Mecha Kracko then charges at them again, this time destroying a part of the cloud that serves as the arena, dividing it in two. It then flies up and down through the cloud, creating a few holes.

"Ok... This time, it's serious," says Sweetie Belle.

The shield around Mecha Kracko disappears, but now, it starts to shoot lightning bolts from the spikes at them. Not wanting to be hit by lightning with the power of one billion volts (she doesn't know how powerful it is, but she is sure that it is REALLY powerful, like, it could turn Rainbow Dash into fried chicken in less than 10 seconds), Sweetie Belle uses her hat to intercept the lightning bolts, and uses Kirby's hat to send them back at Mecha Kracko, damaging it a little, but not much.

Seeing that sending the bolts back doesn't really work, Sweetie Belle starts to jump around in the air to avoid them. While jumping, she counterattacks with explosive balls. Then, seeing one of the holes expelling the clouds, she gets an idea. Jumping again and again, she passes above Mecha Kracko, and as she is above the hole at the top, she drops from her hat a bomb, successfully making it fall in it. The bomb explodes, and the holes stop expelling clouds, instead just expelling smoke, revealing again Doc's cockpit.

"NOOOO!!! My wonderful machine! RAAAHHHH!!!"

Doc hits forcefully a button, and the four spikes surround the machine of a shield of electricity. However, this time, lightning bolts from the storm clouds around hit the spikes by dozens, overloading the machine and causing dozens of bolts of electricity to form from the shield all around, unleashing a real lightning storm.

Jumping far enough so the storm is not as hard to avoid, Sweetie Belle attacks with everything she has. On her back, Kirby makes a bunch of cards appear and turn around him, each card with a symbol, like fire, a snowflake, a tornado, a sword, and so on. After a few seconds of looking, he takes a card with a lightning symbol, and the next instant, the top hat is substituted by the Spark ability's hat, which in turn give Sweetie Belle her wild mane and tail charged in electricity.

She looks back at Kirby in surprise before understanding. Turning back toward Doc's machine, she starts to charge her horn, using the electricity around her, even the one expelled by the machine, to gain more and more energy. Electricity starts to spread on all her body, burning her. Then, with a deafening yell followed by an even more deafening thunder, she unleashes all this in one giant lightning bolt. The bolt hits Doc's machine, and the power being too much even for it as it has already been overloading, and as electricity starts coursing all over it, the four spikes explode, starting a chain reaction. It starts to fly around erratically, jerking with each explosion. And finally, it explodes, the power of the explosion blowing away the clouds around and expelling a blackened Doc in the sky.

"AAAAAHHH!!! I'M BLASTING OOOOoooooooooooooooo..."

And he disappears forming a small star in the sky with a small ding.

Sweetie Belle, now tired after such a powerful attack, lets Kirby lifting her back to the ground, seeing that they are now above a really big forest with a few ruins, including what seems to be temples, a big spiral tower, and even old factories. In the middle of all this, there is a big river. Kirby spits the bottle of energy drinks that Sweetie Belle has stocked in the hat, and the filly catches it to drink it, healing her burns.

She has underestimated the Squeaks. Now, she knows that she must prepare for anything, especially from the old mouse.

Author's Notes:

Homage to Super Mario Bros Z for the hammer turning into a jackhammer.

Chapter 50: Jam Jungle

"Welp. Another thing they fought that we haven't fought yet: a mad scientist with a crazy machine," says Rainbow Dash, sighing. "This would be so cool to fight..." She then looks at Twilight. "Twilight. You who sometimes turn crazy, and who love science stuff, could you create a machine that we would have to fight?"

Twilight glares at her friend. "In your dreams."

Discord snaps his fingers, and Twilight finds herself in a lab coat with glasses and a wild mane going in all directions as if she has been electrified. "That's too bad Twilight. The mad scientist look goes so well with you. Could you do a crazy mad scientist laugh, just to see?"

She groans.

"No. I said laugh, no groan. Groaning is the monster's thing."

"Discord. Sometime, I swear..."

Rarity shakes her head at her friends' antics before looking back at the portal to see Sweetie Belle and Kirby land in the jungle, the filly now fully healed thanks to the bottle, but still a little tired after that powerful attack. She hopes that she will watch out, because jungles can be very dangerous, but she remembers that this is not the first jungle that she explores, and that she is now powerful enough to not be bothered by most of those dangers. But still, she wishes for her sister to be careful. Who knows what kind of traps there are.

---

After resting a few minutes so Sweetie Belle can recuperate, Sweetie Belle gives the sunglasses that she has taken from Spinni to Kirby.

"They are cool, but I'm better without them. can you keep them until I return to Dedede's castle?"

Kirby nods and eats the sunglasses.

They start their exploration of the jungle from the place where they have landed, which they can see, is not far from a ruin, visible at the other side of the river. After a small walk, Kirby decides to eat one of the Sir Kibbles in the way so he will be able to use the Cutter to cut the vegenation hampering them. Not long after, they find a switch opening a door above very briefly. As in, they press it, and not even one second later, the door already closes. So Sweetie Belle decides to remains behind to press the switch while Kirby passes the door. The next instant, the ceiling of leaves above Sweetie Belle catches fire, and once it disappears, Kirby falls from it with a chest that he eats.

Passing the door that follow, they find themselves facing a Box Boxer, so kind of dog-faced creature with long ears that also serve as arms and two paws for feet. It is just the head of a dog with limbs, which is a little disturbing, but Sweetie Belle quickly gets pass that to avoid a jab from one of the ears before counterattacking with her own jab in the muzzle, slamming it against a wall. While he is stunned by the impact, Kirby finishes it by taking a cutter before using it to slash the Boxer a dozen times, finishing with a big vertical slash with Kirby jumping in the air, knocking it out.

They pass the door that the Boxer has been guarding, and enter a room full of star blocks above them, and a Starman in front of them, a star creature with a blue cape. Seeing that going up through the blocks is the only way, Kirby gives up Cutter to eat the Starman and gain the Hi-Jump ability, giving him a winged circlet with a red and blue cape. Kirby then jumps on Sweetie's back, replacing her normal cape by a similar blue and red one, along with a blue suit with a golden colored diamond shaped symbol on her chest with red rims and a red S.

She looks down at the symbol with a raised eyebrow. "So now I get to be Supermare? Or... Superfilly?"

---

Scootaloo groans. "Not fair... I want to be Supermare."

"So we got Spidermare, and now Supermare," says Discord. "What next, Batmare?"

"Dude, this would be awesome. Batmare is my favourite superhero behind the Power Ponies," says Spike.

Scootaloo huffs. "Supermare is better. She has all those cool powers and is almost invincible."

"That's why I prefer Batmare. She has no superpowers, and yet, just with intense training, cool gadgets, and her intelligence, she is able to rivalise with Supermare. And she has the better villains."

"But Supermare is the leader!"

"Only because Batmare prefers to remain in the shadows and lets Supermare get all the spotlights! She could be a really good leader if she wanted!"

"Hey now, let's not start a debate about who is the better superhero," says Apple Bloom. "The two are awesome. It's all that count."

---

Thanks to the power of Hi-Jump, while she can't fly like the real Supermare, she can now go really high with just one jump, and while jumping, all the blocks in the way are destroyed, and the creatures knocked out. Thanks to her knowing how to air jump, the effect of the Hi-Jump is infinite, until she reaches the top of the room where there is the door.

After it, they are attacked by a laser ball, and seeing that they don't need apparently to jump, along with the few angled surfaces on the way, Kirby decided to eat it for Laser. Thanks to the angled surfaces, the lasers help them eliminating the enemies before they can even see them. One of the lasers eventually hit a bomb block in the ceiling, opening a passage that leads to another bomb block behind some spikes making it impossible to get close to it. With a laser, the bomb is destroyed, and further in the opened passage, another bomb is destroyed, revealing a chest before a door.

After going down and passing another door, they are able to find a big chest in a bush, seeing it shining through the leaves. However, once they take it, a bomb is suddenly dropped beside them, and they barely have time to acknowledge its existence before it explodes, knocking away the Laser ability that is then destroyed by a laser.

"Aaaaah ahahaah!!! I got you! Now that you have no abilities, it will be childsplay to defeat you!" they then hear Doc shout.

Quickly getting up, they spot Doc in his flying saucer a little more up, along with a few Squeakers, mainly green ones with a few red and blue ones on the platforms around.

Sweetie Belle groans. "You again? How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old mouse!?"

"As much as it will take before I finally eliminate you! Or until you stop chasing us!"

"Sorry, no can do. I must take back that chest, and Kirby wishes to recuperate his cake. And by the way Doc."

"Yes?"

"I don't need an ability to kick your butt."

And she shoots a charged beam at the saucer, causing it to jerk around. "Arg! Not again!" When he crashes, he is expelled of the saucer, stunned.

"You should really upgrade the defense of your saucer."

"Curse... Squeakers..."

"Yes!" shouted the small mice before they start to throw bombs.

Kirby then runs toward the saucer while Sweetie Belle destroys the bombs with her beams. Once he is close enough of the saucer, Kirby starts to inhale it, having to use more strength in is inhaling to be able to eat it.

"Hey!" shouts Doc, angry. "You don't eat others' saucers like that!"

Once Kirby swallow the saucer, he finds himself inside his own flying saucer, golden colored with a small cannon at the front.

The UFO ability.

Doc visibly deadpans at this. "You are kidding me..."

Kirby starts to disappear and reappear while zigzagging around to avoid more bombs of the now scared Squeakers. Every now and then, he shoots a laser from the cannon at them, shocking the ones that he hits, and some more charged lasers even put them on fire. When he comes close to a small group of Squeakers, he then uses a chain beam similar to the Beam ability's main attack, electrifying all of them.

While the Squeakers are being trashed by Kirby and Sweetie Belle, Doc pulls out some kind of phone and pushes a button on it, and very quickly, a new saucer comes before he enters it.

"Ah! Now let's see who has the better flying saucer!"

Kirby quickly sees him and lets Sweetie Belle deal with the remaining Squeakers as he shoots a laser at Doc. The old mouse is able to dodge it, and shoots his own laser in return that Kirby dodges. The next instant, some electric orb suddenly appears from Kirby's saucer and starts to orbit it, before he charges toward Doc, avoiding more lasers. Doc starts to fly back, only for Kirby to do his disappear-reappear move, quickly appearing behind Doc's saucer. The electric orb hits his saucer, causer a small shock to spread in it, making the saucer tilt left and right as Doc tries to regain balance. Kirby then charges a laser, and after about t seconds of charge, releases it, and Doc's saucer is sent a dozen meters away before it crashes, with Doc finding himself expelled again.

"D-darn it..."

But Kirby hasn't finished and flies above Doc. When the old mouse looks up, a light appears under the UFO and surrounds him. The next instant, Doc is lifted from the ground.

"Wh-?! A tractor beam?! Nonononon-!"

And he disappears inside the UFO.

Done with the Squeakers, Sweetie Belle has seen this and can't help but ask. "What happened to him?"

To answer her, Kirby opens his mouth.

"Oh, it's as if you ate him?"

He nods.

"So we should get away from here before he comes back."

He nods again, and they pass the door. Once at the other side, now on a wooden path, Sweetie Belle looks again at the UFO.

"I wonder what will happen if you go on my back. Can you even go on my back?"

Kirby tilts the UFO. "Poyo..."

He flies above Sweetie Belle, and slowly lower himself above her back, avoiding her head. Once the bottom of the UFO touches her back, a light envelop the two of them, and when it disappears, the UFO is now a little bigger, and Sweetie Belle is the one inside a cockpit piloting it. Kirby finds himself in a turret under the cockpit, upside down, with the possibility to look down to use his inhaling to do the tractor beam's job. The turret itself can turn around at 360°, and instead of a cannon, there is some kind of artificial horn, wires linking it to Sweetie's horn. The UFO also keeps the small cannon to shoot lasers at the front.

Sweetie Belle looks down at the lever where a wheel should be, and moves it left, making the UFO go left, then move it right, making the UFO go right. She sees that she can also move it forward and backward, and up and down. She then pushes a button, and it uses the chain beam. Holding the button a little makes her use the laser, and the more she holds it, the more the laser becomes powerful, to the point that it can shock and burn what it hit. When she holds it until reaching the maximum charges, it causes three beams to be shoot at the front, two small and one big, and a fourth to be shoot behind, also small.

But how does she do the electric orb?

"Kirby. How do I use the electric orb?"

She is answered by Kirby tapping the turret repeatedly. Understanding, she rapidly pushes the button repeatedly, and indeed, an orb appear, orbiting around the saucer.

"What about you Kirby? What can you do?" Kirby shoots from the turret a beam, and Sweetie Belle can feel her magic being used. She focuses her magic and says "Can you shoot again?"

"Poyo!"

So Kirby shoots again, but this time, the turret shoots a fireball. Smiling, Sweetie says "Again!" and the turret now shoots an ice ball. Another shot, and this time, it's a lightning bolt.

She giggles. "Time to show the Squeaks a power that is not of this world!"

And the UFO flies forward.

---

"I swear they do it on purpose to make me jealous," says Rainbow Dash.

"It's me who should be jealous," says Twilight before sighing. "When I was a filly, I loved reading stories about UFOs, and I dreamed of going inside one to discover all their mysteries."

"Maybe if you do G, A, F, F, C, a UFO will come to let you get in," says Pinkie Pie.

Twilight sighs again. "If only..."

---

Thanks to the UFO, Sweetie Belle and Kirby have reached the door in record time. Climbing the many slopes that follow the door while avoiding the Metaluns and Gordos is also really easy, and they reach a second door in just a few seconds. After the door, Kirby has to destroy some kind of glass container with a fire inside so the fire can spreed and burn the wood blocking the path. Breaking more of those glass containers, including one hidden inside a pile of leaves, eventually reveal a chest not long before reaching a third door.

In the next section, they spot a big chest on a golden moving platform moving away. Following the platform trying to catch it by air jumping is none other than Spinni, who hasn't spotted them yet. Rapidly, Sweetie Belle goes behind Spinni and charges a laser, but not to the point of releasing the four beams. Shooting the laser, she hits Spinni from the back, putting him on fire and making him crash. After that, Sweetie Belle puts the UFO above him, and Kirby starts inhaling. Despite Spinni trying to grab the floor or to air jump away, he is eaten by the puffball. Sweetie Belle giggles before putting the UFO above the chest, and Kirby eats it too before they pass a door a little further.

They appear just in front of the spiral tower. Entering it, they have to shoot at a switch to open a door and continue. Destroying a wall of stone blocks blocking the way with a bomb block cause a giant boulder to fall behind them, but it's easily avoided by entering a hole in the path, letting it pass above them and destroying another wall of stone blocks before it is destroyed once ramming the ruin's wall at the end.

Flying between spikes poking out of the floor and the ceiling, they hear something suddenly explode, and as they reach a vertical hallway full of platforms with some Snooters, green creatures with a round body, two round legs, two round arms, and a big mouth with big green lips, water suddenly comes from below them and everything is soon flooded, the force of the water destroying many stone blocks, freeing the way.

They get out of the water as it drops in a waterfall. After letting Kirby eat some cherries, Sweetie destroys a bomb block so they can continue, only to see that they now have to choose between two doors, one up, and one down. Kirby decides to separate from Sweetie Belle, causing a light to surround the UFO. With Kirby now back in his normal UFO form, he nods at Sweetie Belle before taking the upper door, leaving Sweetie Belle to take to lower door.

After a rather straight path full of creatures attacking her, Sweetie passes a door that reunites her with Kirby, who confirms to her that he has found a chest. But now, they have to choose between two cannons. Sweetie Belle takes the left one and leaves Kirby to take the right one. After going from cannons to cannons, breaking through dozens of blocks, Sweetie Belle eventually enters a small room where the door closes behind her, leaving her no choice but to pass the black door alone.

She is now in a dark room, which is not a problem thanks to her light spell. Not needing to light the candles in the room, she only stop to break some barrels, finding in the last one before the next door another chest. She puts the chest on her back, and passes the door, seeing Kirby already here, but now with the Wheel ability, saddening Sweetie Belle, but seeing the path, she understands why. So Kirby climbs on her back, and now with her hooves turned into wheels, she rolls on the many slopes forming the hallway they are in.

In the way, they encounter Doc, again, lifting a chest with the tractor beam of his saucer as he flies toward the exit. Passing under his saucer, Sweetie Belle says "Yoink!" while grabbing the chest, before quickly rolling away and leaving Doc in the dust.

"Wha- Hey! Come back here!"

"Catch us first!"

"RAAAHHHH!!!"

The old mouse starts chasing them, but is not able to target them because of all the slopes. Sweetie Belle giggles, then starts to use her magic to create a field of black bubbles behind her. A couple of seconds later, she hears explosions followed by Doc's scream of rage, informing her that her trap has worked. Just in case, she creates more fields of bubbles before she passes the door, exiting the spiral tower.

Now rolling in the jungle, she has to jump above a few holes and use a few platforms to pass above the river before reaching the abandoned factory. Passing a door to enter it, the Wheel help her gain much time once inside it, passing through a wall of star blocks before quickly reaching another black door after jumping above two doors in the floor opening in her way. After rolling through a small hallway, she now has to roll down many slopes in a vertical room until they have to choose between two paths again, each starting with crumbling blocks.

Sighing, they separate again, leaving Kirby to take the first path while she take the second path. Passing the blocks, she goes down a few more slopes before reaching a door. She enters a tunnel where she encounters a Golden Waddle Dee. A quick punch later and Sweetie Belle leaves the knocked out Waddle Dee behind, a chest on her back. Careful to not make it fall, she continues to follow the tunnel until reaching another door after climbing a ladder, lifting the chest with her magic.

After the door, she is back in the factory, alongside Kirby, still with Wheel. With Kirby on her back again, they quickly spot a black door. However, they also spot a switch opening a normal door above, and looking beyond it once it is open, they see that it leads to a big room with a cannon at the other side going up. Deciding to see what is beyond, they pass the door before it closes and enter the room, only for a very special enemy to suddenly appear in front of them: a Tedhaun. A big ghost with a single eye and wearing a purple wizard hat.

Smiling maliciously at them, the Tedhaun creates Capers, smaller capsule-shaped ghosts with an eye, that charge at them. Thinking that the Wheel will not be very useful in this fight, Kirby gives it up before inhaling one of the small ghosts to spit it back at the Tedhaun while Sweetie freezes the others and kicks them back at him. Tedhaun disappears, only to reappear above Sweetie Belle, grabbing her. He then creates a Caper that charges at her, only for Kirby to inhale it and spit it at the big ghost, freeing the filly who quickly stuns the ghost with a buck. Kirby then inhales Sweetie Belle and spits her at the ghost to finally knock him out.

And then, he eats him.

By eating the Tedhaun, Kirby turns himself into a ghost becoming all white and translucent while losing his feet for a ghost cloak.

"A Ghost ability? What will you be able to do with it? Pass through walls?"

Kirby puts one of his arms under his chin to think for a moment before he signs Sweetie Belle to follow him. Nodding, they enter the cannon and let it propel them through iron blocks in the way up. Once at the top, they are now in front of a Hot Head, a round orange creature with two yellow feet and a round pipe-like mouth from which he can spit fire, and has his back on fire, on a bridge of star blocks above spikes. Seeing the Hot Head, Kirby charges at him, and enter his body. After shaking a moment, the Hot Head looks at Sweetie Belle and jumps in joy, shouting "Poyo!"

Sweetie's jaw drops. "You... You can possess others?!"

He nods. "Poyo!"

"Whoa... That's... creepy. But cool too. Just let's try to not abuse it. We don't want to become like the Dark Matters."

He nods again. "Poyo."

With this, they pass the bridge, go down a ladder, and pass a door. Now in a small room, they spot metal blocks in one of the walls. Kirby, still in the Hot Head, runs toward the blocks and spits a steam of fire at them, causing them to melt and revealing a chest. Once beside the chest, Kirby's ghost appears briefly above the Hot Head and eats the chest before disappearing back in.

They have to take back the door because there are no other ways. Back in the previous room, they take a ladder, destroy a couple of barrels, and walk on crumbling blocks to fall back in the room with the switch, before their fight with the Tedhaun. With their tour done, they pass the door that they have ignored the first time.

In the next room, they have to climb a few ladders. Quickly, Kirby leaves the Hot Head to take possession of a Bio Spark, because ninja. After destroying a ceiling of stone blocks, Kirby has to jump on Sweetie Belle's back so the filly can fly with him and reach the top of the room. Passing a platform, Sweetie Belle shoots fire from her horn to melt metal Blocks and reveal a door that leads them in front of a big chest. Surprisingly, no Squeaks in sight. They take the chest, and pass the door.

They are now in a big room, with Storo waiting for them, hammer tapping his palm.

"Here you are you t- Uh? Where is the puffball?"

Sweetie Belle giggles. "He is here."

"Where?"

"Here!"

"Where?!"

Kirby, still in the Bio Spark, appears in front of him. "Poyo!" He then grabs Storo, and despite the weight of the mouse, he is able to jump in the air with him before pounding him head first on the ground. This left Storo totally stunned on the ground.

"Poyo...? What...? Why did he say poyo...?"

Kirby then leaves the Bio Spark, and goes on Sweetie's back, turning her into a ghost too, all white and translucent like him, her lower half replaced by a white smoke-like trail. With Kirby not leaving her back, they look at each other, smile, nod, and charge toward the now scared mouse. "No..." is all he can say before they enter his body. After a few seconds of shaking, Storo putting his hands on his head, he becomes still. Another few seconds later, he slowly gets up, and looks at his hands, fingers wiggling, a smile slowly appearing on his face.

"It worked. I'm possessing Storo. Whoa, that's so weird. I feel so heavy too, and my vision is a little weird. Poyo. Wait Kirby, I must get used to this body first." He slowly takes a step forward. "I have rarely walked on two legs until now. I don't want to faceplant. Poyo. Maybe I should let you control him for now. It should help me. Poyo."

With a last nod, the now possessed Storo takes the hammer and leaves the room, exiting at the same time the factory.

---

"Boy. This should get interesting," says Discord.

"I don't know what to think," says Twilight. "Possession is wrong but in their journey, they may need it."

Rarity nods. "I'm sure that they are about to fight a powerful enemy. Storo's strength may be helpful against whatever it will be."

"And they can also fool those thieves and discover where they put what they search!" says Scootaloo.

"You are right Scootaloo," replies Twilight. "It gives them many ways to make their adventure easier."

---

Sweetie Belle and Kirby, still possessing Storo, enter another ruin where they have seen Daroach enter. They press a switch and pass a door, and another door, before reaching a black door. After it, they have to destroy a bomb block, opening a hole that they jump in. Thanks to Storo's weight, they destroy all the blocks in the way. Once at the bottom, they go down a few slopes as they hear things continuing to be destroyed. Once they reach the door, they wait in curiosity to see what will happen, and soon, they see a block exploding, dropping a chest that they catch.

They pass the door and follow the path, finally catching Daroach who is beside a giant robot looking like a hermit crab with a spiky green shell. They spot Doc in a cockpit above the head. As Daroach and Doc are busy talking, they haven't spotted Storo yet, so they quickly hid behind a wall.

"What do we do Kirby? Poyo." Kirby spits a big chest before doing a few signs with Storo's body. "Poyo poyo. Poyopoyo poyo poyo. Poyo poyo. Ooohhh. I understand. That's awesome Kirby. Alright, let me do it." She takes the chest and gets out from behind the wall, approaching the Squeaks, shouting "Boss!"

Daroach and Doc look toward him, and the leader starts to talk. "Storo? What are you doing here?"

Sweetie Belle shows the chest. "I successfully found this chest, but now I need a Squeaker to bring it to the hideout."

"Good job Storo!" shouts Doc. "However, we don't have any Squeakers here. As you can see, we are preparing our ambush to give those two pests a taste of my last creation..." He raises the robot's legs and make it roar. "The Yadogaine! Bwaahahahahahaha!!!"

"So where is Spinni? He probably has some Squeakers with him."

"He is already at Vocal Volcano," answers Daroach. "You should find him there along with the Squeakers."

"The airship will be waiting for us at the coast at the end of the volcanoes," says Doc. "With it, we will finally return to the hideout with all the booty and we will get to open this chest! And all the treasures of the world will be ours! Aahahahahah!"

They will open the chest? This means that they probably have the key at their hideout. This is bad.

"Calm down Doc," says Daroach. "Kirby and Sweetie Belle are still following us."

"Not for long! With the Yadogaine, those ruins will become their tomb! You should go boss, you too Storo. I'm sure that they are almost here."

They both nod and walk past the Yadogaine. At this, a smirk appears on Storo's face as the grip on his hammer becomes stronger. He slowly gets behind Daroach and raises the hammer high above him, covering him in his shadow. This gets Daroach to look above his shoulder.

But it was too late.

"Poyo."

BAM!!!

Daroach is crushed under the hammer, the force of the hit being so much that it forms a crater around him. Once the hammer is raised, it leaves a totally unconscious Daroach. Of course, this has attracted Doc's attention.

"What the-?! Storo?! What have you done?!"

Storo turns toward Doc, and smiles as Kirby's and Sweetie's ghosts appear above him. "Poyo! Surprise!"

"WHAAAAAAAAT!?! WHAT?! WHAT?! WHAT?!" Doc then becomes all red. "You... You DARE to use one of us to... I..." The Yadogaine starts to charge toward them. "I will make you regret this! I will knock you out of Storo's body, and then, I will kill you!"

"Sorry Doc. That was the best occasion we got." By then, the Yadogaine is just in front of them, the two legs raised ready to attack. They smile. "Kirby. Poyo!" Kirby raises Storo's hands in the trajectory of the legs, and is able to catch them, stopping them.

"What?!"

"POOOOOOYOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" With all the strength of Storo's body, Kirby tears the legs from the robot.

"RAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"

"My turn. Poyo!"

Doc shouts a large laser from the mouth of the Yadogaine, but with a swing of Storo's right arm covered in her energy, Sweetie Belle is able to deflect it with some little difficulty. Once the laser is out of the way, Sweetie Belle readies the arm, rotating it with all the energy she can gather in it, a giant smile on Storo's face. "METEOR PUUUUNCH!!!" And she hits the Yadogaine right on the head. The accumulated power of the attack crushes the head and propels the robot directly through the ruins until it explodes in the distance. Just after the explosion, they see Doc blown away toward the ceiling.

"I'm blasting off ag-" Crash! He passes right through the ceiling.

Sweetie Belle raises Storo's arms in victory. "WOOOHOOOO! That was awesome! Poyo!" Kirby readies Storo's left hand, and Sweetie fistbumps it with the right hand. "Poyo! Yeah! Gosh! I will never forget this day!" They then turn toward the still unconscious Daroach. "And it will get even better very soon. Poyo."

At this, the two ghosts leave Storo's body and enter Daroach's. A few seconds later, Daroach wakes up, and gets up.

"Uugh..." he hears. Turning around, he sees Storo rubbing his head. "What happened? Boss?"

Daroach smiles, and raises his wand, energy charging.

"Wait. I was possessed. But I'm not possessed anymore. So where..." Storo then looks at Daroach in the eyes. "Oh..."

Daroach points the wand at Storo, and an ice beam is shot from it. When the beam stops, Storo is covered in ice.

Daroach's smiles becomes bigger, then he starts to giggles, before bouncing in excitation. "Oh my goshohmygoshohmygosh! I don't believe it! I'm Daroach! Poyo poyo! I can't wait to fight as him! Poyo!" They turn toward the exit of the ruins. "Let's go! To the volcanoes! Popoyo!" And they run, going toward the next step of their adventure.

Author's Notes:

And I present to you the Ghost ability, probably one of the most overpowered of all the abilities. Easily in the top 3 with the Artist and Magic. Seriously, look at this! I'm sure nobody saw that coming!

Chapter 51: Vocal Volcano and Ice Island: The Squeak Squad's Last Stand!

They see Sweetie Belle and Kirby, now possessing Daroach's body, coming back quickly inside the ruins to take the forgotten chest that they have used to fool the Squeaks before exiting the ruins for the second time, making some of the ponies laugh.

"Eh. Still a filly," says Applejack.

Spike rubs his head thoughtfully. "Now that they possess the big boss of the bad guys, I wonder what will happen."

"Easy," says Rainbow Dash. "They will crush everything in their way and take back what was stolen by the Squeaks." She huffs. "We may not even have an epic final fight this time. They control the most powerful enemy, so I don't see any obstacles that could give them a hard time."

"What about whatever is in the chest?" asks Pinkie.

"If they don't open it, it doesn't matter," answers the pegasus.

"Mmh... I don't know..." says Discord. "I have the feeling that we shouldn't underestimate the Squeaks."

---

"GrrrrrrrRAAAHH!!!"

Not long after Sweetie Belle and Kirby leave the ruins, Storo is able to use his mighty strength to break the ice, freeing himself. However, it leaves him kneeling in fatigue, having to take back his breath. After a few seconds, he gets back up.

"They took possession of the boss... I must warn the others."

At this, he starts running, only to be hit by a laser.

"Hiii?!"

"I got you!" shouts none other than Doc, coming back in his saucer. He shoots more lasers at Storo, shocking the big mouse until he finds himself on his back. "Release Storo!"

"Wai- Gaahh! It's me! Doc, stop!"

"Yeah right. Do you think I am stupid?! I will not fall for this again!" shouts back Doc as he shoots more lasers.

"N-no! They... They took... THEY TOOK POSSESSION OF THE BOSS!!!"

The lasers stop coming.

"What?" asks Doc. He looks at where Daroach's unconscious body has been, only to see that it's gone.

"See?" shouts Storo. He then points at what remains of the ice. "They took possession of him, and they used his ice beam to freeze me!"

Doc starts to think. If Daroach had awakened, he would have attacked Storo to free him from Kirby and Sweetie Belle. He would have never left him behind, especially not after freezing him. Seems like Storo is telling the truth, but he should do a last test just to be sure.

"All for Squeak!" he shouts.

"Cheese for all!" shouts back Storo.

Doc releases a sigh of relief, only to become very pale. This is Storo, so what he has said is true. Kirby and Sweetie Belle have taken possession of Daroach! And now, they are probably going toward the volcanoes with his body to find the airship and take back everything they have stolen!

They must stop them and free the boss!

They must warn Spinni and the Squeakers!

They must go RIGHT NOW!

Rapidly, Doc goes above Storo. "No time for you to run! You are too slow!" He activates the tractor beam and lifts Storo, much to the last one's displeasure, before flying out of the ruins.

---

By now, Sweetie Belle and Kirby are climbing a mountain. They haven't taken long to discover everything that Daroach can do. He can float, teleport, shoot an ice beam from his wand, and create and throw bombs from under his cape. He also possesses some kind of golden rod with a box-like head with a star that can throw stars, which can bounce on the surfaces and come back to Daroach to orbit around him to serve as a shield, much like the electric orb from the UFO ability, except that he can have until three stars orbiting him, and the rod shoots three stars at the same time. Nuff said. Thanks to him, it hasn't taken them long for them to find a first chest in a room full of giant star blocks easily destroyed by his ice beam, and a star from the rod is all it has taken to open the way, destroying spikes blocking it by hitting a switch behind them.

They don't even take the ladder to leave the room. Some floating, and they reach the door leading them inside the mountain. Here, they have to fly up, destroying a few bomb blocks to make their climb even easier, even finding another chest after passing a door that immediately close once open after pressing the switch -there again, the rod is of great help- and destroying one of those bombs.

They reach the top of the mountain where they find a big chest, and they can now see the volcanoes that have been hidden behind the mountain, with lava everywhere. They also spot some ruin at the top of one of the mountains.

"Here we are. Volcanoes. Again. This is becoming an habit. Poyo. At least, thanks to Daroach, it should be alright. We will just need to fly above the lava. Poyo." Sweetie Belle giggles. "We will pass those volcanoes in no time!" At this, they advance.

They don't see Doc's flying saucer in the sky above them, still tracking Storo.

"I saw the boss Doc! He is at the top of this mountain!"

"They are quick. No surprise with the boss' body. We must quickly find Spinni. And together, we will save the boss!" It doesn't take them long to find Spinni. The yellow mouse is busy looking inside a very small hole, trying to reach something.

"Ngh! Rah! Gosh darn it! It's too far!"

"A problem Spinni?" asks Doc, gaining his attention.

Spinni looks around and sees them as Doc drops Storo on the ground. "Doc? Storo? Yes, there is a problem!" He points up at a closed door in the ceiling. "I smell a treasure behind this door!" He then points at the hole. "But the switch opening it is in this small hole! And I can't reach it! But now that you are there, you can use one of your lasers to reach it!"

"Forget the treasure!"

"Say what?!"

"The boss needs us! The two heroes became ghosts and took possession of his body!"

"SAY WHAT?!"

"They are coming right here as we are talking! We must save the boss!"

Spinni clenches his teeth. "Count on me. I will hide in the shadow, ambush them, and force them out of the boss' body with a quick sneak attack."

"No you fool! This will not be enough! Let's go to the airship, I will tell you my plan. Storo, grab him."

Storo sighs. "You are gonna lift me again?"

"Of course! We must be fast! If we go on foot, they will catch us, and we will have our butts kicked again."

"Alright..." He grabs Spinni. "Sorry buddy."

"For the boss, I can endure being lifted by someone else." Once Doc lifts Storo again with the tractor beam and they fly, he talks again. "So, can you tell us your plan?"

"Well. First of all, we will attract them to Bohboh's lair."

"Oooooh."

---

Sweetie Belle and Kirby pass a door after finding another chest by pressing a few switches. As expected, they have no problems passing the various dangers of the volcanoes. In the new section, they quickly spot the closed door above them, and see the switch in a hole too small for them, and too far for their arms. No problems, they are able to hit it thanks to the ice beam, opening the door which drop a big chest that they take.

But still no Squeaks in sight.

"What do you think the Squeaks are doing Kirby? Poyo," Kirby answers with a shrug. "I hope they aren't gone with their airship. We still don't know where their hideout is. But would they leave their leader behind?" Kirby answers with a shake of Daroach's head. "Poyo." Probably no. They seem loyal to each other.

Passing a door, they are now inside one of the volcanoes, in a room with four enemies: a Sir Kibble, a Sword Knight, a Hot Head, and some penguin-like creature with a big beak named Pengi, that can breath ice. Dealing with them with a few bombs and a swing of the golden rod, they pass the door at the top of the room and enter another room with a Bonkers.

The Bonkers immediately attack by trying to crush Daroach under his hammer, only for Kirby to teleport them behind him. sweetie Belle then floats a little above the ground, envelops one of Daroach's feet with her energy, and give a spin kick at the Bonkers' back, sending him crashing on a wall. The Bonkers quickly comes back, throwing an explosive coconut at them, but again, they teleport to avoid it, reappear in front of him, and start to clobber his head with both the wand and the rod. After over a dozen hits, they float back, and watch as the Bonkers remains in place for a few seconds without moving before falling on the floor with all his weight, a door opening just after.

Behind it, they use the rod to pound a wooden stack, which causes a chest to rise from a hole. After this, they pass another door, and this time, they find themselves against a Gao Gao. The big animal starts to spin toward them, its claws threatening to turn Daroach into shreds. Kirby makes Daroach jump above the Gao Gao, and throws a bomb that stop it. With the animal stopped, sweetie Belle takes the rod and swings it down, pounding the Gao Gao on the head, stunning it. The Gao Gao tries to claw them with its left arm, but sweetie Belle catches it and throws it on the ground before pounding it with the rod, making the Gao Gao yelling in pain. While it yells, she throws a bomb inside its mouth. The next instant, the Gao Gao seems to inflate for a second with a small boom before smoke comes from its mouth. And it falls on the ground unconscious, a door opening.

In the next room, thanks to the rod again, they are able to dig through some dirt to find a chest before passing another door, ready for another battle. And this time, they have to fight a Big Metalun. The Big Metalun turns into a metal boulder and charges at them, only to hit the wall behind them as they float out of the way. Kirby takes the rod and shoots many stars while Sweetie takes the wand with the other hand and shoots an ice beam. She follows it by a fire beam, finding that the wand is not limited to ice. It's not long before the Big Metalun is knocked out, and the door appears.

In the room that follow, they spot iron blocks at the end of a small path full of spikes. Surprisingly, the stars of the rod can destroy them, and now that they see the chest that has been hidden by them, they teleport to it and Kirby's ghost eats it, which causes the apparition of a ladder for some reason. Climbing it leads them to a door to a small room with another door that lead them out of the volcano, where they find another door after a small climbing.

They are now beside the ruins that they have spotted earlier at the top of the mountain, and they enter them. Inside them, the temperature climbs really high as there is a great quantity of lava, and there is even a section where the ceiling is on fire. after a door, they have to climb a big room with lava falls, and in the room that follow, pressing switches causes the destruction of floors made of stone blocks. In this room, they find a door hidden behind star blocks, leading them to a Golden Waddle Dee and a switch. They don't need to be Twilight or Doc to understand that the switch would cause the floor under the Golden Waddle Dee to be destroyed, which would cause him to fall in the fire below, so they just knock him out to take his chest before leaving the room without touching the switch.

A last switch pressed open the way to another door, and they enter a path with another switch that seems to open a door, but they don't know where. So they just advance, pass many blocks in the way, go down, and jumps above pits, one of them with fire at the bottom, before climbing a ladder that leads them to the door that the switch has opened beside a black door, revealing a chest. They take it just as the door closes behind them, but the destruction of a bomb block opens the way for them to reach the black door, entering a hallway where they find a big chest, with still no Squeaks!

Where are they?!

Surprisingly, they get their answer just before reaching the door to exit the ruins, Spinni waiting for them holding a big chest. And not just any big chest! The cursed chest! Once he sees them, he passes the door without saying a word.

"Hey! Wait!"

They chase him. Despite them possessing Daroach's body, and Spinni being slowed down by the chest, they still have a hard time catching the yellow mouse, not helped by the Squeakers getting in the way to slow them down. They try to use stars and beam to hit Spinni, but he is able to dodge all of them with his air jumps. Soon, they enter a tunnel, where they have to climb before they pass a door, entering a cavern. Here, Spinni is waiting on a platform above some lava, and Doc suddenly flies out of nowhere and uses his tractor beam to lift the mouse still holding the chest before quickly flying away.

As Sweetie Belle and Kirby are about to chase them, they then hear a screech, and they see some kind of giant bird approaching. The bird looks like a red owl with a tan belly. The particularity is that this owl possesses a raccoon-like tail, and its wings are made of fire. It also has a small fire on its forehead, as if it is a lock of hair.

The owl looks angrily at them, and screeches again before diving at them with its claws ready. They quickly fly out of the way before shooting an ice beam at it, which seems to have great effects. In return, the owl spits fireballs from its mouth, but Sweetie Belle uses the golden rod to deflect them with a few swings before shooting stars. the owls flies up, and upon reaching the ceiling, dives toward them again like a comet. They quickly teleport out of the way as the owl crashes on the floor, causing boulders to fall from the ceiling. while avoiding them, they charge another ice beam and shoot it at the stunned owl, hurting it more.

At this instant, they find themselves trapped by an electrical net coming from behind, causing them to fall on the floor, the pain caused by the electricity stopping them from teleporting. The owl starts to fly again, ready to attack when Storo, wearing some light grey uniform with a strange black box on his back linked to some gun at his side, suddenly falls from the ceiling on it with Spinni on his shoulder, smashing it on the head with his two fists, making it crash.

"That's enough Bohboh! Go to sleep!" he shouts before jumping away from the unconscious owl.

Spinni then jumps from Storo's shoulder, revealing that he possesses the same uniform and black box that Storo, and runs toward them, stopping just before them. He then takes a small ball composed of something white and throws it inside Daroach's mouth shouting "Eat this!" When the ball enters Daroach's mouth, it reveals to be a ball of salt, and both Kirby and Sweetie Belle suddenly feel a pain far greater than the one caused by the electrical net. "Out of the boss' body, you no-living sheet!" he then says as he prepares another ball of salt.

The pain being too much, they are forced to leave Daroach's body. They then hear Doc. "Bwaahahahahaa! It worked!" They then see his saucer flying above Spinni, and Doc jumps from it, wearing a light grey uniform with the black box. Doc presses a button on a device, and the net stops hurting Daroach.

This makes both Sweetie Belle and Kirby sweat, despite being ghosts. "I don't like it Kirby..."

"Now...!" continues Doc, taking the gun linked to his box. "Be prepared to pay! You made a fool of us! You sent me flying with a rocket, and destroyed half of my saucers along with two of my best machines!"

"You stole my sunglasses and made me fall for hundreds of meters! And you dropped a bowling ball on my head!"

"And you sent doves to peck me! It hurt so much! And you possessed me and used me to hurt Doc and the boss!"

"And worse of all...!" continues Doc, and they all points their guns at them. "You took possession of the boss. Let's go boys. Remember, don't cross the streams."

"Right, Doc!"

And they shoot from the guns some kind of orange streams toward Sweetie Belle and Kirby who look at them in horror. When the streams reach them, they find themselves not being able to move as the streams circle them, trapping them in some sort of cage.

"Now Storo!" shouts Doc.

While still holding his gun with his left hand, Storo grabs a small black box and throws it under Sweetie Belle and Kirby. The box then opens, and they find themselves sucked in it. Once they are inside, the box closes, trapping them.

"Heck yeah!" shouts Spinni while jumping in victory. He then raises his gun above his head. "Who you call?!"

"Squeak Squad!" answers Storo.

"Who you call?!"

"Squeak Squad!"

"Who you call?!"

"Squeak Squad!"

"Enough you two! We must see if the boss is alright!"

"Ugh..." they then hear. "Don't worry. I'm alright. But what happened?" asks Daroach as he slowly gets himself rid of the net while rubbing his head. "My body hurts so much, I have the mother of all headaches, and I'm thirsty."

"BOOOOSS!!!"

Daroach suddenly find himself trapped in a bear hug from Storo, streams of tears falling from the big mouse's eyes. "And I'm about to have my bones crushed. Release me Storo!"

"I can't!"

This makes Spinni chuckles while he rubs his eyes with his fingers. "Storo, stops being a crybaby. Big guys like you shouldn't cry."

"I can't!"

"Ahah! We beat the heroes and saved the boss! And it's thanks to me!" shouts Doc. "When we are back at the hideout, I want 50% of the-"

A white star suddenly pops out of the trap. The trap then breaks into pieces, releasing Sweetie Belle and Kirby who are back to normal.

"Oh come ooon!!!" yells Doc.

Sweetie Belle makes her bones pop as she giggles. "What? Did you forget that we are not real ghosts?"

"Drat..."

"Uh... I propose that wegetoutofthere!" shouts Spinni as he starts running toward the exit of the cavern in panic.

Doc jumps on Storo's head. "Come on you big idiot! Get us out of here! Gallop!"

"Yes Doc!" shouts back Storo as he picks up a sprint.

Not wanting to let them escape, Sweetie Belle grabs Kirby and throws him at them before jumping on a shield to chase them. Kirby is able to reach Storo and clings to the black box on his back before going on it. seeing that he is here, Doc turns around and slams his own black box on Kirby, only for Kirby to dodge it with a jump before landing on Doc and punching him on the head.

"Ouch! You dare to hit someone with glasses?!"

Kirby raises an eyebrow. "Poyo poyo poyo?" Like he cares?

"Release me Storo! I will deal with him!" says Daroach.

Storo does so and Daroach starts to float beside him as he swings the golden rod at him, only for Kirby to jump again from Doc's back to land on the black box. At this instant, they reach the exit of the cavern, where a ladder made of ropes is waiting for them. Looking up, the ladder leads to an airship, a blimp with a grey colored balloon with two yellow stripes and a red spike at the front. At the back, there are two elevators with propellers that extend from something that looks like Daroach's hat. The gondola itself is of the same red, with a door open from which comes the ladder, a red Squeaker holding it.

Spinni is already climbing it, but upon seeing kirby on Storo's black box, and Sweetie Belle quickly approaching, he jumps from it and gives the puffball a surprise high kick that send him crashing into the filly.

"Good job Spinni!" says Doc.

"No time to thank me, let's go!"

One by one, the Squeaks grab the ladder, with Storo being the last, and once Storo starts to climb it, the airship starts to fly away toward the ocean visible further behind the volcanoes.

Sweetie Belle looks up at the airship. "Do they think that it will stop us from chasing them?"

The next instant, Sweetie Belle and Kirby are on a Warp Star, flying behind the blimp above the ocean. As they are approaching, the blimp turns around, somehow able to fly backward, and three cannons appear around the gondola while the red spike opens to reveal a prod.

They then hear the Doc talking through speakers. "Did you think that we would let you chase us all the way to the hideout? Think again! This airship is my baby, and prepare yourself to have a taste of its power!"

The cannons then shoot three missiles homing at them, and energy starts to accumulate around the prod. With a beam, Sweetie Belle destroys one of the missiles and Kirby is able to avoid a second while inhaling the third that he spits back at the blimp.

"The UFO would have been perfect for this," says Sweetie Belle. "Whatever. Let me attack the airship while you dodge, okay?"

"Poyo!"

More missiles are shot from the cannons, and two yellow Squeakers jump out of the airship and air jump toward them. Sweetie Belle lets Kirby dodge the missile and quickly sends the Squeakers toward the ocean with a few beams before she starts attacking the airship itself by shooting explosive balls. At this moment, the energy at the prod stop to accumulate, and the next instant, a giant laser is shot from it, lasting for a few seconds. The blimp then starts to go up, down, left, and right so the laser chases Sweetie Belle and Kirby, forcing Kirby to constantly maneuver to avoid it until it stops. While Kirby is busy avoiding the laser, Sweetie Belle is forced to attack the missiles that are still shot from the cannons and the yellow Squeakers jumping from the gondola so Kirby doesn't get himself overwhelmed.

Once the laser stops, Sweetie Belle can return to attack the airship, only to see that there are now two green Squeakers on the balloon, the mice starting to throw bombs, and energy starts to accumulate on the prod again. She quickly deals with the Squeakers, and starts attacking the prod, hoping to destroy it before it fires its laser again. She spots however a missile coming too close, and quickly punches it from below, causing it to spin around and fly back toward one of the cannons, destroying it and leaving only two cannons. Done with the missile, she returns to her task of trying to destroy the prod.

One of the doors of the gondola opens again, and Storo shows himself, holding a barrel that he throws toward them, his strength making it really fast. They are hit, and Kirby loses control of the Warp Star for a few seconds before he is able to stabilise it just in time to avoid the laser shot from the prod, and Sweetie Belle uses a shield to protect them from a few shurikens thrown by Spinni. When she sees Storo about to throw another barrel, she clenched her teeth and uses her magic on Storo's feet to make him lose his balance, almost making him fall in the ocean as he grabs the edge, forcing him to drop the barrel. At this moment, the laser finally stops, and she is able to finally destroy the prod, making Doc screaming in rage. Only for Daroach to show himself with his wand and to shoot an ice beam at them, Kirby barely dodging it.

As the battle continues above the ocean - Sweetie destroying a second cannon, leaving the blimp with just one - the sky starts to grow dark, passing from day to night in the space of a few seconds, and auroras appear in it along with the stars. The heroes and the Squeaks are too busy fighting to pay attention to this however, and they don't see that they are approaching icy lands.

The last cannon is destroyed, and Storo is yet again almost sent to the ocean while Spinni takes a beam in the face, forcing him to return inside the ship. With no weapons remaining at the front of the ship that has been greatly damaged, Doc makes it turn around, leaving Sweetie Belle and Kirby face to the propellers and the giant hat. Two more cannons appear at the back of the gondola, and tornadoes are suddenly sent from the propellers. More Squeakers come, either to air jump toward them or to throw bombs, and Daroach appear again to shoot another ice beam.

Kirby is forced to fly down to avoid the barrage of projectiles, leaving Sweetie Belle to attack the yellow Squeakers following them. Once the Squeakers are dealt with, the filly attacks the cannons to diminish the number of projectiles and make attacking the propellers easier. They avoid a barrel thrown by Storo, then shurikens from Spinni, and the two cannons are destroyed in less than one minute. Done with the cannons, Sweetie Belle now attacks the propellers, only for the giant hat to split in two, revealing a big cannon that shoots giant explosive bullets, the explosions as big as the hat itself.

Sweetie Belle decides to deal with the cannon as quickly as possible, but the Squeaks are clearly becoming desperate, because more Squeakers are coming out, and Storo, Spinni, and Daroach are attacking more often with barrels, shurikens, and ice beams. With a Giga Force Blast, Sweetie Belle is able to destroy the big cannon, and the giant hat with it, rather quickly, and after dealing with the annoying Squeakers, she starts attacking the propellers again. However, despite the destruction of the cannon, Kirby has great pain avoiding the constant assault of the Squeaks, and the Warp Star is hit more than once, but for Sweetie Belle, he keeps control of the vehicle and doesn't lose focus, even if he can see that the Warp Star is reaching its limit. Thankfully, Sweetie Belle is rapidly able to destroy the left propeller, and the airship starts to lose control, which leads the Squeaks to have a harder time attacking. The battle definitively ends with the destruction of the second propeller as the ship starts to lose altitude, explosions littering its surface spewing tons of smoke.

As the ship starts to fall, Sweetie Belle and Kirby follow it, seeing that they are now above a land of ice with many mountains that look like giant crystals with a forest, and even a tower! Seeing the night sky despite still being daytime, this place must be close to Rainbow Resort. But the most interesting is the building not far from the tower possessing a roof looking like Daroach's hat and hears.

No need to bet anything to guess that it is the Squeak Squad's hideout. And the airship crashes just in front of it!

As soon as it crashes, the Squeaks run out of it toward the hideout holding many chest and Doc screaming "My babyyyy!!!" Once the last Squeak enters the building, the door is closed and barricaded before Sweetie Belle and Kirby can pass it. And it's a solid door!

"How will we enter?" asks Sweetie Belle. "If we aren't fast, they will open the chest! And who knows what they will unleash!"

"There is a back door," they suddenly hear the recognizable voice of a certain knight.

"Meta Knight?!" shouts Sweetie Belle, spotting the knight behind them.

"Dedede warned me, and I came as soon as I could. Quick, follow me."

They nod, and follow Meta Knight who leads them behind the hideout, to an entrance in a grotto not far.

"Here," he says.

"Thank you Meta Knight, it's nice to have you with us."

He just nods at this. "Let's not lose time."

They enter the grotto, and appear in a big underground cavern full of treasures. However, they don't pay attention to them because they don't have time and Storo, Spinni, and Doc are there.

"Drat!" shouts Doc. "They got there before we could close the back door!"

Spinni suddenly becomes pale. "Is that the famous Meta Knight with them? I think we are screwed..."

"Don't care! As long as we retain them until the boss opens the chest!"

Meta Knight readies his sword in front of him. "I don't have time to lose with the small fry like you!"

Sweetie Belle and Kirby look at each other and nod. "Me and Kirby will fight them. You will take the occasion to pass the door and join Daroach."

Meta Knight nods.

Without saying more, the three of them charge toward the Squeaks, Meta Knight and Sweetie Belle with their weapons ready. Kirby jumps above a laser from Doc and gives his saucer a high kick that destabilises it. Meanwhile, Storo goes in front of Sweetie Belle and readies his fists to smash her, but she jumps back and wraps his fists with her whip. As planned, Storo uses his strength to pull the whip and makes her fly toward him, and so, she bounces on his fist and kicks him on the head. At the same time, Meta Knight simply dodges Spinni's shurikens and flies toward him before cutting him with his sword. After attacking, Meta Knight bounces on Spinni's head and charges toward the door, successfully passing it.

"No!" shouts Spinni.

Big mistake! He finds himself with Sweetie's whip wrapped around his neck, and the next instant, he is used as a wrecking ball on Storo. Doc helps them by throwing a bomb toward Sweetie Belle, only for Kirby to eat it, gaining the Bomb ability, making Doc groan. Kirby quickly throws a bomb at the flying saucer, damaging it to the point of making it crash, and Kirby gives up Bomb to eat what remains of the saucer to gain UFO as Sweetie Belle finishes Doc by wrapping her whip around him before putting him in the way of one of Storo's punches. With the old mouse now planted in a wall, Kirby focus on Storo, shooting lasers at him, while Sweetie Belle attacks Spinni by throwing spikes of ice that the mouse dodges. Rather than attacking Sweetie Belle, Spinni throws his shurikens at Kirby, taking him by surprise and knocking out the UFO, leaving Kirby vulnerable for Storo's hammer, but he is saved by Sweetie's whip wrapping around him before pulling him back. However, in return, she gets cut in the back by some of Spinni's shurikens.

She clenches her teeth and sends a shield toward Spinni who jumps away, only for another shield to come from above and to crush him on the floor. stunned, he can't resist Kirby inhaling him and spitting him back at Storo. Spinni KO, Storo avenges him by trying to crush Kirby with his hammer, only for Sweetie to put a shield on the way, barely resisting the mouse's strength as it cracks. Kirby runs toward the pile of treasures and starts inhaling it, making Storo panic, but he can't go to stop him with Sweetie Belle attacking him with a big punch in the belly. Once Kirby has inhaled everything, leaving nothing of the pile, he slowly walked back toward Storo, and once close enough, spits everything at him, and the big mouse ends up buried in the treasures. Sweetie Belle and Kirby stare at the pile of treasures, waiting for Storo to come back to continue the fight, but nothing happens. After a few seconds, they understand that he is defeated.

Victorious, they fistbump before running toward the door to join Meta Knight in fighting Daroach.

---

They join Meta Knight inside the building itself as he is still fighting the leader of the Squeak Squad, the floor here covered in ice. He sends a tornado with his sword, only for Daroach to teleport out of the way before sending stars with the golden rod, the stars orbiting him after Meta Knight has dodged them. Sweetie belle attacks Daroach by throwing a Giga Force Blast, hitting him in the back and sending him to a wall, destroying the stars.

"Curse..."

They spot the cursed chest at a corner of the room, and Sweetie Belle looks at Kirby before pointing at it. Kirby understands and runs toward the chest before eating it, ensuring that Daroach can't open it in the middle of the fight. Daroach would have none of it, and teleports beside Kirby to hit him with the rod, only for Kirby to jump aside to avoid it before punching him in the face, following by another punch, and a kick that sends Daroach toward Sweetie Belle. The filly greets him with a Vulcan Jab finishing with a Smash Punch, and Daroach is sent to Meta Knight who is ready to cut him. But Daroach is able to teleport just before the swing of the sword and reappears behind Meta Knight where he kicks him toward the filly before sending an ice beam at them, freezing the both of them, only to take a high kick from Kirby.

Daroach quickly counterattacks with a swing of the golden rod that sends Kirby flying. He teleports in Kirby's trajectory and swings the rod again, this time sending him crashing to the floor. At this moment, Sweetie Belle and Meta Knight recover from the ice beam and the knight sends a few sharp shockwaves at the mouse, cutting him. While Daroach is in pain from the cuts, Sweetie Belle air jumps toward him, grabs him, and slams him into the ground beside Kirby who is able to punch Daroach in the belly, knocking his breath out of him and making him release his rod. Kirby takes it, and swings it, pounding Daroach on the head, sending him crashing head first in a wall. Kirby then starts to spin with the rod, and throws it toward Daroach, the rod hitting him on the head.

When Daroach falls from the wall with the rod, he doesn't move anymore.

Meta Knight flies toward him and takes the rod. "This doesn't belong to you."

Sweetie Belle sighs in relief. "We finally beat them... Thank you Meta Knight for the help. Without you, we may not have been able to stop Daroach from opening the chest."

Kirby spits the cursed chest and taps it. "Poyo?"

"Well, I suppose that I will take it back to the castle."

"No," says Meta Knight. "The chest has already been stolen from the castle once, it can be stolen again. We will have to find another place to hide it."

Sweetie Belle nods. "I understand, but where?"

"I'm thinking of somewhere out of Popstar." He takes the chest. "If you want, you can come."

They nod, before Kirby looked down in sadness. "Cake..."

Sweetie Belle rubs his back to comfort him. "Sorry Kirby. We haven't found it even in the hideout. I fear that Storo ate it. But don't worry, like I told you, I will bake you another."

He smiles at her in return and bounces in joy. "Poyo!"

---

"So... it's the end?" asks Fluttershy.

"I'm not so sure," answers Twilight. "They still have to deal with this chest, and anything can happen. I feel like it has been too easy."

"The Squeaks still put a really good fight," says Applejack. "Too bad for them that Meta Knight joined Sweetie Belle and Kirby."

"And this battle against the airship was awesome!" shouts Scootaloo.

"Eheh. You got the words out of my mouth," says Rainbow Dash.

"However, they should do something about their hideout. I'm surprised that nopony found it before with that big hat that screams 'here is Daroach's hideout! Come and take back our treasures!'" remarks Applejack.

"Probably because nopony in their right mind would come in that cold place," answers her Rarity.

"So we continue watching?" asks Pinkie Pie.

"Yes. At least, until we are sure that nothing will happen," answers Discord. "With this chest, who knows?"

---

"Ugh..." groans Daroach as he wakes up.

"Here boss, take this," says Doc upon giving a Maxim Tomato to Daroach.

He groans again. "Urg... Tomato..."

"I know boss, but in your state, this is the best."

Daroach has nothing to say to this and begrudgingly eat the tomato.

"Sorry boss, we failed..." says Spinni.

He huffs. "We lost, but we will not give up." He looks at Doc. "Repair the airship." He then takes a key with a star shaped head out of his clothes. "We will take back the chest."

Chapter 52: Secret Sea and Gamble Galaxy: Dark Nebula

Sweetie Belle and Kirby, each on a Warp Star, have followed Meta Knight above the ocean, until reaching a forested island with a small mountain where they land at the edge with Meta Knight looking at the ocean, and more exactly, a shadow visible in the water. Whatever this shadow really is, it's big! Sweetie Belle remarks that they are not far off the coast of the mainland, seeing that they are beside a desert area. A rather familiar desert area. Now that she thinks about it, she swears that she has seen this island before.

She doesn't focus on this however, but on the chest that Meta Knight is still holding. Maybe it's time to know what is in it, and Meta Knight seems to know.

"Meta Knight, can you tell us what is in this chest?"

"I will answer you once we reach our destination," replies Meta Knight. At this, he points with his sword the shadow in the water. "We are almost there."

"Alright."

So Meta Knight jumps in the water, quickly followed by Sweetie Belle and Kirby. Rapidly, they discover, jaws dropping, what the shadow really is: the Halberd. Of course that desert has been familiar! This is the desert where they have landed with the Wheelie after escaping from the battleship as it has been about to crash in the ocean! And she recognizes this island because this is the island beside which the Halberd has crashed and sunk! Stupid! And now, they are back there, and the Halberd is fully repaired, not a single hole left, as impressive as the first time she has seen it. So this is what the Meta Knights have been doing all this time?

She smiles toward Meta Knight. "You didn't want to give up your precious battleship, uh?"

He nods with a chuckle. "It would have been a waste to leave it at the bottom of the ocean. We have passed so much time on the Halberd, and it possesses so much potential, that we couldn't abandon it. Don't worry, I don't project to use it to try to take over Dreamland anymore. Rather, it will be a weapon to help protect the world."

"And you will hide the chest in it?"

"No. We will use the Halberd to find a place, somewhere in space, to hide the chest. An asteroid somewhere in the middle of nowhere would be nice. Or in a dangerous planet."

Sweetie Belle can't help but grin. They are gonna fly in space aboard the Halberd! A futuristic battleship! This is so exciting!

---

"Ah! That's rich! She is gonna fly aboard a battleship that she has destroyed previously! I never saw that happen before!" comments Discord with a laugh.

"Well, generally, when a ship is sunk, we don't repair them," says Twilight.

"But we can't blame the Meta Knights for repairing it," says Rainbow. "This ship is awesome!"

"Now I hope that we will go aboard it one day too," says Scootaloo. "I wouldn't mind trying to pilot it."

Applejack chuckles. "They just repaired it. I don't think they would like having to repair it again."

"Hey! I'm sure she can be a great pilot!" rebuts Rainbow. "She is really good with her scooter!"

"Driving a scooter is not the same as piloting a battleship!"

As the two mares start bickering, Apple Bloom says to Scootaloo "Well, I believe that you would be good at piloting a ship. We could try it to gain our Cutie Marks once we can go to Dreamland."

"Thanks. But you know, I would see you more as the... hum... I'm not sure what we call somepony whose job is to repair a ship."

Twilight answers her. "Normally, for a wooden ship, they are called a carpenter, but for a ship made of metal like this one, with an engine and all, I think that it would be an engineer, which is very different."

"Yes! An engineer! You are good at building stuff!"

"With wood," replies Apple Bloom. "Metal is not something that I'm used to work with. And I know absolutely nothing on how to work with an engine and whatever else composes this ship, like the cannons."

"Meh. You could still give it a try. Like this, we could try to have our Cutie Marks in both piloting and engin... Erh..."

"Engineering," says Twilight.

"Right, that."

"And I will be sure to be there with the popcorn!" says Discord.

---

They pass one of the many doors that serve as the entrances of the Halberd, and to be more precise, one that is at the base of the bridge, where they are welcomed by some members of the crew, including an Axe Knight.

"Welcome back, lord Meta Knight!" he shouts with a salute.

"Is everything ready?" asks Meta Knight.

"Yes. Everything is functional. We are waiting for your green light."

"Good. Prepare for take-off. I'm going to the bridge."

"Yes sir!"

"Lord Meta Knight is aboard! Everyone at their post!" they suddenly hear captain Vul shouting from a speaker.

As they start climbing, Sweetie Belle asks Meta Knight "Is the reactor still working with Wheelies?" with a frown.

"No. Now we are using water as powersource."

This makes Sweetie Belle raise an eyebrow. "Water?"

"Tubes filled with water propelled at extreme speed. The water pushes turbines activating generators supplying the reactor with the necessary energy." He chuckles. "No slavery, and perfectly ecological."

She smiles in return. "Good!"

They soon enter the bridge, where Sweetie Belle and Kirby finally get to meet Vul. They have no problem guessing that the bird wearing the uniform of a captain is him. In the bridge are too a Waddle Dee wearing a sailor hat, and a few knights, including an Axe Knight at the helm despite him being a little too small, forcing him to be on his tiptoes.

Upon seeing Meta Knight, Vul turns toward him and salutes. "Lord Meta Knight. I have already started the preparations for the take-off."

Meta Knight nods. "Then let's not waste time."

Vul nods in return and takes a mike. "The green light is given everyone! Starting the take-off now!"

"Activation of the anti-gravity plants!"

"Wings ready to deploy!"

"Anchor raised!"

"The engines are ready!"

The whole ship starts shaking as the crew follows the procedure to take-off. Soon, Sweetie Belle can see, through the windows, that the Halberd is starting to rise. She runs toward one of the windows at the sides while Kirby runs at the other side, and see that they are quickly reaching the surface. Soon, they emerge from the water, and the Halberd starts to float above the ocean. Then, she sees the wings deploying in a spectacular display, and with one last violent shake, the ship advances, starting its journey toward space.

"The take-off is a success!" shouts the Waddle Dee.

"Good job everyone," says Meta Knight.

"Aaah... it's nice to be back," says Vul.

"Hopefully, we will remain in the sky for more than one hour this time," says the Axe Knight at the helm, making the other knights laugh.

"This time, Kirby isn't our enemy, so there is no chance!"

"And then, a meteor crashes on us."

"As if! The cannons will pulverize any meteors coming too close!"

Sweetie Belle returns beside Meta Knight. "By the way everyone. No hard feelings about last time?"

The Waddle Dee waves dismissively at her. "It's in the past. And we were kinda asking for it. Oh! Also, nice meeting you Sweetie Belle. I'm Sailor Waddle Dee."

Captain Vul sighs and rubs his eyes. "While I still have it bad, I can put what happened behind to do my duty. However, don't think that I will suddenly become buddy buddy with you because we are now allies."

Sweetie Belle giggles. "You are the one that tried to kill us, I'm the one that should say that. And yet, I wouldn't mind becoming your friend."

He huffs. "You made a fool of me. I will not forgive that easily."

She smiles at him. "You still did a really good job trying to stop us. you were just unlucky. You would have gotten us with the cannon if we hadn't found that Invincibility Candy. And the Heavy Lobster almost got us too. You are the only person so far who was almost able to kill us. Not even bad guys like Zero or Drawcia have gotten this close."

"Really?"

"Yup."

"Poyo," confirms Kirby.

Vul starts laughing. "You heard that everyone? I'm the one that has been closer to kill Kirby and Sweetie Belle!"

"You are not the captain for nothing, captain Vul," says Sailor Waddle Dee.

Sweetie Belle giggles before turning toward Meta Knight. "So, Meta Knight, about this chest?"

He nods. "Yes." He takes a small break to look at the windows to watch as the Halberd is leaving Popstar's atmosphere before talking. "This chest is the prison of a powerful being named Dark Nebula."

She frowns. "Something to do with Zero or the Dark Matters?"

"Probably a cousin also created by the Dark God. He certainly possesses some similar particularities, like the power to possess others."

"Ugh... If Daroach had opened the chest, he would have certainly gained great powers, but in exchange, he would have lost control of his body."

"Exactly.... Dark Nebula came around 400 years ago to bring havoc to Popstar. My ancestor, Silver Knight, fought him. He quickly understood something about Nebula: he is a being of Dark Dreams."

"Wait, really?! As in, nightmares?"

He nods. "In a way. His body has the form of a dark star."

"Oh yeah. It's easy to guess with this what this means. So let me guess, his weakness is Dream?"

He nods again. "Yes. Silver Knight understood this, and tried to find a way to use Dream to defeat Dark Nebula. He tried to use the Star Rod, but he couldn't use its power. The humans, who had landed in Popstar a few years prior, helped him with their newly acquired knowledge of magic along with their technology to study the Star Rod and replicate it." He then shows the golden rod that he has taken from Daroach. "From this, they created this rod: the Triple Star Cane. The only problem is that Silver Knight didn't have time to wait for the humans to finish with Dark Nebula attacking Popstar, so he had no choice but to go fight him without. In the end, Silver Knight used his magic to seal Dark Nebula inside this chest, and he asked the humans to hide it."

She smiles sheepishly at him. "The ruins at the other side of Popstar..."

"With Dark Nebula dealt, the humans finished the Three Star Cane and kept it, only for it to be stolen a few years ago by those Squeaks."

"So... This means that Dark Nebula could be at the origin, one way or another, of Nightmare?"

"Maybe. But no confirmations."

Vul rubs his chin in thought. "But why would this Dark Nebula target Popstar?"

Sweetie Belle points toward Popstar visible through one of the windows. "Popstar is a star-shaped planet. It's a world of Dream. Either Dark Nebula wanted to turn it into a world of Nightmare, or destroy it."

This gives everyone in the bridge, except Meta Knight and Kirby, goosebumps.

"But Meta Knight," continues the filly. "Now that we have the Triple Star Cane, and that there are you, me, and Kirby, why don't we open the chest and deal with Dark Nebula once and for all? It would be better, no?"

...

He facepalms. "Of course..."

"Lord Meta Knight!" suddenly shouts a Mace Knight. "Airship spotted at starboard!"

They all turn toward him.

"Oh no... Could this be..." groans Sweetie Belle. "Is the airship a blimp with a red hat?" she asks the Mace Knight.

"Yep!"

"That's the Squeak Squad!" shouts Meta Knight, taking his sword. "Everyone at-" He is interrupted by the airship shooting its laser at the Halberd, hitting the right wing.

"Oh no! Right wing damaged!"

"Oh come on!" shouts Vul in anger before taking the mike. "At all the cannons, fire at will! Destroy this airship!"

The cannons start shooting at the airship, and the Squeaks counterattack by firing three missiles that damage one of the cannons at the right of the Halberd. While the airship is quickly damaged, it is able to continue its course toward the battleship, and even dodges a laser from the Main Cannon number two. The mechanical arm successfully destroys one of the three canons of the airship, but the Squeaks don't give up and continue charging toward the Halberd at surprising speed.

"Wait a minute!" shouts the Mace Knight. "They are in a collision course with the bridge!"

"WHAAT?!" screams Vul.

The Axe Knight at the helm then shouts "I will not be able to avoid it!"

"Everyone!" yells Meta Knight. "Get away from the right side of the bridge! Quick!"

Meanwhile, the mechanical arm attacks the airship again, only for the airship to tilt a little at the last second, making the arm missing its original target only to destroy another cannon. The remaining cannon then shoots a missile homing to the bridge, which blows a hole, soon followed by the airship crashing into the bridge, embedding itself to it while having a part of its gondola ripped open. From the opening, the Squeaks jump, boarding the bridge.

"We just finished repairing the Halberd, you pirates!" shouts Vul.

"We don't care!" shouts back Daroach. He then takes his wand and points it at the crew of the Halberd. "Attack!"

"You are a fool if you think that you can win against the Meta Knights!" He takes a saber. "Come at us! We dare yo-Wah!" He lowers his head at the last second to avoid a laser from Doc's saucer.

"You talk too much!" the old mouse shouts, only to take a beam from Sweetie Belle that destabilizes his saucer for a few seconds.

"It's you who says that?"

At this, chaos breaks out in the bridge. As the green, blue, and red Squeakers start to rain bombs among the knights who attack them in return, Meta Knight takes a sword and throws it at Kirby to give him the Sword ability before charging toward Daroach along with the puffball, and Doc shoots a purple stream of icy gas at Vul that the bird dodges with a jump, only for Storo to jump and threaten to crush him under his weight. But he is sent flying into a wall by a powerful kick from Sweetie Belle in the face, saving the captain.

Sweetie Belle and Vul look at each other before the filly says "I'll deal with Doc."

"Then I will deal with the big one."

So the filly starts shooting beams at the flying saucer, only to miss each time because of its speed, while Vul joins Storo who is going back up. Seeing Vul, Storo laughs and hits his right fist into his left palm.

"Tonight, I will have chicken."

"Don't underestimate me!"

At the same time, Spinni has decided to target the remaining opposant: Sailor Waddle Dee.

"Eh. A Waddle Dee. This will be fast." And he throws a giant shuriken.

Sailor Waddle Dee frowns before jumping above the shuriken. In his jump, he successfully puts his arm inside the hole of the shuriken as it passes under him, catching it before showing it proudly at Spinni, making the shuriken spin around his arm.

"Don't underestimate me."

"I'm a proud officer of the Meta Knights under direct orders of Meta Knight himself! Remember that!" both Vul and Sailor Waddle Dee shout at their respective adversary. And then, Vul slashes with his saber at Storo's belly, and Sailor Waddle Dee throws the shuriken back at Spinni who dodges it only to take a punch on the muzzle from the sailor.

Meta Knight and Kirby are fighting Daroach, and as expected, they have the advantage, the leader of the Squeak Squad already kneeling in pain as his body is covered in cuts. Him being able to recuperate the Triple Star Cane thanks to a fast and sneaky yellow Squeaker hasn't helped any way. Daroach looks around at the bridge, seeing his Squeakers beings eliminated one by one by the knights. Doc's saucer, while more solid than the previous ones, is already getting badly damaged by Sweetie Belle's constant barrage of projectiles. Storo isn't able to land a single hit on Vul who punishes him each time with a new slash of his saber. Spinni uses his metal claw to attack Sailor Waddle Dee, only for the sailor to deflect it each time with a wave of his arm before he counterattacks with a storm of kicks and punches.

True to their reputation, the Meta Knights are winning. But he has expected that. They haven't come to win.

They have come to take back the chest!

He looks at Doc, Storo, and Spinni, making sure that they see him, and nods. They nod back. He gets up and throws a bomb at Meta Knight, but the knight easily flies away before it explodes before charging toward Daroach. But just as Meta Knight attacks, Daroach teleports. The knight and Kirby quickly look around to see where the leader of the squeaks has reappeared, only to see him beside the chest, putting a key inside the keyhole.

"Curse!"

Daroach is quickly joined by Doc in his damaged saucer, followed by Storo and Spinni who have jumped away of their fights, the two badly hurt, especially Storo.

Daroach turns the key, and the chest opens, to the cheers of the Squeaks.

"No!"

"Yes! Finally! Now all the treasures will be-What?!"

A dark cloud constituted of small black stars suddenly comes out of the chest and envelops Daroach. Before Doc, Storo, and Spinni can do anything, they find themselves enveloped too, to the horror of everyone, especially the Squeakers. A few seconds later, the cloud flies out of the bridge, into space, taking the four members of the Squeak Squad with it.

"What happened?!" shouts a yellow Squeaker.

Meta Knight points his sword at him. "What happened is that your leader unleashed a threat that could destroy Popstar and got himself and his lieutenants possessed!"

"We must not lose time! We must follow Dark Nebula!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

"We must save the boss, Doc, Spinni and Storo!" shouts a Squeaker.

"But what can we do?!" follows another one.

Sweetie Belle sighs. "Leave it to us. We will save them."

An Axe Knight, the one that has been at the helm, then says "We will not be able to follow them with the Halberd. In the battle, the helm has been destroyed."

"It will take too long to repair it," says Meta Knight. "We will have to use Kirby's Warp Star."

"Poyo!"

"We have better!" says a red squeaker before he goes back inside the airship. A few seconds later, he comes back with something pink loosely resembling to a bird with red symmetrical designs. The wings each possess a curved metal talon extending forward, and it possesses behind its main body an engine like a jet. To the engine to the extremities of the wings are a total of eight spikes shaped like tear-drops of different colors, the ones closer to the engine smaller while the ones at the extremities are bigger.

Seeing this, Sailor Waddle Dee releases a high-pitched squee. "The legendary Dragoon!!!"

"Say what?!" shouts Vul. "How did you guys got in possession of this?!"

"We found the three parts and assembled them."

"We found many great treasures, and this includes it!"

"You can use it to save our friends and destroy whatever it was!"

The Squeakers gives it to Kirby who thanks them.

"What is it?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"An Air Ride Machine, like the Warp Star," answers Meta Knight. "But it's a legendary one, extremely rare." He chuckles. "With it, we will catch Dark Nebula in no time."

"So there are more than the Warp Star?"

"The Warp Star is the most common. But yes, there are other vehicles like the Warp Star, each with different particularities."

"Poyo!"

"Sadly, we don't have time to talk about the Air Ride Machines. Maybe another time. Just let me warn you. Once you are on the Dragoon, clings to it as if your life depends on it. Trust me."

"Uh... Alright."

They all go on the Dragoon, Kirby at the center, Sweetie Belle on the left wing, and Meta Knight on the right wing.

And before Sweetie Belle knows it, they are gone from the Halberd! Meta Knight hasn't been kidding. The Dragoon is so fast that if she hadn't clung to it as Meta Knight said, she would have fallen! Everything becomes a blur! And the Halberd is already just a small dot in the far distance!

"TOOOOO FAAAAAST!!!"

But Kirby ignores her, too focused on where he is going at this speed.

"At our right!" shouts Meta Knight.

Kirby turns his head right and indeed spots the dark cloud among a few asteroids not far of Popstar. Quickly, Kirby turns left and does a loop with the Dragoon before charging toward the cloud, only for an asteroid to come in the way.

"Watch o-"

They pierce the asteroid from side to side, the shock exploding the space rock.

"Never mind..."

They then pass right through the cloud, dispersing it and releasing the Squeaks who fall on an asteroid. Quickly, Kirby does another loop, passing through a few more asteroids, and upon approaching the one which the Squeaks have fallen on, grabs both Sweetie Belle and Meta Knight and eats the Dragoon, stocking it inside him with the chests found in this adventure. When they land, they find themselves face to face with the four Squeaks, all changed. They are now all black, with Daroach and Storo's clothes, Doc's mustache and glasses, and Spinni's sunglasses and cape now purple. Doc's flying saucer has also passed from red to purple, and has been repaired.

Without a word, they attack.

Storo jumps in the air to smash them, and they all jump away from the impact area. When Storo smash the ground instead, he breaks the asteroid into pieces! While Sweetie Belle jumps, Doc shoots with his saucer a giant laser beam that she barely avoids with an air jump (yes, there is air in space! How else would she breathe?), and Spinni throws a bigger version of his shuriken at Kirby, but the puffball avoids it by flattening himself on the ground. Meta Knight flies toward a small piece of floating rock and kicks it toward Storo, successfully hitting him on the head. Daroach then appears behind him and uses the Triple Star Cane to send him away with a good swing before he turns toward Kirby to shoot a bigger version of his ice beam. Kirby runs away from it and sends with his sword a shockwave toward Doc, damaging his saucer while Sweetie Belle crushes Spinni under a shield, only to be punched by Storo, sending her into another asteroid.

Daroach throws a bomb toward Kirby, the bomb being bigger, and red. Again, Kirby runs away from it before it explodes sending a big pillar of fire. Storo then comes with his hammer ready to crush Kirby, but Meta Knight comes to the rescue and cuts the hammer. Both him and Kirby then attack Storo with dozens of slashs all over his body before Kirby finishes him with a big diagonal slash while Meta Knight throws a tornado at Daroach. The leader teleports and uses the Triple Star Cane to send bigger stars that start bouncing on the asteroids around, making it hard to track them. The stars are however destroyed by explosive balls from Sweetie Belle before they can hit anyone, and the filly charges at Daroach from behind, headbutting his back and sending him toward Doc's saucer, making him lose control because of the unexpected impact as he has been about to shoot another giant laser at Meta Knight, the laser instead hitting an asteroid.

Meanwhile, Kirby has gone attacking Spinni, and now, they are exchanging blows, Kirby with the sword, Spinni with the metal claw, until Kirby spits a big chest that rams Spinni on the head, breaking his sunglasses. The chest bounces away, and Kirby eats it again before slashing Spinni while he is stunned to knock him out. At this moment, Doc's saucer crashes beside him with the old mouse, and Meta Knight kicks him away.

The lieutenants are done, now the leader.

Daroach is busy with Sweetie Belle, teleporting to dodge again and again the many projectiles that the filly shoots at him. Having enough, Sweetie Belle shoots a last lightning bolt before jumping forward. Daroach teleports again to avoid the lightning bolt, but doesn't see the filly charging at him. She impacts him, and they both crash into an asteroid, forming a small crated and a cloud of dust on it. Sweetie Belle jumps away and throws a Force Blast at the cloud of dust at the point where Daroach is, only for an ice beam to destroy the blast and freeze her. Sweetie Belle is however able to surround herself in fire to get rid of the ice, and she jumps away to avoid a star from the rod. Daroach appears in her way, and swings the rod. In return, Sweetie Belle punches it, locking the two of them in a violent showdown that last two seconds before they separate.

Meta Knight and Kirby then come from Daroach's two side, spinning to form cutting tornadoes slashing him countless times from the left and the right. They stop, and Kirby kicks him away toward Sweetie Belle who punches him so hard that he is sent through an asteroid before crashing on another one. He quickly comes back, and starts to throw his red bombs at them. While Kirby and Meta Knight are dodging the bombs, Sweetie Belle uses a mirror shield to deflect one of the bombs back at Daroach. Not prepared to this, the bomb explodes on Daroach, and he crashes again on an asteroid where Meta Knight comes and kicks him away, making him drop the Triple Star Cane. As Meta Knight takes it, Kirby attacks Daroach, only for him to teleport again and punch Kirby from behind. While the punch sends him flying, he is able to recover with a bounce on the floor of the asteroid they are in, and with another powerful bounce, he charges back toward Daroach. Daroach prepares his wand to intercept Kirby, only to be kicked at the back of the head by Sweetie Belle. This opens him to a big diagonal slash from Kirby, and Meta Knight comes then with the Triple Star Cane to pound Daroach on the head with it.

Daroach falls on the floor, defeated.

Before they can celebrate, a small black star suddenly comes out of Daroach and flies away, joined by three others. Sweetie Belle, Kirby, and Meta Knight look at each other and nod in determination before the first two summon each a Warp Star while Meta Knight's cape turns into bat wings, and the three of them take-off to chase the black star.

They follow it through the asteroids until they reach a strange place made of giant crystals. Here, the four stars fuse before they duplicate to form a bigger star. In the center of this agglomeration of black stars appears a single purple eye. Then, with a big flash of light, the stars fuse into a single big black star with a purple aura escaping from the edges, finally forming Dark Nebula.

Without counting his form, a star rather than a ball, he really does look like a Dark Matter.

Weapons ready -Meta Knight takes his sword in his right hand, and the Triple Star Cane in his left hand-, they quickly start attacking him, the stars from the rod easily doing the most damage. Dark Nebula's eye then flashes, and with another flash of light, his body turns from black to red with fire!

"What?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"Mmh... My ancestor didn't write about it..."

Dark Nebula then starts moving in angles, shooting hollowed stars similar to Nightmare's and Dark Mind's at them. Meta Knight puts himself at the front and uses both the stars orbiting him, his sword, and the rod to deflect the ones shot by Dark Nebula, leaving Sweetie Belle to shoot her projectiles. Eventually, Dark Nebula stops moving above them and releases a giant fireball that falls toward them. They quickly run away, but when the ball hits the floor, not only it explode in a giant pillar of fire, but it also releases fire on the ground all around it, catching them off guard and burning them.

Just after, the eye flashes again, and Dark Nebula passes from red to green with electricity, and starts to move in zigzag patterns, and like previously, fire many hollowed stars, this time blocked by Sweetie Belle's mirror shield so she deflects them back at the black -now green- star. Meta Knight takes the occasion to shoot more stars from the rod. Like the first time, Dark Nebula stops moving, and shoots eight electric streams, four up and four down. Waiting for something similar to the fireball happening, they jump/float/fly up, just in time has the stream's discharge suddenly, trapping the whole area in an electric cube covering all directions, including the floor.

Another flash of the eye, another change of form for Dark Nebula, this time turning blue with ice. Flying in circles or in arcs, Dark Nebula repeats his previous pattern, shooting stars before doing a special attack, this time consisting of firing a vertical ice laser at the ground while chasing them, the laser freezing the ground wherever it passes. This one is easier to dodge, but the frozen floor makes it tricky. but at least, they have an easier time attacking him while he does this attack.

Dark Nebula then returns into his fire form, and repeats his previous attack.

"He is not hard to fight, but he is rather annoying," comments Sweetie Belle.

"Poyo!"

They fly above the fire released by the fireball, melting the ice on the floor, then Dark Nebula releases another fireball above them and they quickly get away before it falls on them. Dark Nebula then returns into his electric form.

"Kirby, show me your sword," asks Sweetie Belle.

Kirby raises an eyebrow and shows her his sword. Sweetie Belle then shoots fire at it, covering it in fire. A fire sword.

"Your turn Meta Knight."

He nods, and soon, his sword is covered in electricity. Once done, Sweetie Belle focus on her magic, and the next instant, a sword made of ice floats beside her.

She giggles. "Let's fight fire with fire, as we say."

They chuckle.

They avoid the electric cube, and when Dark Nebula takes his ice form, Kirby and Meta Knight attack him with everything they have while Sweetie Belle deflect the stars with her mirror shields. As soon as he stops firing his ice lasers, Kirby, Meta Knight, and Sweetie Belle jump toward him and simultaneously pierce him in the eye with their swords, burning, shocking, and freezing him all at the same time. While his sword is still piercing Dark Nebula, Meta Knight takes the Triple Star Cane and violently puts it in Dark Nebula's eye alongside the swords before shooting one star, two stars, three stars! Five stars! Ten stars!

At the thirteenth star, Dark Nebula then loses control over his forms and quickly pass back and forth between Fire, Thunder, and Ice. Seeing this, they take their weapons and jump away from Dark Nebula as his body starts to break up into countless small black stars that disappear the next second. Little by little, Dark Nebula loses his body, until only the eye remains. The eye then flashes, and explodes, ending Dark Nebula's existence.

Another creation of the Dark God disappears from the universe.

---

They leave the crystals on Warp Stars, and fly back in space, ready to return to Popstar.

"See?" says Sweetie Belle. "Now we don't have to worry about this chest anymore!"

"And I have been able to finish what my ancestor couldn't," says Meta Knight. Closing his eyes, he continues. "Thank you, Kirby, Sweetie Belle."

"Poyo!"

"You are welcome!"

They then hear a familiar sound at their right, and upon looking, they see the Halberd coming beside them, still damaged, but the right wing at least repaired. Meta Knight looks back at Sweetie Belle and Kirby and nods before flying into the bridge of the battleship.

Another sound is heard at their left, and they now spot the Squeak Squad's airship, still damaged. Through a hole in the gondola, Daroach, in front of Spinni, Doc, and Storo, looks at them.

"We owe you one..." he says. A yellow Squeaker then comes holding something that gains Kirby's attention: a strawberry shortcake.

Wait! The cake was in the airship?!

The Squeaker throws the cake at Kirby who catches it happily before waving at them to thank them.

"You can also keep the Dragoon," continues Daroach. "as an apology for our wrongs. Also, we will not steal Dedede's fortresses anymore. We will look for treasures elsewhere." He then tilts his hat in front of his eyes. "And... Thank you."

At this, the airship goes to the left, going to a different place of Popstar, leaving Sweetie Belle and Kirby, along the Halberd, to return to Dreamland.

---

"Meh. That Dark Nebula was kinda lame compared to previous enemies," comments Discord.

"But the space battle between the Meta Knights and the Squeaks was worth it!"

Chapter 53: Prelude to the Revenge

Kirby bows before king Dedede on his throne, a pile of chests beside him. "Poyo poyo poyo poyopoyo..."

Sweetie Belle also lower her head. "I'm sorry too Dedede. By the time we reached their hideout, we didn't have time to look among the treasures to find the ones that have been stolen from your fortresses."

Dedede breaks into laughter. "With all those treasures that you found, I can get pass the ones that have been stolen! That you successfully convinced the Squeaks to not come back to steal me is also a great bonus!" He then looks at Kirby. "As for you Kirby, it is nice to see that you are willing to apologize for attacking me like that, and seeing you bow before me is a dream come true. So I suppose that I could forgive you."

Kirby sweats. Dedede has used the conditional.

"However..."

Yes, thought so...

Dedede smirks. "I will not be able to fully forgive you if you don't offer me something that I really want."

"Poyo?"

"A revenge!"

...

"Poyo?"

"You want to fight Kirby again?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"Exactly. But not just any fight like the one from a few hours ago. A real fight, with everything we have. The serious stuff."

"So, right now?"

"No. We will need to prepare first. Here is how it will go." He takes a big breathe. "Remember the first time Kirby?"

Hard to forget, it has only been a few months.

"We have sure gone far since that day. We both became stronger. My army became stronger. Kracko became stronger. Heck, even Whispy Woods became stronger. I now have Sweetie Belle. And one of my Waddle Dees became an elite soldier. So, what do you think would happen if we reenacted that day with everything we have gained since then? Without me stealing the food, of course. Do you think that you still have enough skill to take on my more powerful army, or will it be too much for you? Remember, you would be alone in this. Sweetie Belle wouldn't be at your side, but at my side. it will be only you and your own skills. So, what do you think?"

Kirby looks at Dedede insure. "Poyo..."

Sweetie Belle sighs. "Whether you win or lose, there will be cake for you."

He starts bouncing in joy. "Poyo! Poyo!"

Dedede laughs again. "Thank you Sweetie Belle. So it's settled. Next week, from 4pm, you will start your journey from Greens Greens. No wait. with you being stronger, Greens Greens, Float Islands, and Bubbly Clouds would be too easy. Spicing the areas that you will traverse is only right. So... Mmh... I will have to go look. I will send a Waddle Dee to inform you of your new path. Until then, you can return to your home and do what you want."

Kirby nods. "Poyo!"

---

"Goodbye girls! See you tomorrow, maybe," says Twilight as she bids goodbye to her friends.

Not long after that Sweetie Belle has beaten Dark Nebula, Discord has closed the portal seeing that it has been the end of the adventure. The ponies have remained a little after to discuss about what has happened until they have been ready to return to their homes.

Then, Discords appears again, a letter in a claw.

"Ah. Good. You are still together. I just got a message from Mini-me."

"Oh! What does it say?!" asks Pinkie Pie excitedly.

"Already?" asks Applejack.

Discords puts then swirly glasses. "Let me read it for you." He clears his throat and starts to read. "'The penguin challenged the puffball in a fight. Next week at 4pm, a new adventure will begin, and Sweetie Belle will fight him. Be ready!' End of the message."

"We will see Sweetie Belle fight Kirby?" asks Scootaloo.

"Yeperoni. Despite being friends, they are also rivals. This was bound to happen someday. She has been training for that."

"Oooooh! The fated battle between the two best friends who are also rivals! I will not miss this!"

"Me too!" shouts Apple Bloom. "We should warn the others at school! I am sure they will want to see this!"

"Yeah!"

Discord then turns to Twilight and the others. "So. Next week, five minutes before 4pm in the castle?"

Rarity giggles. "It looks like you are giving us a date."

"Oh please!" shouts Rainbow Dash. "Don't say that! Anyway, of course I will be there! I don't want to miss this fight!"

"Me too!" shouts Pinkie.

---

The next day.

Dedede puts a map of Dreamland on a table, surrounded by Sweetie Belle, Bandana Dee, and Cape Knight.

"So, we have to find three areas similar to Greens Greens, Float Islands, and Bubbly Clouds, respectively a likeside grassland beside a forest, an archipelago with a castle, and clouds with structures, but each of them must be more dangerous. Any ideas?"

"For the cloud area, I already have an idea: Crash Clouds," says Cape Knight while pointing at a cloudy area not far from the castle.

"Oh yeah," says Sweetie Belle. "Those dangerous looking clouds where it always seem ready to storm."

"Perfect!" shouts Dedede.

"Then let's try to look at the areas around Crash Clouds!" proposes Bandana Dee.

"It shouldn't be hard. they are not far from the ocean too. So..." Dedede looks at the ocean part of the map along with the others, before smiling and pointing at an archipelago not far of the coast. "There! Illusion Islands!"

"Oooh! And they are not far from that poisoned forest!"

"Yes! Purple Plants!"

Sweetie Belle looks at the forested area shown. "A poisoned forest? I haven't explored it yet. It looks really dangerous."

"Yeah. Those three areas are some of the most dangerous areas of Dreamland," explains Bandana Dee. "Not many are willing to go there." He looks at Dedede. "And this includes our army, my king."

"Good point, but I already thought about it." He smirks. "Those areas are already full of dangerous animals. And to add to them, I will... recruit. I will have to use some of the gold brought back by Sweetie Belle and Kirby though."

Sweetie Belle raises an eyebrow at him. "You will recruit mercenaries? Isn't it cheating?"

"I will use my resources to recruit them, so no, that's no cheating." He then turns toward Bandana Dee. "Go warn Kirby."

Bandana Dee salutes. "Yes Great King!" And he leaves the room.

Dedede then turns to Cape Knight. "Assemble Whispy Woods, Lololo and Lalala, Kracko, and Kabula."

"Yes my king."

"What about me?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"You do what you do best beside saving the world: train."

"Alright. I wanted to test something with my singing anyway."

"However, you should find another place to train. I will prepare the boxing ring for the fight against Kirby."

"Then I will go to the Fountain of Dreams. I will be able to train a lot over there."

"Ok. Just try to not accidentally destroy the fountain."

"I will make sure to train far enough. Don't worry."

---

Later that day, outside the castle.

Dedede is walking back and forth in front of Whispy Woods, two spherical creatures with a tubby tail and no mouths, one blue, the other pink with a yellow bow, that are Lololo and Lalala, Kracko (without his cloud), and a tan blimp hovering above the ground with a menacing face composed of two angry eyes and a big sadistic smile with sharp teeth spray-painted at the head, bearing a cannon below with an orange fin at the top, and a propeller at the back named Kabula.

"So," says Dedede. "Did Cape Knight tell you about what will happen next week?"

"Yes," answers Whispy Woods. "We will redo what happened the first time that we fought Kirby."

"So we return in our castle and prepare to receive Kirby?" asks Lololo.

"No. We will use different, more dangerous areas, because we all know that Kirby has become far more powerful since then."

"Logic," replies Lalala.

"So, where do we go? I suppose that you already decided about those areas," asks the tree.

"Well, Whispy, you will go in Purple Plants."

"Purple Plants?" asks Lololo. "Wow. Yeah. Very dangerous."

Dedede nods. "You two, Lololo and Lalala, you will go in the Illusion Islands."

"Okay!" replied the two.

"Kracko, you have Crash Clouds."

If Kracko could smirk, he would do it.

"And finally, Kabula. You will be the first line of defense of the castle in the sky. I'm sure that Kirby will come from the air, like the previous time."

The blimp nods before going up and starting to patrol the sky around the castle.

Dedede chuckles. "You should do like her and prepare. Give Kirby Hell."

---

And so, for the following days, everyone prepares for the big day as best as they can.

"Alright Discord! I'm ready!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

Mini-Discord nods with a laugh before snapping his finger to materialize a replica of Sweetie Belle.

"Good luck. She possesses everything that you possess, nothing more, nothing less. And I will be there to make the fight more chaotic. Prepare yourself to see the ground become slippy, upside-down, apocalyptic, and everything that you can think of and even more."

"I don't expect less from you."

Mini-Discord then teleports between the two Sweetie Belle, wearing a referee uniform. "Okay you two! Are you ready? Three! Two! One!" He blows a whistle.

And soon, the two Sweetie Belle charge at each other.

---

"Higher! Higher! We must be sure that Kirby can't see it!"

"Yes my king!"

"Isn't it dangerous to use an electrical cage?" asks Bandana Dee.

"Of course it's dangerous! That's what I want! Danger! We will give Kirby the fight of his life! Bwahahahaha!"

---

Sweetie Belle jumps from floating island to floating island before charging at her replica, and the two collide in the air locked in a showdown using an ice sword and an ice spear. When they jump away from each other, the replica uses her tail to send a dozen cutter blades made of energy at Sweetie Belle, only for the filly to take a floating rock in her magic and use it as a shield before kicking it to send it toward her replica.

Mini-Discord is sitting on a floating chair, admiring the fight with 3D glasses while eating popcorn.

"Gosh. Too bad real me is missing this. Mmh... Maybe it's time to spice it a little more." He snaps his fingers, and air currents appear between the floating islands, and the smaller rocks start flying around carried by them. "Better."

---

"It's almost finished sir! It should be ready the day before the fight!"

"Good! It should give me enough time to train with it."

"At least, the mask is finished."

"Yes, but I will wait until our fight before putting it. I wonder if I should give Sweetie Belle something too."

"Well, to make her look more serious, maybe some uniform that would go with her cape?"

"Mmh... Yes. I'm leaving it to you."

"Yes sir!"

---

"Follow my lead!" shouts Bandana Dee at all the Spear Waddle Dees in front of him before he starts doing thrusts with his spears, followed by the others.

---

"YAH! YAH! YAH! YAH!"

The Knuckle Joes are busy training too, doing jabs, in the hope to at least hit Kirby once.

"YAH! YAH! YAH! YAH!"

"Everybody was Kung Fu fighting!"

"YAH!"

---

The replica is violently sent into the ground. When she looks up, she sees Sweetie Belle's silhouette quickly falling toward her and rolls out of the way just beside she impacts her, a small crater and a cloud of dust appearing where she has crashed. The replica gets up and readies half a dozen ice weapons around her, all pointed toward the real filly who now has a body made of metal.

A whistle suddenly interrupt them.

"You got mail" shouts mini-Discord.

"Really?!" shouts back Sweetie Belle.

Mini-Discord teleports beside her and gives her a letter. "Really!"

"Yay!" She opens it and reads it, her jaw dropping. "It's Scootaloo and Apple Bloom! They say that they befriended Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon!"

Mini-Discord looks at the letter from above Sweetie Belle. "Really now?"

"Yes, something about Diamond Tiara's mother being the one that was causing Diamond Tiara being mean, and my friends convinced Diamond to stop following her. And Pipsqueak is now the class president. And... THEY WILL ALL BE THERE WATCHING ME FIGHTING KIRBY?!!"

"Oh my. This is quite the public."

Sweetie Belle takes big breaths. "Alright! Alright. This means that I will not screw it. I will have to give the best fight that I can."

"Wasn't it already what you wanted to do?"

"Uh, yes. Right. So, no need to freak out. Thank you Discord. I'm returning training. At least, it's nice to know that Diamond and Silver are friends now."

---

Dedede looks down at the new weapon that is presented to him. After looking at it for a few seconds, he grins, and takes it.

"Yes... YES! With this... I WILL WIN!!!"

---

An explosion blows a boulder the size of a small house. Sweetie Belle, her replica, and mini-Discord look in shock at this, the filly still in the pose that she takes when she throws a Force Blast.

Mini-Discord whistles in amazement. "Well. I think that this test is a success. Should we call it the Giga Force Blast DX?"

Sweetie Belle giggles sheepishly. "No-no need. Or else, I would have to add a DX at all my attacks. I... think that we should return to the castle. Tomorrow is the day, and I need to rest after this."

"Very well." He snaps his fingers, and the replica disappears, and everything returns to normal around them.

---

"Uh? What is this blimp flying around the castle?" asks Mini-Discord as they approach the castle on a Warp Star.

Sweetie Belle spots the blimp and smiles. "Oh! That's Kabula! Dedede's personal airship! It's the first time that I see her, but Dedede talked to me a few times about her. And yes, we consider her a girl."

"Then I will leave you. Wouldn't want it... HER to spot me."

"Alright, see you tonight."

---

Upon coming back, Sweetie Belle is quickly greeted by Bandana Dee.

"Hello Sweetie Belle. Welcome back. Ready for tomorrow?"

"Yep. I have trained hard and gained a few new moves. And you?"

"I was busy training the other Spear Waddle Dees, but I'm ready too. The king is still training however."

"He is determined," remarks Sweetie Belle.

"Very. Between his training, the preparations, the recruiting of the mercenaries, and everything else, it's actually the first time that I saw him working so much. He is really doing everything to assure his victory over Kirby tomorrow."

She frowns. "I'm sorry for Kirby, but I hope that Dedede will win tomorrow. After putting so much of himself, it would crush him to lose."

"Yeah..."

"That's why we will give everything to at least weaken Kirby for him."

"Yeah! By the way, the king has made something for you. You will get it tomorrow."

"Oh? And what is it?"

"An awesome uniform!"

---

And so, the big day finally comes.

"Well, here we are..."

It's almost 4pm. Time to get ready.

First, she puts a pink cloth covering her all the way from her neck to her flank, including her forelegs. She has to pass her tail through a hole. A yellow star with Dedede's symbol in red has been added at the flanks, where her Cutie Marks should be. The clothes are slightly armored at the chest, the armored part forming a darker pink heart.

---

Dedede walks in the throne room, rows of Spear Waddle Dees at both sides. Beside the throne, waiting for him, are Bandana Dee and Cape Knight.

When he sits on the throne, he asks "Everything is ready?"

"Yes my king!" answer both the Waddle Dee and the Blade Knight.

"We just have to wait for Sweetie Belle. She should be there soon," adds Bandana Dee.

"She is probably putting her new uniform," says Cape Knight.

Dedede grins. "Good."

---

Now are four gauntlets made for her hooves, made of gold. They have probably melted some of the gold that has been in the chests she has brought in her previous adventure. Heart-shaped rubies have been added at the front.

After that comes her red cape and her kerchief.

---

Kirby is flying on his Warp Star toward the dreaded Purple Plants, ready to start this 'adventure', for the cake for Sweetie Belle and Dedede, especially Dedede.

He could tell that the king really has this day to heart. He has probably been dreaming of it for months.

And so, he will give the king what he wants: the best fight.

---

No headband anymore. Now is an armored golden circlet with a star at the front, below her horn. It could almost pass for a crown similar to the one that Dedede wears around his hat!

With this, her uniform is complete.

"You really look like a warrior princess now," comments mini-Discord.

She looks at herself in the mirror. She has a hard time believing that who she sees in it is her, and yet, it's her! She now wears an uniform that she could use to go to war, she has gained some muscle and... a little weight, she has lost that innocent look in her eyes, and yet, that's her. Green eyes, white fur, and purple and pink mane and tail. That's her alright.

She has changed so much. As Discord has just said, she is now a warrior princess. The princess part is left for debate. maybe something else would be better...

She smiles. "Actually, I think that a Star Warrior is better. It sounds... right."

Mini-Discord laughs at this. "This is a title that Moonbutt would love!"

She giggles. "Well, I'm going, wish me good luck."

And she exits her room.

---

"I can't believe we are gonna see her fight!"

"And me, I can't wait!"

"Yeah. And if what Apple Bloom and Scootaloo said is true, this is gonna be awesome!"

"That's why I can't wait!"

To say that the foals are excited would be an understatement. Half of them just can't remain in place! That is, until Discord comes, and all eyes turn toward him. Seeing all the little ponies present and looking at him, Discord snaps his fingers, and cotton candies of various colors appear in the foals' hooves, making them cheer while also calming them.

Pinkie Pie suddenly comes in front of him and gives him the puppy dog eyes. Discord chuckles before giving her a cotton candy. Cheering, the pink pony places herself among the little ones.

Twilight looks at a clock. "Five minutes left before it starts."

"Right on time!" says Discord. A mike appears in front of him, and he catches it before yelling "Are you ready everypony?!"

"Yes!" answers the foals and Pinkie.

"I haven't heard!"

"YEEES!!!"

He turns toward the remaining mares and Spike. "You haven't answered. Are you ready?"

"Do you need to ask this question? Of course we are!" shouts Rainbow Dash.

"What she said!" shouts Spike. "Now hurry!"

"Hey! Hold your horses!" says Discord. A ba dun tss is suddenly heard, making most of the foals and Pinkie laugh while the others are groaning. "I'm opening the portal."

And so, with a snap, a portal opens on the wall in front of everypony, and all jaws drop immediately upon seeing Sweetie Belle's new attire.

"That's Sweetie Belle?" asks Diamond Tiara.

"Dude. She looks awesome," says Spike.

"Oh my... That circlet! Is this gold? And those heart-shaped rubies... Oh, she is beautiful! She looks like royalty!" comments Rarity. "The day I come to this world, I must have a talk with whoever made it!"

"A royalty ready to go fight," says Applejack. "That's clearly armor on her hooves."

At this moment, Sweetie Belle enters the throne room, and again, the ponies are awed at seeing all those Waddle Dees with weapons ready.

"Here you are Sweetie Belle!" they hear Dedede say on his throne. "So, what do you think of my little gift?"

"I like it." She looks at her hooves. "With those, my punches will hurt even more! And I can use them to protect myself!" She giggles. "Maybe I will win against Kirby before you can even fight him."

"Then, I would have to fight you to assure my superiority," says Dedede with a smirk.

"Whenever you want."

At this moment, Cape Knight salutes. "It's almost time, sir!"

Dedede nods, and shouts "Prepare the screen!"

At this, a screen linked to the ceiling comes down and turns on just in time to see Kirby lands in an area with purple grass.

"Good. The cameras work. We will be able to follow Kirby." Dedede then smirks. "Let the fun begin!"

Chapter 54: Revenge of the King

Without surprises, Kirby is able to move through Purple Plants without too much problems despite the more dangerous creatures living in this area (there are tigers!) and the mercenaries that Dedede has recruited, like those mime-like version of Poppies that are called Perot who are clearly more violent than Dedede's soldiers despite their training.

Upon arriving at the forest, Kirby has to fight a Phan Phan, some weird elephant creature member of Dedede's army that is just an elephant head on two legs. His specialty is to charge at his enemies to grab them with his trunk, before throwing them in the decor, preferably head first into something solid like a tree or a boulder. Thanks to his round body, he can surprisingly move fast my rolling, which generally catch off guard anybody fighting a Phan Phan for the first time.

It's obviously not the first time that Kirby fights one, because he is able to avoid every attempts of Phan Phan to grab him while throwing bombs after bombs at him with his Bomb ability. With this, this is not long before the Phan Phan is knocked out, leaving Kirby to continue his way.

Dedede sighs. "The Phan Phans should learn new moves..."

After climbing a really big rotted tree, Kirby falls just in front of Whispy Woods, who seems to have absorbed the particularities of the trees around him because he now has purple leaves, and some of his apples are now purple too, clearly poisonous. The tree of course knows it, so he makes sure to rain them on Kirby along Gordos and bigger versions of those disgusting bugs. But despite this and Whispy's roots constantly poking out of the ground to try to impale Kirby, it doesn't take long for the puffball to win the fight with his bombs.

Leaving Whispy, Kirby goes to the coast to go to Illusion Islands, his next step. The islands have the same purple vegetation than Purple Plants, and they are as filled with dangerous animals as the grassland and forest. Now armed with the Beam ability, Kirby is able to go through the islands themselves. His biggest problem is when he has to go from an island to another, either flying or swimming. In a case like in another, he has a hard time defending himself against the almost constant assault of the various birds, fishes, and octopus that want to stop him.

After going through a cavern filled with Kabu-like beings but more edgy named Grumples, who attack faster, stronger, and with more unpredictability, he gets a jumpscare in the form of a green floating apple-like being turning red with a face coming from a horror story when Kirby has attacked it, clearly a more scary counterpart of the Scarfys.

Gosh, those areas really deserve their reputation of most dangerous areas of Dreamland. Sweetie Belle should try to visit them sometime.

Kirby enters a structure and encounters a Fire Lion that immediately bounces on Kirby to try to bite him, only for Kirby to avoid him with a slide before attacking him with beams. The lion is fast, so Kirby never stops moving to not get burned or clawed, until the lion falls on the ground and stops moving, opening the way.

From there, Kirby takes a Warp Star and flies toward a bigger structure that looks like a tower. Entering it, he is now facing Lololo and Lalala. It's a fight rather similar to the one against Nruff, with four rows where Lololo and Lalala move back and forth from door to door trying to ram Kirby with strange green blocks. Often, somehow, instead of pushing blocks, they push Gordos without being hurt by their spikes, and Gordos appear sometimes without being pushed. Because of the number of rows and the Gordos, Kirby has all the difficulty of the world hitting the two lieutenants, but the same is also the case of Lololo and Lalala who are just not able to hit Kirby, the puffball being too fast. It causes the fight to drag for a few minutes before Kirby is finally able to defeat them.

Now done with Lololo and Lalala, Kirby leaves the structure and takes another Warp Star to go toward Crash Clouds, where lightning bolts are masters, not far in the sky. Here, Kirby quickly swaps his Beam for Ice by eating a Chilly, giving him a better protection while giving him the possibility to use his enemies as projectiles after turning them into ice blocks.

Not long after passing a small path full of spikes reminding Sweetie of all those similar paths that they have passed in their adventure against Drawcia, Kirby encounters Kracko, still in his Kracko Jr form, probably to test the waters, or to show Kirby that this time, he will not be fooling around. After a small fight, Kracko charging at Kirby again and again at great speed only to take some ice in the eye, he flies away, certainly to ready himself for the real fight.

With Kracko gone, Kirby takes a Warp Star and uses it to climb toward the upper atmosphere of Popstar following Kracko, where he has to pass a wall of star blocks before passing a door. After this door, he flies up again to pass another door, already catching Kracko, this time the eyeball surrounded by a storm cloud.

Of course, having a storm cloud means that Kracko's electricity is more powerful, and he quickly demonstrates it to Kirby with his lightning rain that Kirby runs away from, followed by more lightning shot at Kirby. The puffballs adapts to this by taking a hit-and-run tactic, dodging Kracko's attacks, approaching, hitting him with his ice, before quickly running away to avoid a counterattack. The few times Kracko tries to ram Kirby, the puffball jumps above him and takes the occasion to surround himself in his icy aura to hurt Kracko. But Kracko still shows that he is not the most powerful lieutenant of Dedede for nothing, and Kirby is electrified more than once before he is able to defeat the eyeball.

And yet, despite being hurt, Kirby takes a Warp Star to his next destination: the castle.

"Kirby's first adventure has really been that short?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"Yes. He didn't have much to traverse before reaching the castle."

As Kirby approaches the castle, Kabula comes in the way and starts to fire bullets and Gordos at him three at a time. Sometimes, she even opens her head and fires missiles almost as big as her! The sky is soon littered by explosions that can be seen from the windows. Kirby can't even approach Kabula to attack her with his ice!

"Bwahahahaha! That's my airship for you!" shouts Dedede proudly.

Kabula is relentless. She quickly flies up, down, left, and right, each time firing either bullets, Gordos, or missiles, and if Kirby dares to come too close, she tries to ram him, forcing him to fly back. To surprise Kirby, she sometimes even gets herself upside down to fire projectiles from above her.

After a few minutes, the Warp Star is destroyed, and Kirby falls. But the puffball doesn't admit defeat, and suddenly spits the Dragoon that he quickly clings to before it starts to fly around at a speed that would make (is making) Rainbow Dash jealous. With his speed, Kirby avoids Kabula's projectiles and flies away before turning around and charging at her. Kabula starts to fly backward while still firing at Kirby, but with the Dragoon, the puffball is able to dodge the projectiles simply by flying left or right until he reaches, and pierces, Kabula, leaving her with a big hole from her nose to her propeller. Some parts of Kabula then explode, she catches fire, and falls, opening the way to the castle.

"Since when does Kirby have a Dragoon?!" shouts Dedede with his jaw dropping.

"Darn. I didn't think that he would bring it," says Sweetie Belle to herself. She then answers Dedede. "The Squeaks gave it to Kirby to help us defeat Dark Nebula. Sorry, I forgot to tell you."

They then feel the castle shaking.

"Kirby has entered the castle!" yells Bandana Dee.

Dedede gets up from his throne and waves his right arm at the Spear Waddle Dees in the throne room.

"Everyone! Go!"

"Yes Great King!" they all shout with a salute before running out of the room.

"I'm going too," says Cape Knight.

Dedede nods. "Very well. And send a Mr Tick-Tock to fight him," he says before he turns to Sweetie Belle and Bandana Dee. "Let's go to the boxing room."

"Yes Great King/Dedede!"

As they get out of the room, they quickly hear a sound similar to an alarm clock coming from somewhere in the castle.

"He is already fighting the Mr Tick-Tock!" shouts Bandana Dee.

Sweetie Belle sighs. "He will not last long against Kirby. Sending them only one at a time is not a good idea." She intercepts a Spear Waddle Dee running in their direction to go fight Kirby. "You. Go tell to every big soldiers that are in the castle to go attack Kirby simultaneously. Let's try to get him with number."

"Yes madam!"

"If I remember, this makes a Grand Wheelie, a Phan Phan, and two Fire Lions," says Bandana Dee. "Even Kirby will have difficulty fighting all of them at the same time."

"Yeah. Good idea Sweetie Belle," congratulates Dedede.

"Have we taken all the food in the castle so Kirby couldn't use them to heal?"

"Of course! I'm not stupid!"

"With you, we never know."

"Say what now?"

"Hey! It's no time to bicker you two!" shouts Bandana Dee. "Kirby may come anytime now!"

Sweetie Belle giggles. "You are right. By the way, will you fight, or just watch us?"

"Well..." He sighs. "I know that I will lose. But I suppose that I can at least try to hurt him. I... I will wait for Kirby there."

They nod. "Good luck," says Sweetie Belle. "As for me, I will wait for him on the ring."

Leaving Bandana behind, Sweetie Belle and Dedede advance, and before long, they enter the boxing room.

"Alright," says Dedede. "You do like you said and wait Kirby on the ring while I'm going to search my new weapon. Don't wait for me to fight him."

"Okay."

So Sweetie Belle jumps on the ring while Dedede leaves by the backdoor, and waits at the center.

A few minutes later, he is here, possessing the Mirror ability. He is clearly hurt. Seems like her idea has worked in some extend.

She may have a chance.

When Kirby jumps on the ring, Sweetie Belle smiles. "Not as easy as the first time, uh?"

Kirby confirms with a sighs and a poyo.

"Well, you still have to fight me before you can fight Dedede. And this time, don't think that hugging me will work like at the fountain. We both know that much has happened since then. As you can see..." She puts her front hooves in front of her head, showing the gauntlets on them. "I'm ready to fight you." She takes her whip. "Here I come!"

She cracks her whip toward Kirby who creates a mirror to protect himself, the whip bouncing on it.

This may be hard to hit him with this ability.

Kirby counterattacks by firing mirrors at her from his wand, which she jumps away from. With a quick air jump, she bounces toward Kirby to attack him directly with a punch, only for Kirby to protect himself again with a mirror. She turns around Kirby while doing a Vulcan Jab, but each time, Kirby is able to intercept her hooves with his mirrors.

Well, if he wants to protect himself behind his mirrors...

A little magic, a little energy, and... "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" She screams as loud as she can, her scream amplified thanks to both her magic and her energy. With her being beside Kirby, the puffball finds himself having to protect his ears... wherever they are, to avoid becoming deaf, leaving him open. So Sweetie Belle knocks away his wand before turning on herself and bucking him in the face, sending him flying to the rope while knocking away his ability that she quickly destroys by impaling it with an ice sword.

Kirby gets up, and waits for Sweetie Belle to attack. At the same time, Bandana Dee enters the room, hurt, but alright. Seeing that Sweetie Belle and Kirby are busy fighting, he simply walks without a word toward one of the stands and sits to watch while encouraging Sweetie Belle.

Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle attacks again with her whip, only for Kirby to dodge each time. A particularly strong attack causes the apparition of a yellow star that Kirby hastens to inhale before spitting it at Sweetie Belle, only for the filly to create a mirror to deflect the projectile back at Kirby who dodges it again. Sweetie Belle then uses her magic to make the whip fly around Kirby like a snake, wanting to trap Kirby, but he jumps at the last second and inhales the whip, giving him the Whip ability that he hasn't gotten since his fight against possessed Sweetie Belle in the Zero Incident.

He then charges at Sweetie Belle and gives a flurry of strikes. Sweetie Belle surrounds herself in her shield until the strikes end before making it disappear while she prepares an explosive ball, only to be surprised by Kirby still charging at her and ramming her. They roll on the ring until he gives her a kick that sends her flying above him. Then, similarly to the first time, Kirby wraps the whip around Sweetie's neck and pulls it, slamming her on the ring violently.

Without letting her time to get back up, Kirby wraps his whip again, this time around her left foreleg, and slams her on the ring again and again and again. Just as she slams on the ring for the third time, her body turns into metal, and she becomes too heavy for Kirby to lift her again. With Kirby's action stopped, Sweetie Belle grabs the whip and uses it to pull Kirby to punch him. However, Kirby opens his mouth, and Sweetie's hoof ends inside it without punching anything.

"What?"

With her hoof still in his mouth, Kirby chuckles before punching her, somehow hurting her despite her metal body. Kirby then spits her hoof and unwraps his whip before jumping away. In the middle of his jump, he starts attacking again with the whip, forcing Sweetie Belle to return her body to normal before jumping away. She then tries to crush Kirby under a shield from above, but Kirby is yet again able to dodge by leaping, so she creates another shield in front of him to ram him, but Kirby uses it to actually wall jump.

Clenching her teeth, Sweetie Belle materializes a spear made of ice that she throws at Kirby while he is still in the air, followed by an ice sword, and an ice axe, but Kirby deflects them all with the whip before landing, smirking at Sweetie Belle while tapping his hat half covering his eyes to put it back correctly. In answer, Sweetie Belle jumps, materializes a shield to which she gives a form similar to Dedede's hammer, but a little bigger, and threatens to crush Kirby under it. Of course, Kirby jumps aside to dodge it just before it hit the ring, making it shake, but then, Sweetie Belle uses her magic to throw it at Kirby like a normal shield, successfully ramming him and knocking the whip out of him. However, Kirby lands beside the ice sword that he has deflected earlier and eats it, giving him the Sword ability, much to Sweetie's frustration.

"Alright. Enough playing around. Time to go all out!"

This makes Kirby sweat. "Poyo?"

She closes her eyes and breathes, seemingly entering into some kind of trance, music starts to play from her horn, and then...

"'I've fought beside you, you've fought beside me
But you still must remember
I am your rival, you are my rival"

The moment Sweetie Belle starts to sing, an aura appears around her, and she smirks toward Kirby has her eyes open, glaring at him in determination. Then, she fires a beam without even charging it, only, the beam is as big as her! In panic, Kirby puts his sword in front of him and is able to deflect it toward the stands beside Bandana Dee who bounce away in fear as the beam leaves a hole. Kirby looks at the hole left by the beam, then at Sweetie Belle, gulping as a dozen weapons of ice materialize around her, all pointed at him.

"Only one winner!"

---

Everypony's jaws drop, especially Twilight's and Discord's.

"First, she uses transmutation to turn her body into metal! Then she manipulates ice and shields to form objects! And now, she sings to amplify her power?!" shouts Twilight.

"And she is using the energy of her own soul to do it!" continues Discord. "A soul song... That's... Like... Super Powerful."

---

"Don't expect mercy because we are friends."

Kirby rolls to the left to avoid an ice sword, then to the right to avoid another, before flattening himself to let a spear pass above him. He is almost cut by an axe swinging down at him, but he parries it with his sword before jumping back to avoid two hammers coming from his left and his right to crush him between them, instead crushing the axe.

"With fire and ice I will fight to the end"

Fire surrounds Sweetie's left hoof, and she hits the ring, causing a trail or fire to appear from it going to Kirby who avoids it by jumping above it toward Sweetie Belle, sword ready. When he falls back toward her, he swings down his sword, but Sweetie Belle uses the gauntlet of her right hoof to parry it.

"I will do what King Dedede has been asking from me"

As Kirby lands in front of her, she gathers her energy around her right hoof and gives a powerful jab. Kirby puts his sword in front of him to protect himself, and the hoof hits it. The force of the impact still sends Kirby backward and when he lands on his feet, he sees with horror that his sword has been broken, leaving him no choice but to give up the Sword ability.

"And I will use all my powers to take the victory"

She starts to throw cutter blades, making sure that they fly in arcs to attack Kirby from his left, his right, and above, but to her surprise, despite having no abilities, Kirby avoids them by charging at her to directly attack her again. She parries his punch with one of her gauntlets, and punches him back, only for Kirby to flatten himself to avoid it before giving an uppercut that sends her flying. She recovers with an air jump, and forms a platform to land on it.

"It is funny to think, just a few months ago,
I came to this world with barely any power to show"

She creates a few black clouds that go above Kirby.

"And it's such a wonderful surprise!"

The clouds release each a single lightning bolt at Kirby who runs away to avoid them, bolts after bolts striking behind him. The bolts, however, cause green stars to appear, and once the attack stops, Kirby eat one to gain the Spark ability.

Darn, she is already getting tired. This ability uses too much energy. She must end this fight quickly.

"Now I can fight you almost as equals"

She jumps from her platform and covers her right hoof in ice, and upon striking the ring, expels spikes of ice all around her while covering the ring in ice. By now, Kirby is already covered in electricity thanks to running, and he jumps above the spikes before launching a giant electric ball at Sweetie Belle who is not able to dodge it in time before getting shocked. However, when he lands on the now icy floor, his momentum causes him to glide, and Sweetie Belle is able to strike him with a powerful explosive ball that causes an explosion as big as Drawcia's second form.

"And-and..."

She is headbutted by Kirby that has used the explosion to be propelled toward her, interrupting her singing. By the time she gets up, she sees Kirby running around again to accumulate electricity, and she starts to charge a Giga Force Blast.

"And one day we will become as equals"

Kirby jumps and throws another giant electric ball at her. She throws her Giga Force Blast. The two attacks hit each other, causing a giant electric explosion that reach the both of them. Kirby is sent toward the stands, while Sweetie Belle finds herself at the edge of the ring. Kirby falls down the stairs of the stands one by one until he reaches the floor beside the ring, then slowly gets up with difficulty, his body hurting but not wanting to give up. Sweetie Belle also gets up, only to fall back on the floor, her energy totally spent. When she sees Kirby going back on the ring, she can't help but smile.

"Seems like you win... Almost got you... But Dedede should be able to finish you."

Bandana Dee jumps from the stands and joins Sweetie Belle to help her. Upon seeing that her injuries aren't too bad, he lifts her on his back before going to the stands again, dropping her beside him.

"You have fought well Sweetie Belle. You were awesome."

She giggles. "Thanks."

---

"I can't believe it. Sweetie belle used power almost reaching the one of an alicorn, and yet, Kirby still won," says Twilight.

"She clearly still needs to train so she will be able to use her Soul Song longer before getting tired," says Discord. "If that wasn't for that, and Kirby being a champion at dodging, she would have won."

"But there is still Dedede. He is sure to win now," says Applejack.

"Yeah. I don't see how Kirby will win in his state," continues Rainbow. "Sweetie Belle sure worn him out."

Rarity giggles. "I didn't expect any less from my sister."

At the same time, the foals are talking to each other about the fight they have witnessed, Sweetie Belle's powers, and their favorite moments.

"You weren't foaling with us. She has become... Woah..." says Diamond Tiara.

Silver Spoon nods, awed "Yeah... Woah..."

"I know, right?!" shouts Scootaloo.

"Too bad she lost," says Apple Bloom.

"But she almost got him! So this is not too bad!"

At this moment, they all see the boxing room suddenly becoming all dark, the lights turning off.

"Oh! The next fight is about to start!" shout Scootaloo excitedly.

The other foals hush her.

---

Two seconds after the lights are turned off, they hear something heavy falling on the ring, followed not long after by something lighter.

"So you have been able to win against Sweetie Belle despite starting the fight disadvantaged," they then recognize Dedede saying. "Truly, you are a formidable opponent Kirby. However, she is right. She has weakened you enough to assure my victory in our fight, and it makes me glad to know that you would lose. But... But I don't want to win our fight like that."

"What?" ask both Sweetie Belle and Bandana Dee in wonder.

"I proved the superiority of my forces, but what I truly want, is to prove my superiority. I want to prove that I have gotten stronger than you, and for this, I need to beat you at your full potential." At this, a projector turns on, showing a hammer and a Maxim Tomato at the center of the ring. "So take them."

Kirby nods before running toward the hammer and the tomato. He eats the both of them, the tomato healing him while also gaining the Hammer ability.

At this moment, they begin to hear a mechanism start, and thanks to the small light given by the projector, they see that it is a cage coming down. At the same time, another projector turns on, showing Dedede in front of Kirby, his back to him.

"Our grudge will be settled at last."

Dedede then turns around, showing that he now wears a metallic mask on his face covering everything except his eyes. The mask possesses five horns, three big yellow ones, and two smaller grey one, and is composed of two pieces separated by a jagged line looking like a mouth full of sharp teeth. Then, he slams his hammer on the ring, showing that it is a totally new hammer, made of metal instead of wood, blue with the familiar yellow and red zig zag pattern near the head. The head itself is silver with Dedede's symbole yellow colored, there is a spike at the top as well as at the bottom of the handle, and more surprising of all, there is a jet at the back!

"Meet my powerful secret weapon, the brand-new Dedede Hammer!"

Just as the cage finishes surrounding the ring, electricity starting to move around its bars, all the lights turn back on, and Dedede starts the fight by running and swinging down his hammer at Kirby. Kirby jumps aside to avoid it and jumps again to hit Dedede on the mask. Dedede quickly recovers from the hit and activates the jet of his hammer before he starts to spin on himself with the hammer like a top. Kirby is caught off guard by this and he is hit by the hammer as if he has been hit by a train, sending him right on the cage electrifying him. Quickly, Dedede stops spinning and poses the hammer, handle on the ring. Then, the head of the hammer opens, and out of it come three missiles that home in at Kirby, the puffball not being able to dodge them with his still being against the wall of the cage. Then, as the missiles fly toward his target, Dedede starts to spin again, and while spinning, moves toward Kirby, striking him after the missiles. The impact is so powerful that the cage behind Kirby is damaged as he falls on the ground, badly hurt.

Without letting time for Kirby to get up, Dedede swings down his hammer again to crush him, but Kirby quickly rolls out of the way before attacking Dedede. Despite the hit, Dedede swings his hammer at Kirby again, and Kirby swings his own hammer at it in return, the two hammers clashing. They clash a second time, and a third, and many more times, but this still forces Kirby to step back at each hit, Dedede being much stronger than him, especially with this new hammer. When Dedede swings his hammer from Kirby's right, Kirby decides to jump above it and attacks Dedede again on the head, this time using the hit to bounce away to avoid Dedede's counterattack.

Seeing Kirby getting away, Dedede places his hammer on the floor again, and the head opens. Expecting missiles to come out again, Kirby is caught off guard by the hammer spewing a stream of fire instead, and he ends up roasted, coughing smoke. It's only after the fire that Dedede shoots missiles from the hammer, but Kirby is able to recover from the fire and slides under the first missile before jumping on the second missile and swings him hammer on the third missile to send it back at Dedede.

Despite taking a missile, Dedede jumps and readies his hammer before striking the ring with it upon landing, causing the apparition of a shockwave all around him, forcing Kirby to jump to avoid it. But in the middle of his jump, Dedede throws his hammer at him, and Kirby is not able to avoid it, sending him right on the shockwave behind him. The mask on Dedede then opens at the mouth, letting Dedede start to inhale. Not being able to get out of the way, Kirby plants instead the handle of his hammer in the floor to avoid being sucked, while Dedede's hammer is caught in the vortex and goes back to Dedede who catch it, and stops inhaling not long after.

At this, Kirby runs back to Dedede and jumps on his head, clinging to it while also hitting it with his hammer until Dedede catch him and throws him at the cage, but Kirby jumps from it, only getting a quick shock. Dedede then starts to spin again, and Kirby mimes him by spinning, and the two charge at each other until their hammers clash. Bad idea from Kirby, because with its jet, Dedede's hammer easily wins the clash and knocks Kirby's hammer out of his grip. Kirby quickly jumps back before inflating to fly above Dedede while he continues spinning, taking the occasion to approach his hammer. When Dedede stops, Kirby lands and takes it, just in time to avoid fire spewing from Dedede's hammer again. Kirby then gets an idea and puts his hammer in the fire, covering the weapon in it.

Dedede then jumps and tries to crush Kirby under his weight, but Kirby easily dodges it, only for him to immediately jump again, almost getting Kirby who dodges at the last moment, not expecting this. Dedede then jumps a third time, but this time, Kirby prepares his hammer, the weapon surrounded in fire suddenly growing, to everyone's surprise. When Dedede falls, he jumps away at the last moment again, only this time, he swings his hammer at Dedede's belly with enough force to send him into the wall of the cage, exactly where the cage has been damaged earlier, while also dropping his hammer. Kirby's hammer returns to its normal size, but Kirby doesn't mind it as he drops it to take Dedede's hammer instead, being able to hold it despite it being far heavier. He then plants the hammer in the ring and opens the head to shoot three missiles at Dedede still against the cage's wall. While the missiles fly toward Dedede, Kirby activates the hammer's jet and starts to spin toward the king as the missiles explode on him, his mask getting badly damaged by this. Finally, Kirby strikes Dedede, and the impact is so powerful that it breaks the wall of the cage, and Dedede is propelled out of the ring and through the ceiling while his mask breaks.

Sweetie Belle and Bandana Dee look astonished at the hole where the king has disappeared, before they look back at Kirby who has dropped the hammer before sitting down to get his breath back.

"We... We must go find the king!" shouts Bandana Dee in panic.

"Y-yeah. Hum... Kirby! Go talk to the cooks to get your cake! We have to go!"

Still being too tired from her fight to try to use her magic, Sweetie Belle exits the room with Bandana Dee by the front door instead of flying out by the hole with a platform, leaving Kirby behind.

---

Again, the ponies have their jaws dropped. This is becoming a habit. The silence doesn't last long however, the room is quickly filled with shouts from the foals starting to talk excitedly about this fight, sometimes mimicking a moment of the fight they have found awesome.

"So... Dedede has still lost despite all..." says Rarity.

"That was a close call, I could tell. Kirby was at his limits," replies Applejack.

Discord huffs. "This wouldn't have happened if he hadn't given Kirby that tomato and that hammer."

"But you heard him. He wanted a true fight against Kirby to prove himself that he had gotten better," rebuts Rainbow Dash. "And like AJ said, he almost got him."

"But he will be so sad..." says Fluttershy.

"Don't worry my dear. I am sure that Sweetie Belle will help him feel better," says Rarity.

"Anyway, I think that that's all for the spectacle for now," says Discord as he closes the portal. "But really, what a spectacle! And the foals all seem to agree," he says with a chuckle upon seeing the excited foals.

"They are not the only ones. I wouldn't mind getting my hooves on this awesome hammer," says Rainbow Dash.

Pinkie Pie bounces beside her. "And I'm sure that Twilight would like to study it! Right, Twilight?!"

"You have no idea Pinkie..."

---

Later, as the sun sets, Sweetie Belle and Bandana Dee finds Dedede as the penguin walks depressingly on a road in a familiar desert among a few Waddle Dees keeping him company.

Seeing Dedede in this state as she walks beside him really breaks Sweetie Belle's heart. He has really thought that he would be able to beat Kirby this time, and he has put so much into this fight. The hammer, the mask, the cage, the adventure leading to the fight...

She rubs her head against his side, and a small smile forms on his beak before he starts petting her. She then looks at him in the eyes, frowning, determination filling her.

"Dedede."

"Yes..."

"I Pinkie Promise. One day, I will beat Kirby."

Chapter 55: At least you tried, Yin-Yarn

Upon returning in the castle, Dedede takes an important decision: taking Sweetie Belle's words, he stops his personal feud with Kirby and leaves it to Sweetie Belle to one day do what he has been unable to do. Seeing how the filly is still improving, and how her promise has made her very determined, he knows that it is only a question of time before she surpasses him, so he gives her all his trust. They will still be rivals, but in a more friendly way, like the Gourmet Races, or other competitions.

Just after that, he gives a banquet to congratulate everyone, both his army, the mercenaries, and even Kirby, for the good fight they put up. Thanks to his army, he now knows that he CAN win against Kirby if they all work together. Well... It's mainly thanks to Sweetie Belle actually, and a little thanks to Kracko and Kabula, but the filly is the one that has done most of the work with her idea of sending all the big soldiers simultaneously at Kirby, and her fight against him. But he has also wanted to see if he had himself surpassed Kirby in a 1 vs 1 fight, and he thought that he could do it with his new hammer. And yet, Kirby has still won. So in the end, he has decided to consider this adventure a draw. He has won a part, but has lost the other. So this banquet is for all of them.

Just before the banquet, Sweetie Belle visits the same guys that have created Dedede's new hammer to ask them something.

"Can you make me a new weapon too?"

And during the banquet, Dedede proclaims something.

"Tomorrow will be a rest day to recover! The next day, we will repair the damages! So, in three days, we will go pass a one week vacation in Dedede resort in the Popopo Islands!"

"We have a resort?" asks Sweetie Belle in wonder.

"Of course! Why wouldn't I have my own little place where I would be pampered?"

"Well, you are already pampered in the castle, so I didn't think that you would need one."

Dedede frowns at her. "Do we have a bubble bath in the castle?"

"Uh... No."

"And masseurs?"

"No..."

"And a sauna?"

She sighs. "No..."

"And a good tropical air?"

"For that, there is that archipelago not far."

"Yeah, but we don't have tropical air around the castle."

"Right..."

"So you have all your answers."

"Alright, alright."

Dedede turns to Kirby. "If you want, you can come too."

Kirby tilts his head. "Poyo?"

"Yes, you should come Kirby," says Sweetie Belle. "You saved the world and fought powerful enemies again and again. You definitely needs a vacation. I know I need one too, and yet I haven't been with you all the time."

"But you have trained a lot," says Bandana Dee to her. "I think that out of all of us, you are the one that need the most vacation."

"I confirm!" shouts Knuckle Joe.

She giggles. "If you say so..."

"I don't know," she then hears Broom Sunglass say. "Will she not-" He is suddenly crushed, along with his chair, by an ice hammer dropping on him.

"Next time you are about to make a remark about my weight, I will order you to go 100 laps around the castle with a boulder on your back."

---

So, after a good day of rest, Dedede and Sweetie Belle start to repair the damage done to the castle by the recent events. Not only by the fights of the other day, but also by the Bomber exploding inside the treasure room when the Squeaks stole the chest. So Dedede has decided to oversee the reparations and the rearranging of the treasure room while he lets Sweetie Belle do the same to the boxing room that has been greatly damaged by her fight against Kirby, even if the most annoying will be to repair the hole left by Dedede through the ceiling, without forgetting the one caused by Kirby when he entered the castle with the Dragoon.

However, as Dedede is busy ordering the Waddle Dees around, arranging the treasures and getting rid of the effects of the explosion of the Bomber (not much, thankfully), he notices that one of the Waddle Dees looks a little... strange. Dedede looks at the Waddle Dee, and upon seeing this, the Waddle Dee looks back at Dedede, sweating and laughing sheepishly, before continuing to do his job. And he remarks soon that more Waddle Dees are like him.

"...Weird..."

Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle is helping repairing the ring alongside Bandana Dee while the flying servants are repairing the hole. After some time however, as she is busy putting new ropes at the edges of the ring, the previous ones having been destroyed in the heat of the fights, she sees that some of the Waddle Dees bringing the new materials are now different. She looks astonished as more and more of those different Waddle Dees are entering the room, but she seems to be the only one that has noticed something weird about those Waddle Dees, or the others just don't care.

"Bandana Dee, you see those Waddle Dees?"

Bandana Dee follows her eyes and spots the Waddle Dees in question. "Yes. They look strange."

"Are you kidding me? Of course they look strange. We can see through them."

Some of the strange Waddle Dees seem to hear her and start to sweat. Yeah, she is right. Their body is flat, and made of yarn, the yarn only forming the outlines, with nothing else forming the rest of the Waddle Dees except the eyes and the pink cheeks, so she can see through them. Actually, she is wrong about the flat part. They seem flat, but they actually possess a depth that she can see when they are in profile, still only able to see the outline, but rather than forming the Waddle Dees' left and right, they now form their front and their back. The closest one quickly decides to speak. "Uh... We are a rare type of Waddle Dees! We were recruited by the king to help in repairing the castle."

She raises an eyebrow. "Waddle Dees made of yarn? I have never seen one until now."

"I... did say that we are rare. Hehehe..."

"And yet, Dedede has been able to find some of you when I have probably explored more of Popstar than him?"

"He knows where to find us."

By now, more and more of those Yarn Waddle Dees are entering the room along with a few other yarn versions of Waddle Doos and Bronto Burts to help in the reparations. When he sees Sweetie Belle look at the Yarn Waddle Doos with a raised eyebrow, the Yarn Waddle Dee sweats even more.

"Uh... They come from the same place as us... There is a whole place in Popstar where everyone is made of yarn..."

Sweetie Belle looks back at him, before smiling. She whispers something to Bandana Dee who go talk to others, normal Waddle Dees, before she jumps down from the ring, giggling.

"Is that so? Yeah, I guess that it's possible for Popstar to have a place like that. After all, that's Popstar, where everything can happen."

"Yeah, exactly," replies the Yarn Waddle Dee with a giggle.

The two giggle as Sweetie Belle approaches the Yarn Waddle Dee, until she is just in front of him. And then, she whispers to him "I don't need to be Apple Bloom or her sister Applejack to know that you are lying."

This stops the Yarn Waddle Dee. "Uh.... What?"

Sweetie Belle then punches him in the face... only for her hoof to pass through him.

...

"Well... Darn..."

"We are discovered!" shouts another Yarn Waddle Dee.

"We must attack!" shouts a third.

Sweetie Belle then uses her magic to grab the Yarn Waddle Dee she has tried to punch, and throws him at the closest Yarn Waddle Dee running toward her. The two collide, and the yarn making their body separate into colored threads that fall down on the floor.

"Sweet... It's Drawcia all over again. You hear that everyone?! Don't hold back! The castle is invaded by clones of yarn!"

She is answered by the servants and soldiers still in the room all charging and attacking the clones of yarn from behind the stands.

"Watch out!" she continues. "Their bodies are empty! You have to attack their outline made of yarn to defeat them!"

"Yes madam!" shout back the others.

She then shoots a stream of fire from her horn and sweeps the area in front of her, burning a dozen Yarn Waddle Dees along with two Yarn Waddle Doos and a Yarn Blade Knight that has just entered the room.

"Bandana Dee!"

At her call, Bandana Dee finishes the Yarn Waddle Dee he is fighting by cutting his outline of yarn with the tip of his spear before running toward her. "Yes?"

"Go find Cape Knight and give the alert! We must warn everyone about the clones invading the castle!"

"Alright, but what will you do?"

"I'm gonna find Dedede."

He nods, before going out of the room, cutting a Yarn Broom Hatter in the way. He is quickly followed by Sweetie Belle who trusts the servants to finish the few remaining clones in the room. When she exits, however, she sees Bandana Dee fighting his way through many clones while dozens of servants and soldiers are wrapped in ropes, or yarns, on the floor, captured by the clones, which would explain why normal servants had stopped entering the room. She quickly uses her magic to unwrap them.

"Follow Bandana Dee, fight the clones of yarn, and save all the prisoners that you find!"

"Yes madam!"

Her orders given, she takes the way to the treasure room, fighting the clones and saving the servants and the soldiers who join her or take other ways to cover more ground. Upon reaching the treasure room, she comes just in time to see Dedede, wrapped too, being sucked inside a sock worn around the neck of an unknown being made of yarn.

The being has an orange floating body with red and green yarns forming waves pattern crossing each other, and yellow stripes at the bottom, and a large grin at the top, under a big button from which come black yarns forming a mustache, purple yarns forming his eyes that come out of the body itself, and three more stripes at the top, one yellow and two reds. He also wears a green hat with a yellow band. He doesn't possess legs, and his arms only seem to be a stripe of yarn wrapping around two knitting needles that possess evil faces. The one that he has in his left arm has yellow eyes and a single horn, while the one that is in his right hand has purple eyes and two horns.

Wait! Evil knitting needles! Those are probably the corrupted knitting needles that Adeleine has told her about!

In the room, she also spots a few more Yarn Waddle Dees, and real Waddle Dees wrapped in ropes.

So far, none of them have spotted her, the Waddle Dees looking at their master, and the master being too busy gloating.

"Nyahahahahaa! Dreamland will be mine!...Not sure what I'll do with it, but I'll figure something out."

Is this guy serious?

Ok, so this time, she will be facing an idiot. But this is no reason to underestimate him. He has been able to capture Dedede, he possesses corrupted powerful artefacts, and he can create clones of yarn. If she doesn't watch out, she will be sucked in the sock like Dedede.

So, first of all, take the sock away from him.

As the yarn guy starts to turn the treasures into yarn (Oh, sweet, he can change the world like Drawcia. It's probably thanks to the knitting needles.) Sweetie Belle wraps the sock and the thread of yarn holding it around the guy's neck in her magic, and quickly lifts it up.

"What?! Hey! Come back here!"

The yarn guy tries to catch the sock, but Sweetie Belle is able to get it away from him before putting it around her neck. Spotting her, the Yarn Waddle Dees get in front of the yarn guy while the real Waddle Dees start to cheer.

"That's Sweetie Belle!"

"She will save us!"

"You!" shouts the yarn guy. "How did you get here? You escaped my minions?"

"No, I haven't escaped them. I eliminated them. I also saved all the servants that were captured, and..." TUUUUUUUUUUUT!!!!!!!! "...your minions are gonna have a bad time. Now, I give them five minutes before none are left in the castle."

"Drat. You got me. Seems like I will have to take this castle the hard way."

"Don't count on it! By the way, who are you?"

"Me? Nyahahahahaa! I'm Yin-Yarn! Remember it, because I will be your master!" He then uses the knitting needles to knit a Yarn Bonkers that quickly joins the Yarn Waddle Dees. "You have no chance against me! I can knit minions faster than you can-"

Sweetie Belle shoots a stream of fire from her horn, burning all the minions of Yin-Yarn and Yin-Yarn himself. Both him and the Bonkers survive, but Sweetie Belle then uses her whip to wrap one of the outlines of the Bonkers before pulling, unraveling him while Yin-Yarn is busy putting out the fire burning him.

"GYAAAH!!! HOT! HOT! HOT!"

...

She may have actually overestimated this guy...

She wraps her whip around the button that serves as his nose and pulls, sending Yin-Yarn toward her before she punches his button, sending him into a pile of treasures.

As she unwraps the Waddle Dees prisoner in the room so they can leave, she says "Listen, Yin-Yarn! I can see that you are not a fighter. You are probably led into that whole conquest thing by those corrupted knitting needles. So drop them, and leave this place."

Yin-Yarn crawls out of the pile of treasures before saying "You think that I am being manipulated by those needles? You are wrong. They are a tool, that's all."

"You think that, but is it true?"

"Stop trying to 'save' me. I will show you that I am serious."

As he floats up, the eyes of his needles suddenly glow, and Sweetie Belle finds herself wrapped in light. When the light disappears, Sweetie Belle looks at herself, and sees that her body is now made of yarn, exactly like the clones of yarn.

"What?" she shouts in surprise.

"Nyahahahahaa! Now you are at my mercy!"

"Alright... You turned me into yarn. But what was the point outside of me feeling weird?"

"Uh... Well, aren't you weirded out by this? Aren't you wanting to cry and to plead me to give you back your normal appearance?"

She deadpans at him. "Why would I plead to you when all I have to do is beat you? And frankly, I have seen weirder. Having my horn taken away was far worse. And at least, I still have all my limbs." She looks back at her body. "The only problem is that some of my powers may not work anymore, or not as well, like my metal body."

"Uh... Then how about this?!"

Yin-Yarn starts knitting something green. Soon, that something takes the form of a green dragon with red wings, yellow horns, yellow marks on his back, and buttons for eyes. The dragon roars, revealing his arrowhead-tipped tongue, only for Sweetie to wrap the tongue with her whip before throwing the dragon at Yin-Yarn, and the both of them crash into a wall, the dragon exploding into threads of yarn.

"Urg... Okay, this hurt..."

She doesn't know if she must pity this guy or not...

She sighs. "You know, seeing how you can create clones and change the world, I really thought that you would be has hard to fight as Drawcia. Seems like I was wrong. At least, if Drawcia had painted a dragon, he wouldn't have been destroyed in one hit."

Yin-Yarn floats away from the wall. "Wait... You fought Drawcia?"

"Oh? You knew her? Yes, I fought her. She tried to turn Popstar into a giant painting, but I killed her."

"YOU KILLED COUSIN DRAWCIA?!!" she suddenly hear two high pitched voices yell that come from none other than the two knitting needles that are now looking at her with extreme shock.

She looks at them in surprise before smiling. "Well, hello there! You are alive?"

"Arg!" The expressions of shock on their face turn into horror, before they look at each other.

"Brother..." says the one with the yellow eyes.

"Yes brother?"

"We goofed..."

"Yes... We goofed..."

Surprisingly, since the needles have started talking, Yin-Yarn has stopped moving and talking. Wait...

"Are you the real Yin-Yarn? And was this guy just a cover?"

"Arg!" Horror return in their face.

"So I'm right. So, who is Yin, and who is Yarn? Unless you have other names?"

The needles look at each other before Purple Eyes starts speaking. "I'm Yin..."

"And me Yarn..." continues Yellow Eyes.

"But don't expect that you knowing about our real identity will change anything!" they yell at her.

"Of course. This doesn't change the fact that you are screwed," says Sweetie Belle.

"Arg!" Horror expressions, take three.

"Unless you have something better than your dragon?"

At this, the needles look at each other again.

"Do we do it brother?" asks Yin.

"Yes. We do it," says Yarn.

At this, the needles float out of the arms of the fake Yin-Yarn who unravels, revealing a thread of yarn glowing white. The needles then grow, before they start using the glowing yarn to knit something. Soon, they give back form to the fake Yin-Yarn, except that now he possesses a big, round, orange body with his facial features, but more evil looking. He also still has his green hat, bigger, but now, he also possesses two black bladed wheels. Once finishing, two threads of red yarns from the fake wrap around Yin and Yarn, taking their place at the left and the right of the fake.

"Now fear the Mega Yin-Yarn!" shout the needles with an evil laugh.

The Mega Yin-Yarn then rises Yarn before bringing him down on Sweetie Belle to crush her, but the filly quickly jumps back, the giant needle instead hitting the ground, making it crack.

"Ouch..." groans Yarn.

The mouth of the Mega Yin-Yarn then opens, shooting yarn missiles at Sweetie Belle. Thankfully, they are rather slow, so Sweetie Belle has no problems avoiding them, running around while she shoots back explosive balls at the tank. Because of the many treasures in the room that form obstacles for her, she eventually decides to jump on a platform to fly around the tank, making dodging his missiles easier. Sometimes, while shooting his missiles, Yin and Yarn knit above the tank smaller missiles that home in at Sweetie Belle, and the filly is forced to destroy them.

By then, the treasure room has turned into a war zone, the explosions from the missiles sending gold and other objects everywhere, some of the objects being sadly destroyed. The floor, the walls, and the ceiling are now full of holes, and the destruction starts to spread to the neighboring rooms. Eventually, more and more of the ceiling starts to fall on them, until the floor can't support it anymore, and Mega Yin-Yarn finds himself falling in the room below, quickly followed by Sweetie Belle on her platform, and so, they continue the fight despite this.

Mega Yin-Yarn suddenly plants the needles in the floor, and uses them as support to lift himself in the air, before he starts turning around shooting a barrage of missiles all around him continuously.

"Stop! You are gonna destroy the castle!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

"We don't care!" reply the needles. "Just die already!"

There are so many missiles that it becomes hard to dodge all of them, and Sweetie is forced to destroy some of them, and she also has a hard time hitting the tank. So instead, she sends a few cutter blades at Yin and Yarn, hoping that one of them would hit their mark. And bingo! One of the cutters successfully cut the red yarn linking Yin to Mega Yin-Yarn. Losing one of his supports, the tank falls on the ground on his back, now only able to shoot missiles going up. Quickly, Sweetie Belle charges toward Yin and takes him away.

"Hey! Let me go!"

"Brother!"

"Help, brother!"

Sweetie Belle looks at Yin, then at Yarn. "So, what now? You can't knit anything by yourself, and your tank is stuck."

"I can still do this!"

Yarn floats up from the floor and charges at Sweetie Belle, trying to headbutt her. The filly however puts Yin's head in the way.

Bonk!

Sweetie Belle then grips Yarn, and smiles sadistically at him. "Got you."

"D-don't think that we will give up!"

"Oh really?"

Sweetie Belle looks at the two needles before she starts taping them together like drumsticks.

Tap! "Ouch!" Tap! "Ouch!" Tap! "Ouch!" Tap! "Ouch! STOP IT!"

"Do you give up?"

"Yes yes! We give up!"

"Good. Now, you will answer some questions for me. First, what have you done to Dedede?"

Yin is the one answering. "We sent him in Patch Land"

"Patch Land?"

"It's the world that mother created using our powers. A world full of yarns and buttons where we have been living since."

"Living is a big word..." says Yarn. "We have been sealed here for a long time until we were able to escape."

"Okay. Have you sent any other people in Patch Land?"

"The puffball," answers Yin.

"Kirby? You were able to send him? Oh well, I don't have to worry then. I'm sure that one way or another, Kirby will be able to save Dedede and come back there."

"Ah! I'm not so sure about this!" shouts Yarn. "After our escape, we ran havoc in Patch Land, and divided it into seven parts by taking the magic yarns holding it together. We gave seven of the magic yarns to guardians, before coming to Dreamland! When we captured your king, we made him into one of the guardians! Your Kirby will have no chance!"

"News flash, Kirby is stronger than Dedede, who is himself stronger than me."

"...Ah."

"Exactly. The instant you sent Kirby to Patch Land, your plan was screwed. If that wasn't me, Kirby would have eventually come back after defeating all your guardians, and would have kicked your bottoms. No, to be more exact, you were screwed the instant you decided to invade Dreamland. At least, you tried."

They both sigh. "We should have stopped at Patch Land..." says Yarn.

She giggles before continuing. "Last question. You guys were corrupted like Drawcia, but who corrupted you? Is it the Dark God, or one of his creations?"

"Oh... You know about the Dark God..." says Yin. "Well... He was calling himself Dark Crafter."

"Dark Crafter... Okay, noted. Thank you. Now..." She jumps from her platform and walks toward the immobile Mega Yin-Yarn. Once beside the tank, she uses the needles to unravel him, leaving only the magic yarn. Upon taking it, everything flashes, and once the light disappears, Sweetie Belle is back to normal, as well as everyone else that has been turned into yarn she supposes. Now with the magic yarn floating beside her, and Mega Yin-Yarn's yarn wrapped around the needles, she walks out of what remains of the room they are in. "Let's have some fun!"

---

When Kirby comes out of the sock, followed by a blue being made of yarn that looks like Kirby with bigger eyes, big eyebrows, and a crown, and Dedede, he is not really surprised that Dreamland hasn't been turned into Yarnland. The moment him and Dedede have returned to normal, he has known that Yin-Yarn has been defeated, and he has known that it could only be the work of a certain filly.

Speaking of the filly, she is just in front of them, on an orange swing with Yin-Yarn's head and hat visible above her. She holds in her hooves Yin-Yarn's knitting needles, using them to knit something while she swings back and forth. Judging by the various objects made of yarn around them, from plushies to a rocket passing by a robot and even a clone of yarn of Sweetie Belle swinging at her right, whatever she is knitting can be anything.

Oh, it's a giant sword.

At this moment, Sweetie Belle spots them, and waves at them.

"Hey! Kirby! You finally finished saving Patch Land? As you can see, I saved Dreamland in your absence, and I even made two new friends thanks to who I'm having great fun! Right Yin? Yarn?" She says the last part while smiling at the needles.

"Y-yes!" answers the needle with the purple eyes.

"We are having so much fun!" continues the other.

The two needles are clearly sweating, and they swear that they can see tears at the corner of their eyes.

Both Kirby and Dedede fall on the ground laughing while the blue Kirby-like has his jaw dropping.

"Oh! You have a new friend!" shouts Sweetie Belle. "Hello! My name is Sweetie Belle! I'm Dedede's second in command! Nice to meet you!"

Chapter 56: The Popopo Islands

Upon defeating Yin and Yarn, Sweetie Belle has gone out of the castle to try their power while waiting for Kirby and Dedede to return from Patch Land where the knitting needles has sent them with the sock. Thinking that they may come back from this same sock, she has used Yin and Yarn to knit a chair where she has put it on. And as planned, not long after, as she has been busy knitting a giant sword because why not, her two friends have come out of the sock along with a crowned blue creature that looks like Kirby made of yarn.

His reaction at seeing what she has done with Yin-Yarn has been priceless.

Once the shock has passed, he has presented himself.

"Nice meeting you Sweetie Belle. I'm prince Fluff, from Patch Land. Good job in defeating Yin-Yarn."

"Thanks. Frankly, the fight has been rather easy."

"Hey!" shout the needles.

"Don't say the contrary you two! The fight hasn't lasted five minutes, and you didn't hit me once, even with Mega Yin-Yarn. Your dragon was a joke, and all you did was destroying the castle with your missiles."

"What?! He destroyed the castle?!" shouts Dedede.

"Not all the castle, but the treasure room has been destroyed, and the rooms around it have been greatly damaged, especially the room below. We sadly lost a few valuable objects. I could do nothing, they were firing missiles everywhere."

Seeing Dedede becoming red, the needles gulp. Dedede then grabs them and starts smashing them on the ground.

"Could you avoid breaking them please?" says Sweetie Belle. "I was thinking of keeping them."

Fluff looks at Sweetie Belle has if she has lost her head. "Why would you keep them?!"

"Easy. If we seal them, they could escape again and try to conquer everything again. We could destroy them but... For once, I was able to defeat a villain without killing them, so I would rather avoid killing them when I'm not forced. So I thought that I would keep an eye on them until we find a way to make sure that they can't do any harm ever beside killing them. Who knows, maybe I will find a way to get rid of their corruption."

"But don't you fear that they will escape or try something behind your back?"

"Don't worry. I will keep them with me everytime. And they already know that they must avoid angering me." She looks at the needles being beaten by Dedede and giggles "And now, they know that they must also avoid angering Dedede. And let's not forget Kirby."

"Poyo!"

"Beside, they could be useful in the future against more powerful villains." She looks back at Dedede. "You're done?"

Dedede breathes heavily as he stands before the half dead Yin and Yarn. "Yeah. I'm done."

She takes the needles in her magic, and puts them in front of her. "So, I suppose that you haven't heard me in the middle of being beaten, so I will repeat myself. From now on, you will remain with me, and you will not try to take over the world." She lights her horn, and half a dozen spikes of ice materialize around her, all pointed to the needles. "Understood?" she finishes with a sweet smile.

"Un...derstood..." say the two needles weakly, crying.

---

For now, to make sure that Yin and Yarn are always with her, Sweetie Belle uses a rope to attach them at her left side. With a rope not being that practical, Dedede proposes to her to make a belt, which Sweetie Belle will also use to attach her whip (that she has been keeping under her cape until now) and a paintbrush for when she will start using the ability she has learned thanks to the Magical Paintbrush. For the canvas and the palette of paint, she will have to find something else. Learning to invoke objects like Twilight does with her feathers and papers to write her lists would be the best. At worst, she will keep them on her back.

With one swing of Yin, the creations of Sweetie Belle disappear, and they go to the castle to rest. Dedede takes the occasion to see the damages and... Yeah... It's not pretty.

He sighs. "We will have to report the vacations at Dedede Resort..."

"No way my king!" shouts Bandana Dee who has joined him. "Leave the repair to us! You and Sweetie Belle and Kirby need those vacations!"

"What about you?" asks Sweetie Belle.

He waves dismissively at her. "Next time. I can wait. WE can wait. Right guys?!" he asks the other servants around them.

"Yeah!!!"

She sighs. "You will not change your mind...?"

"No!!!"

"If you say so, then I will leave the castle to you," says Dedede. "Tomorrow, we will go to Dedede Resort!"

---

At dinner.

"So you and Kirby fight bad guys like Yin-Yarn regularly?" asks prince Fluff.

"Yes," answers Sweetie Belle. "To tell you the truth, Yin-Yarn was the easiest bad guy we have ever fought. I mean, I fought him by myself, and I'm the weakest of the heroes around here. When I fight bad guys, I'm always helped by Kirby. And yet, I won alone, and I didn't have to go all out."

"Nice for our pride..." comments Yarn.

They hear Dedede huff. "You don't give yourself enough credits. Remember you put-up a good fight against Kirby the other day. You are becoming almost as good as me."

"And one day, I will surpass you," she replies to Dedede before looking back at Fluff. "And you, you helped Kirby in his adventure in Patch Land. You must be strong too."

"Of course!" he shouts before taking a proud pose. "I'm the prince of Patch Land after all. It's my duty to be strong to protect my kingdom." He then frowns. "If Yin-Yarn hadn't taken me by surprise, I'm sure that I could have beaten him."

"Me too," says Dedede. "He got me because he took me by surprise. That coward. In a fight, I would have crobbered him."

"With how weak he was, it's no wonder that he was using cowardly tactics to get rid of threats," says Sweetie Belle as she hears the needles say "Ouch..."

"Yeah, no wonder," says Fluff.

"But Fluff, with how strong you are, will you help us fight the Dark God if he appears one day?"

"The Dark God?" asks Fluff.

They then hear the needles laugh. "Fight the Dark God?" shouts Yin. "Don't make us laugh! We are just insects compared to him!"

"Yeah! Fighting him would be suicide!"

"Hush you! Well, you see Fluff..." She explains to Fluff everything about the Dark God, precising that he is also indirectly responsible for Yin-Yarn. "So you see. One day, the seal may break, and we may have to fight him. That day, we will need as much powerful friends as possible. So, will you join us?"

Fluff raises his left arm fiercely. "You don't need to ask the question! From what you said, if this God breaks free, then the whole universe will be threatened! So as the strong protector of Patch Land, it's only natural that I join the fight!"

"Poyo!" shouts Kirby in joy.

"The day it happens, just use the sock to come to me, and I will follow you."

He is hugged by both Kirby and Sweetie Belle.

---

Prince Fluff returns to his world just after, using the sock, leaving it to Kirby who takes it back to his home. This night, Sweetie Belle makes sure to attach Yin and Yarn, and because we are never too cautious, she attaches them at opposite sides of her room. The next day, at sunrise, Kirby, Sweetie Belle, and Dedede get on a boat, direction the Popopo Islands, and Dedede Resort.

"Hey, you two, how about I show you what awaits you in the resort?" proposes Dedede on the bridge.

"Poyo!"

"Yes!"

Dedede nods happily before he whistles, calling a couple of Waddle Dees bringing a screen. "Then watch!"

The screen turns on, and it shows a beautiful island with a giant lake inside it. They can see many smaller islands inside the lake, including a big one at the center where there is a castle and a snowy area at one of the sides. The lake is surrounded by beaches as well as four domes in Dedede's image.

Then, they hear Dedede's voice talking through the screen.

"Welcome to Dedede's heaven on Popstar: Dedede Resort! In this tropical island, a ten stars hotel is waiting to make your stay the most memorable moment of your life! Everything here is made to make you feel like a king (or a queen) and to get rid of all the stress that you may have accumulated! Be ready to sleep in the most luxurious rooms, with beds made from clouds! And you will never get enough of the absolutely delicious local food! Only top quality! Massages, swimming pools, bubbles bathes, mud bathes, saunas, you will have the total! I never understood the mud bathes, but apparently, it's a thing..."

The screen shows everything that the voice talks about.

"Of course, the hotel itself is only the tip of the iceberg! You find the time a little hot, right? Then don't hesitate to take a dive in the clear lake surrounding the hotel to explore and observe the aquatic fauna and other wonders, including a sunken ship! Or you can visit the snowy area at the north, where you could do some skiing, or simply build a snowman. If you are lucky, you could even find the legendary ice monster! Just don't get too close to it if you want to live..."

At this, the screen shows the silhouette of a dangerous bipedal monster with what is clearly a big chin.

"And for the ones that love playing games, and especially games where you can eat, be ready to test your skill at catching bubbles full of fruits! Unless you prefer playing with the giant pachinko board where YOU play the role of the ball? And this wouldn't be a tropical resort without some surfing! And there are more! You are convinced? Then come! And let's pass a good time at Dedede Resort! Dedede approved!"

At this, the screen turns off.

Dedede looks at Sweetie Belle and Kirby with a smirk, seeing the puffball drooling and the filly with a huge grin. "So, now you can't wait to reach the resort, uh?"

"Yes!" shouts Sweetie Belle before she starts bouncing. "Yeyesyesyesyes! I know that I will try to find that ice monster! And I will definitely explore that sunken ship! And I can't wait to try a cloud bed! Scootaloo has always told me that they are the best!"

The rest of the journey is spent with the filly talking excitedly about the resort.

---

By the time they reach the resort, Sweetie Belle just can't hold herself in place, to the point that she is the first to get out of the ship before it even reaches the coast, flying away thanks to a shield platform, much to Dedede's amusement. Following her example, Kirby inflates and flies toward the island.

Barely she reaches the coast, and Sweetie already searches where she can do the surfing game. Quickly spotting a sign, she enters the dome beside it, and finds herself on a bigger Warp Star that can't really fly, only glide, but at least, she can jump with it before gliding to avoid obstacles and reach what is in the air above the lake. While playing, she obtains strange little gold coins, one of them glowing with a rainbow light.

When she asks Dedede about this once he reaches the coast, he answers this:

"Those are medals. The servants found some here and there in the island while we built the resort. I don't know where they come from, or why this one is glowing rainbow, but I thought that they would make good prices for the games. I'm also sure that there are more hidden in the island."

Sweetie's smile grows at this. "Really? Then I will find all of them! Cutie Mark Crusader, treasure hunter! Yay!"

"Hey there!" Dedede grabs her tail before she can run away. "Before you start exploring the wild that is certainly full of dangers -remember the ice monster?- you should first take a few days to rest and have fun with what the resort proposes."

She laughs sheepishly at him. "You are right."

---

The next day, Rarity receives an envelope, and she immediately knows that it is from Discord, and so, probably from her sister. Opening it, she finds out that the envelope contains a letter along with a few photos showing Sweetie Belle having what seems to be a very luxurious spa time. Other photos show her sleeping on what must be a really comfortable cloud bed, drinking a cocktail in a bubble bath, surfing, skiing, eating a juicy melon, and so on.

Wherever she is, Rarity wants to join her! Now she is jealous! This spa must be as luxurious as the ones in Canterlot, maybe even more!

All the photos have mini-Discord at the front despite clearly holding the camera that has taken the photos, smiling smugly and doing a peace sign with his fingers.

Strange way to take photos.

She then reads the letter.

Fun time at Dedede Resort! You mad?

Discord.

A royal tropical resort! She's on vacation in a royal tropical resort! Well, she is happy for her sister. After all she has gone through, that's what she deserves. But still! A royal tropical resort! Not even Celestia and Luna have one! This must be beyond luxurious! This... This...

"Discord! You dare making me jealous! This is ON!"

Maybe she should have a word with Twilight about... No! No! She will not use her friend's title! But... A royal tropical resort... No! No means no! Oh... Her sister is so lucky... But no! She will resist! The spa at Ponyville is already good enough! But they don't have bubble baths...

Why are you torturing me like that Discord?

Because this is funny.

OUT OF MY HEAD!!!

---

For the first few days, Sweetie Belle mainly rests, eating the delicious fruits, playing fun games, having a good time, and finding or gaining medals here and there, sometimes with the help of Kirby. When the fourth day starts, she has found a total of 29 medals, including 7 rainbow medals. 14 in or around the four domes, 5 on the shore or in the water beside the shore, 5 more in the sunken ship which has been nice to explore despite the few mummy creatures living in it, and 5 others in the hotel. She is sure that there must be more in the snowy area and in the lake, as well as in that big teetering tree that is beside the hotel.

So, with Kirby, they start exploring those areas, starting with the lake, where they end up finding 5 more medals while exploring an underwater cavern that has been full of dangerous giant eels trying to eat them, including a big one that has seemed made of stone and that they have been forced to kill. Seeing how this cavern is dangerous with those eels, Sweetie puts a sign at the entrances to warn the visitors.

While exploring the teetering tree, which has been hollow, they find three more medals, but they end up making the tree fall. Thankfully, they can fly, or else, they would have fallen with it. Also, Dedede hasn't minded the destruction of the tree. He has known that the tree would fall sooner or later, so he has mainly used it as a temporary attraction.

Finally, the snowy area at the north of the hotel. 10 medals are added to the collection, but they have had to fight the famous ice monster, some kind of T-Rex made of ice, in a cavern. A few streams of fire in the face, and he has left them alone. Sweetie Belle still puts another sign at the entrance of the cavern.

By the end of the day, they possess a total of 47 medals, including 11 rainbow medals. Good treasure! And they have made the resort safer at the same time.

Strangely, in their exploration, they have found white keys with skull-shaped heads. Upon touching them, portals have opened and have sucked them into dark areas where they have been assaulted by creatures with skull heads on black and purple clouds. Thankfully, those things are weak, and each time, it hasn't taken long for Kirby and Sweetie Belle to eliminate all of them and take the skull chests that they protected, containing medals.

Despite those things being so weak, their number worries Sweetie Belle. Are they a new threat?

The next day, Sweetie Belle decides to explore the other islands, bringing Kirby and a bag with her. The Popopo Islands is an archipelago possessing four main islands, Dedede Resort being one of them. The other islands are a volcanic island named Volcano Valley, a deserted island with ruins named Sandy Canyon, and an island full of grasslands and forests named Green Grounds. She leaves Volcano Valley for later, wanting to explore the most dangerous island last, and starts with Sandy Canyon, because it's another occasion to explore ruins!

Funny how desert areas always have ruins.

Many hostile creatures live in that island, including those mummy things that can revive if the bandages that compose their bodies aren't destroyed. They also have to avoid quicksands, crushing block-like beings, and dangerous sandstorms, but nothing too hard for the two veteran explorers. A few mechanical enemies, remains of that lost civilization, try to stop them, including a giant robotic gear and a giant robotic claw, but they are nothing compared to the likes of the Heavy Lobster or the robot fought in the human world, so they are destroyed in barely one minute. Sweetie Belle is thankful for Kirby to be here, because there are some medals that she couldn't have obtained by herself, like the one where they have had to eat floating green apples forming the word MEDAL to make appear. With the apples being almost as big as her, she could have eaten only two, three if she had forced herself. But for Kirby, that's nothing. Also, they find more of those skull keys, forcing them to fight more of those skull things. In an area close to the center of the island, they end up saving a bunch of chicks captured by flying egg-like creatures for some reason, and their mother, a big spherical yellow bird with a red crest and wearing blue overalls, happily helps them reaching the center of the island to thank them.

At the center of the island, they don't find any medals, but encounter Lady Ivy, the queen of this desert. She is a plant that looks like a snake with a body made of green, thorny spheres, and has a pink head with big tan lips, and eight-pointed leafs around her eyes. At first look, she also possesses a hat, but it turns out that it is actually a red petalled flower with a yellow middle. For some reason, she lives under a seesaw. Thankfully, she is not hostile, and welcomes them happily. She reminds Sweetie Belle of her sister Rarity, but much more talkative, spending hours telling the story of this island and the civilization that lived here. The poor lady must not have much people to talk to...

When the sun sets and they leave the island, bidding goodbye to Lady Ivy, promising her to come back one day, they return to Dedede Resort with a bag full of 49 medals that Sweetie Belle puts in a chest with the others.

The sixth day, they go to explore Green Grounds. But quickly, seeing how peaceful the island is, and how fresh is the breeze here, Kirby decides to go take a nap, leaving Sweetie Belle to find the remaining medals.

---

What a nice day today. A small breeze. Barely any clouds. Not too hot. The perfect time for Dedede to drink the best cocktail that his servants have prepared for him while lazing on a chair on the roof of the hotel, under a parasol, with a Waddle Dee playing some ukulele beside him.

Yes, perfect.

Nothing can ruin this day.

But then, a dark cloud covers the sky above the resort, and a sudden dark cackle resound just as dozens of skull things start to fly toward the island.

Dedede sighs.

Nothing can ruin this day, except a bad guy deciding to conquer the world.

Just his luck...

---

By now, Sweetie Belle has successfully explored most of the island. All that remain are the areas at the center. This island, despite its apparent calm, has reserved a few surprises to the filly. A dark forest, an underground area filled with half buried skeletons (and probably more that are totally buried), a fight against what must have been the husband of the miss mole that they have 'fought' in their adventure against the Squeak Squad (Gosh, I forgot to go talk to her!), and another skull key.

Before exploring the center of the island, she decides to return to Kirby to see if he has finished napping and if he wants to join her. But as she gets close, the sky is suddenly covered in a dark cloud.

"What? There was barely any clouds five seconds ago!"

"Well well well. It's sunshine and rainbows, and suddenly, everything is covered in dark clouds coming from nowhere. What do you think it means?" asks Yin sarcastically.

She sighs. "A bad guy is on the loose. I should hurry to get to Kirby."

Thankfully, she is not far. However, she sees a being floating down from the clouds in the distance, just above the place where she knows Kirby is napping. The being, with a body composed of the same cloud than the skull things, also possesses a horned skull as a head, with two curved horns at the sides, and a smaller, straight horn at the top. The skull seems to have three eye sockets, including one in the forehead, under the horn, but so far, she can only see two glowing red eyes. To complete this, the skull has a jaw full of sharp fangs. Strangely, he also possesses a round purple nose that seems out of place with the rest. The being possesses a necklace made of the same skulls than the small skull things, and two floating skeletal hands, the right one wielding a black staff with a purple jewel. And judging by his size compared to the distance, this thing is really big!

He's probably the leader, or the origin of those skull things that she has fought until now. Speaking of the skull things, many of them start to float down from the dark cloud in the sky to attack the island.

Welp, looks like they will have to suspend the vacations.

She takes Yin and Yarn and shows them the being.

"Hey! Look! THIS is a real bad guy!"

"No need to add more salt in the wound!" they both shout.

The dark being then points the staff down, and a black lightning bolt is shot from it at the ground, probably at Kirby.

"Oh no! I must hurry!"

As she runs, and approaches Skull-Head, a small star suddenly comes to her, and before she can say anything, the star disappear inside her.

"What? No. No time to ask questions. I must help Kirby!"

She continues running, feeling at the same time something inside her. Looking up at Skull-Head, she thinks about flying to him to attack him directly. As she is about to create a platform, she suddenly feels something shifting inside her, and the next she knows, wings appear at her sides, and her uniform changes to adapt to them!

She can feel it, those are the wings of the Wing ability!

Getting over her surprise, she starts using them to fly to Skull-Head. Wanting to gain speed, the wings then turn into jet wings from the Jet ability, effectively giving her speed. She then starts accumulating energy around her right hoof until she finally reaches Skull-Head, hitting him in the right eye with enough force to blow a part of the skull around the eye socket, propelling Skull-Head back a few meters.

Skull-Head uses his left hand to cover the wound and growls before pointing his staff at her. With a sudden move to her right, she is able to avoid the black lightning coming from it before she flies above Skull-Head, before she charges at him, a sword, the same from the Sword ability, appears at her side. Upon reaching the skull, she swings the sword, cutting the skull diagonally between the eyes, from above the right eye to below the left eye, before the hammer from the Hammer ability appears too and she hits the skull with it, crushing the small horn at the top and causing cracks to appear around it.

Skull-Head seems to have enough, because he flies back just as the smaller skull things start to attack her. Leaving the job to his minions, Skull-Head flies to the dark cloud and disappears in it before the cloud disappears.

Despite their numbers, a good fifty, Sweetie Belle quickly eliminate all of them with a few swings of the sword and the hammer, the sword covered in fire and the hammer covered in ice, while her wings return from Jet mode to Normal mode. When all the skull things are killed, and she makes sure that none are left when she looks around, before she flies down and lands with a relieved sighs.

And then, she is joined by ten small Kirbys all looking at her in a cacophony of poyos. The Kirbys are not even half her size.

"What?"

The Kirbys then start to shout 'poyos' after 'poyos' while doing various signs to try to talk to her. But she can't understand anything with all of them talking and moving at the same time!

"Hey! Calm down, please! I don't understand what you are trying to say! He- I say- Plea- SILENCE!!!"

This shut the Kirbys. She then points at one of them at the front.

"You."

The Kirby nods and starts to explain with poyos and signs what has happened, which is easy to guess. They... He was napping, and then, Skull Head came and hit him with this black lightning from his staff, dividing Kirby into those 10 smaller and weaker versions of him that can't even inhale anymore. Then, as Skull-Head started to attack them, she came and stopped him.

The star is also explained. It's Kirby's heart, as in, the origin of his powers. It seems like Kirby's powers, added to her magic and her mastery of her soul energy, gives her the ability to use all of Kirby's abilities when she wants, like with Wing, Jet, Sword, Hammer, Fire, and Ice earlier. She confirms that she can use pretty much all of Kirby's abilities by trying successfully various abilities that she normally can't use even with her magic or that she doesn't master yet, like the Magic ability, Ghost, Missile, Wheel, and so on. She can even use more than one ability at the same time, like when she has been using Jet at the same time than Sword and Hammer! So many possibilities! She could even use Crash! But she will avoid it to no hurt the Kirbys.

She can even inhale! Too bad she hasn't gained a bottomless stomach with it, making it almost useless.

The problem is that, with her getting all the powers, the Kirbys have nothing. All they can do is charge at the enemies and pummel them with their number. Maybe she could...

She passes Fire mode and touches one of the Kirbys. The next instant, the Kirby gains the Fire ability, even if clearly a weaker version.

She grins.

One minute later, Sweetie Belle, at the head of a small army of 10 mini-Kirbys with Fire, Ice, Spark, Bomb, Stone, Needles, Ninja, Sword, Hammer, and Cutter, starts a new adventure!

...

But where do they start?

Author's Notes:

...

Necrodeus is screwed, right?

Chapter 57: Green Grounds

As always, Discord warns the ponies about the start of the new adventure, and the ponies, without the CMC that are in school, meet in one of Twilight's rooms to watch, curious what Sweetie will fight this time, and how powerful she has become since last time. Moreover, they have missed the last bad guy, Discord informing them that the evil knitting needles tried to invade Dreamland, but Sweetie Belle has been able to stop them when they attacked the castle, so this time, they don't want to miss.

"So, bad guy used magic to divide Kirby into ten smaller, weaker versions of himself, and Sweetie Belle now possesses all his powers," resumes Discord to the ponies before opening the portal. "That's all for now."

"Sweetie Belle with Kirby's powers?" asks Rainbow Dash. "How overpowered is she now?"

"Enough to give the bad guy a beatdown before he ran away. She can now use all the abilities that Kirby used until now without even needing to eat someone."

"All of them?" asks Rarity in wonder.

"ALL of them. I haven't seen it, but from what mini-me told me, it was quite the show."

"Oh! This means we may be able to see abilities that we have missed until now!" shouts Pinkie Pie.

"Now I can't wait," says Rainbow Dash.

"You will not have to wait long." At this, Discord opens the portal.

---

"Where do you think this Skull Guy went?" asks Sweetie Belle at the Kirby, front hooves crossed while she frowns in thought.

"Poyo..." says Stone Kirby, arms crossed too. "Poyo?" he asks at the Kirby at his left, Ice Kirby.

Ice Kirby deadpans at him. "Poyo poyo poyo. Popoyo poyo?" We are the same. If you don't know, how should I know?

"Maybe we should return to the resort and ask Dedede, assuming that nothing happened over there."

The kirbys all nods. However, before they start moving, they suddenly hear a familiar sound coming from above. Looking up, they spot a familiar airship with a red hat approaching.

"The Squeak Squad's airship? What are they doing here?"

The airship stops above them and a door opens. A Yellow Squeaker then comes and unroll a rope ladder before signing at them with his head to climb. Sweetie Belle looks at the Kirbys and they all shrug before climbing, curious to know what Daroach want with them.

The inside of the gondola is rather empty, only a few Squeakers and Daroach himself are present. Four of the Squeakers are sitting on chairs in front of computers at the front left, and another is in front of the steering wheel.

Once the last Kirby enters, Daroach starts to speak. "Welcome my friends."

Looking around, Sweetie Belle asks "Where are the others?"

"They are around. Searching for what I seek while scouting on what is going on. And I suppose that you want to know what is going on?"

"Well, yes. I mean, all we know is that this big bad skull guy attacked Kirby with his staff and divided him into those 10 smaller versions of him. Now we aren't sure what to do."

"Then let's make a deal. I help you, you help me. What do you think?"

"That's fair. We need help. So, what do you want?"

"You see, in those islands, there is an old treasure that I always dreamed of getting my claws on: medals."

"Medals? You mean like those ones?" She opens her bag and shows the medals she has collected to Daroach. His eyes seem to sparkle at seeing them.

"Yes! That's them!"

"We have been collecting them for a few days. Those ones are the ones that we found in Green Grounds."

As Sweetie talks, Daroach counts the medals. "They aren't all there."

"I thought so. I haven't explored the center of the island yet."

"Perfect. You would need to go to the center anyway."

"Why?"

"Necrodeus -that's the name of the bad guy- used his staff to seal the other islands in clouds of darkness. We can't go to them without defeating the guardians of the seals."

"Which one of them is at the center of this island."

"Exactly. With his staff, Necrodeus took control of most of the population of the islands, and the most powerful ones became the guardians of the seals. And the stronger being currently in Green Ground, without counting you, is at the center."

At this, Sweetie Belle and the Kirbys facepalm/hoof. "I bet everything I have that Dedede is now one of those guardians." Sweetie Belle then sighs. "And Lady Ivy is probably another one..."

"What is convenient is that the search of the medals is also needed if you want to beat Necrodeus," says Daroach.

"Really?"

He nods. "Necro Nebula, the island that is home of Necrodeus, is covered in a powerful cocoon of dark clouds. The only way for you to get rid of it is..." He takes one of the rainbow medals in the bag. "...by finding all those rainbow medals. They possess some Heart Power, and with all of them, the Heart Power will be enough to destroy the dark cloud."

She nods with a smile. "That's great! This means that I have already done more than half the job! I found all the medals of Sandy Canyon and Dedede Resort. They are stocked in a chest in my chamber in the resort. The only island that I have yet to explore is Volcano Valley."

"Ah yes... Volcano Valley. A dangerous island. I will tell you more about this island later, but first, we should finish with the medals of Green Ground. If you need advice to find the medals, don't hesitate to come back to ask. I have found out how to find all of them."

"Then why don't you come with us? It will be faster! You tell us where are the medals, and we collect them. And together, it will be easier to defeat the guardians, which means that we will join Dedede Resort and the other medals faster."

Daroach rubs his chin in thought. "Hum... I suppose that it is better this way. Very well. I'm joining you." He turns to the Squeakers. "I'm leaving the airship to you."

"Yes boss!"

---

Back on land, now with the leader of the Squeaks, they walked toward the center of the island.

"By the way Daroach, you seem to know much about this Necrodeus. Do you know who he is exactly?"

"I don't know his origins, but I know that he is the leader of the Skull Gang and that he wishes to draw all light in darkness. Normally, they fear the light, but since the day Necrodeus got his hands on this staff, they are able to go out in it. Until now, they have waited an occasion to start their invasion, only appearing to scare the locals or collect some of the medals, but it seems that with the arrival of Kirby in the islands, Necrodeus saw his chance."

"I see. He ambushed Kirby to eliminate the main obstacle and started the invasion at the same moment thinking that nothing would stop him now." She giggles. "Too bad for him, I'm here. I will beat him." She puts her hoof on her chest. "Especially now that I have Kirby's powers."

A chill crawls Daroach's back. "What do you mean by that?"

"When Necrodeus divided Kirby, there was actually an eleventh part: the heart of his powers. Under the form of a star, the heart came inside me, and now, I can use all of Kirby's abilities." She then looks at the Kirbys. "And I can give them the abilities that I want."

Thank the stars that I'm not her enemy anymore! thinks Daroach.

"Also, do you know who is the guardian here?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"Whispy Woods."

She facehoofs. "What is he doing here?"

"This island is home to most of his relatives, so he came here to celebrate his birthday."

"Oh? It's Whispy's birthday? Once we save him, I will make sure to congratulate him. And once we are done with Necrodeus, I will give him a gift."

"Poyo poyo?" asks Hammer Kirby. What could you give to a tree?

To say that the trek toward the center of the island is difficult would be a total lie. Between the ten Kirbys, Daroach, and especially Sweetie Belle, all the creatures trying to get in the way are knocked out faster than the time it takes to say it, and Sweetie Belle takes the occasion to try many combinations with the abilities.

A good example is that when a group of Oohroos, pear-shaped purple ape-like creatures, has tried to stop them, Sweetie Belle has used Metal to turn her body into metal, Wheel to turn her hooves into wheels, and Jet to make the jet wings appear. She has then turned the jet wings on, and thanks to the wheels, she has been propelled forward, striking all the Oohroos with her metal body like a bowling ball.

Another time, she has used both Tornado and Fire to create a tornado of fire in front of her, sweeping and burning everything in the way. Mirror and Laser/UFO are a terrifying combo. Stone or Metal and Needle are merciless on the slopes. Ninja has so much possibilities for the use of other abilities with the ninjutsu, and let's not even start with the Magic ability.

She has just become unstoppable. At this point, this adventure is more a game for her.

With this, it doesn't take long for them to reach the unexplored areas near the center of the island. Following Daroach who knows where to go, they jump in a tunnel submerged. Following it, they reach a point where they have to break a giant stone star block, opening a hole in the floor where the water starts going. They go through the hole too and enter a submerged cavern. Further, they press an interruptor that causes the apparition of a group of green apples that the Kirbys immediately eat. When the last apple is finished, a Jumbo Candy appear, and the Kirbys eat it too, making them invincible AND giant, turning them into an unstoppable force destroying everything in their way.

Thanks to that, they destroy a group of metal blocks that have been hiding a rainbow medal before passing a door, the Kirbys returning to normal just before it. In the next area, Sweetie Belle turns into metal, and her weight is enough to destroy the metal blocks blocking the way down. At the instructions of Daroach, they don't mind the door and continue down before destroying a cracked part of the wall hiding another medal. With the medal in their possession, they pass the ignored door and find a third medal in a shell. In another shell, they discover a door leading to a room with another shell containing a fourth medal, along with a jellyfish-like giant square-shaped creature that is quickly dealt with.

Returning in the previous area, Daroach points up at a part of the ceiling that is cracked, and upon destroying it, find yet another door leading them to an area out of water with a closed door in the ceiling. Daroach precises that the next medal is in a chest, and that the key is behind this door, so they have to open it. Opening it is not hard, they just have to press a few musical switches in a certain order. The order is shown with the switch that must be pressed flashing. With the door open, Daroach takes the key that drops, and they return in the previous area, only to pass another door at the end.

In the next area, they are blocked by a very fat bipedal green giant turtle-like being with a black shell and a helmet on the head sleeping in the way.

Sweetie Belle pokes the turtle's belly to wake him up. "Hum... Excuse-me sir. We need to pass. Could you move, please?"

The turtle wakes up, only to look at her angrily.

"Please. Don't be angry. I'm sorry for waking you, but we must pass. You just need to move, and you can go back to sleep."

The turtle answers her by getting up with clear bad intentions, but before he can do anything, she touches him, and the next instant, he is enveloped in electricity.

After a full ten seconds of this, she stops touching him, and asks again "Can you move please?"

"Trust us buddy, that shocking thing was nothing compared to what she can do," says Yin.

"Yeah. For your health, just accept to let us pass," continues Yarn.

The turtle quickly nods before slowly waddling out of the way, letting them pass.

"Thank you sir!"

After passing the door that has been behind the turtle, Daroach says "For being a hero, you can be evil when you want."

"Hey! I asked him gently! It's not my fault if he forced me to use a more persuasive move."

"Anyway. The chest containing the medal is in that giant shell," says Daroach as he points to a giant orange shell.

As he has said, opening it reveals a chest, and Daroach uses the key to open it, getting the medal inside. After the chest, they break a stone star block in the ceiling, and the water is suddenly expelled upward through the opened way, the current dragging them until they reach the surface. Back on dry floor, they get back their senses before passing a door, moving toward the next area.

The next area is extremely easy to traverse. They find a Jumbo Candy and use its power to smash their way through countless blocks and a few enemies, gaining easily two medals this way, Sweetie Belle going along with her Metal/Wheel/Jet combo. At the same time, Daroach find a key on an elevated platform, and uses it to open a chest in the path, obtaining another medal. By the end, they enter a small cavern where some kind of giant worm with round and metallic body segments and a spiked helmet is waiting for them, only to be smashed by the charging giant Kirbys, freeing the door trapped in his body. When they return to normal, they pass it, ready to explore the last area of the island.

In this last area, they finally encounter the famous relatives of Whispy Woods, the first that they encounter trying to blow them away with their breath, but they are quickly calmed down by sealing their mouths with ice, letting them pass while they also deal with the spider-like creature trying to grab them from above. Some cannons later, they find a rainbow medal behind some metal blocks in the ceiling, before Sweetie Belle gives to all the Kirbys the Wing ability so they can all fly above the water section that follow behind one of the living trees.

In this section, they find a medal between two mushrooms above them before they reach the end, avoiding the tree that has, for some reason, his base almost fully chopped. Giving back to the Kirbys their first abilities, they pass a small tunnel before they enter a darker part of the forest where they have to avoid a rolling giant log that is somehow alive. After avoiding it, they enter another tunnel where they have to avoid another rolling log, this time having no choice but to use a triangular hole in the log to not get crushed before they exit the tunnel and find a skull key.

Like the previous times, a portal opens and sucks everyone in a dark area where they are assaulted by a dozen of those skull things. Daroach names them Skullys, the grunts of the Skull Gang. The Skullys don't last more than five seconds against all of them united, and one of them drop the skull chest that the key opens, and they obtain another medal while the area becomes clearer. The portal opens again, and they are back in the previous area as if nothing happened.

Finding a door hidden in the leaves of another relative of Whispy, they find a fourth medal is found behind more metal blocks, using a spring cannon to destroy them, before returning in front of the relative of Whispy with the door hidden in his leaves. This time, they destroy metal blocks in the ground, opening the way to another tunnel where they have to avoid another rolling log while destroying more metal blocks to pass a door leading them to another medal that a spider holds. They easily deal with the spider, and return in the tunnel with the rolling log, but this time, they go the opposite way to find a cannon that get them out.

It's not long after that they end up in front of Whispy Woods. However, knowing who they are up against, they have come prepared, all the Kirbys now with the Fire ability. Before the tree can do anything, the fight is already over, and a purple fire get out of him before disappearing.

"Happy birthday Whispy!"

"Thank you Sweetie..." answers weakly a blackened Whispy Woods with a smile.

---

"Weird way to celebrate a birthday..." comments Pinkie.

Chapter 58: Sandy Canyon and Dedede Resort

Soon after beating Whispy Woods and destroying the seal that he has been guarding, Daroach's airship comes to pick them. Once inside, they see that Storo is now aboard, saluting at his boss.

"We confirm that the dark cloud around Sandy Canyon disappeared boss. However, we didn't find any medals," he says.

"Don't worry for the medals, we found all of them in Green Grounds," replies Daroach. "Let's go to Sandy Canyon to destroy the next seal."

"Yes boss!" shouts the Squeaker at the wheel.

Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle and Storo look at each other.

...

...

She smiles.

He sweats.

She activates the Magic ability and takes her hat. "Do you want to see a magic trick?"

"IIIIIHHH!!!" The next instant, Storo screams like a girl and runs at the opposite side of the gondola faster than he has even ran.

"Please. Don't bully Storo," says Daroach with a paw on his face.

"But I wanted to give him some cheese," she replies with an innocent smile while taking a big piece of cheese out of the hat.

"Cheese?!" they hear Storo shout before Sweetie Belle finds herself trapped in a bear hug by Storo who gobble the cheese. "Besties!" he then shouts while rubbing her head with his cheek like a teddy bear.

Despite almost having her bones crushed by the hug, Sweetie Belle is able to say weakly "You... You are welcome... Storo..." After saying that, she turns into a ghost and passes through the arm hugging her before turning back to normal once back on the floor. She then puts her right front hoof in front of her, and understanding, Storo gives her a fist/hoofbump.

They then hear something hitting the glass of one of the windows, and when they look, they see a Skully headbutting one of the windows, trying to break it. Soon, more skullys start attacking the windows, without succeeding at breaking them.

Daroach chuckles. "They can try, they will not be able to break those windows by just headbutting them with their skulls. They are armored. But just in case..." He turns to the Squeakers. "Use the cannons to blow them."

"Yes boss!"

Sweetie Belle looks at the Skullys as the cannons start to fire their homing missiles at them, eliminating a few of them.

"So they are out there too?"

"Yes. They started to patrol the sky around the islands. If you had used a Warp Star, you would have been forced to fight your way through them. Not like they would have given you any problems."

"Sandy Canyon in sight!" shouts one of the Squeakers.

"Ah. Sandy Canyon. My favorite island," comments Daroach. "With those ruins full of treasures, I could pass weeks exploring it to search all of them."

"Lady Ivy told me everything. How the island was very fertile before and how the civilization here was able to thrive." She sighs. "That's so sad that it's now just ruins and desert. I would've loved to see it. Instead, all I got were a few traps, and weird robots guarding the place. Why would anyone build a robot that looks like a gear? I should ask Lady Ivy once it's over."

"Speaking of her, since you have already found all the medals of Sandy Canyon, we will stop the airship directly above her to fight her, so we don't have to lose time traversing the ruins. We will do the same with Dedede Resort so we can go straight to the big part of this journey: Volcano Valley. We will have much to do here, and not just finding the medals."

Sweetie and the Kirbys all nod. "Okay." The filly then starts to think. "Mmh... How are we going to fight her? The Kirbys will not be able to use Fire this time, there will be thorny vines everywhere on the ground and they can't use Fire while inflated." She then raises an eyebrow and look at the Kirbys. "You can't even inflate anymore, right?"

Looking down in sadness, the Kirbys shake their heads.

"Thought so."

"They can try to use the seesaw to bonk her on the head when she is below it," proposes Daroach.

"It could work but..." Sweetie Belle thinks about all the abilities that she knows, and how to use them to make the fight easier. She then looks out at the windows, seeing the skullys being destroyed by the homing missiles. She smirks. "Ideaaaa!"

---

"I appreciate that she imitates me, but I'm not sure of what to think about the way she imitated me," comments Rarity.

"Why? It's exactly you when you suddenly gets an idea for a new dress and I'm unlucky enough to be around when it happens. You have that sadistic smile before shouting this while looking at me," says Rainbow.

She huffs and looks up in the opposite direction, eyes closed as she gives a look similar to the nobles of Canterlot. "I don't know what you are talking about!" However, she quickly hides behind her hoof a forming smile.

---

Upon reaching the island, the Skullys stop attacking the airship, and they are able to go to the center of the island without any problems. Sweetie Belle then opens the door of the gondola and looks down, easily spotting Lady Ivy, or at least, her vines, before her head seems hidden under the seesaw. Or maybe her head is buried in the ground.

She looks back behind her, and shouts "Let's go!" before flying down with the Wing ability.

Following her, a Kirby with a hat that looks like the top of a missile jump too, quickly followed by a Kirby with the Wing ability, the first Kirby grabbing his feet before the Wing Kirby starts to fly down. Four more Missile Kirbys jump, followed by four more Wing Kirbys, each of the Missile Kirbys grabbing the feet of one of the Wing Kirbys before they follow the others. Daroach is the last one to jump.

They fly down toward Lady Ivy, the plant spotting them from under the seesaw. She spits a few seeds at them, but they are deflected by a mirror from Sweetie Belle while the Missile Kirbys let go of the feet of the Wing Kirbys to let themselves drop. As Sweetie Belle starts attacking Ivy with some fire to distract her, helped by Daroach dropping a few bombs, the Missile Kirbys take their missile form and charge toward the plant. By the time Lady Ivy notice them, it is already too late, and the five missile explode as they hit her, the Wing Kirbys quickly coming so the Missile Kirbys can grab their feet before they fall on the vines.

Surprisingly, the five missiles aren't enough to knock Lady Ivy out, but she is clearly hurt, and she is stunned. At this, Sweetie charges toward her and uppercuts her under the chin with enough force to make her head hit the seesaw above her, causing the seesaw to tip on the opposite side as the blow stuns her even more. She then quickly flies above the side of the seesaw that is above Lady Ivy, which is now up, and turns into metal, falling on the seesaw. Her great weight causes the seesaw to tip again, bonking Lady Ivy violently on the head.

She hears her screams of pain, and a few seconds later, she hears the distinct sound of something hitting the floor. When she flies away from the seesaw and looks back, she sees Lady Ivy now knocked out, and a purple fire getting out of her before disappearing, like with Whispy.

She smiles and turns to the Kirbys with a big smile. "Good job everyone!"

"Poyo!" reply proudly the Kirbys.

She looks back at the knocked out Lady Ivy. "Sorry Lady Ivy. I promise to come back once it's over. We must go save Dedede now."

---

Back in the airship, they start to move toward Dedede Resort. Upon returning to the airship, they see that Spinny has been able to go back aboard during the fight.

"Storo told me that we are now allies, so..." He places his hand in front of him. "Let's forget about the past so we can work together."

Sweetie nods with a smile and gives him a hand/hoofshake to confirm it.

"I will give you your sunglasses back once we are back in the castle."

"No need. You can keep them. I have many others and I always lose one or two while treasure hunting."

"Thanks. Do you wanna know something cool?"

He raises an eyebrow. "And what is it?"

Sweetie then switches to the Ninja ability, making the ninja costume appear on her. "I'm a fellow ninja!"

He gasps. "Can we race?!"

She giggles. "Maybe another time. Let's first deal with Necrodeus."

At this moment, she sees the Skullys starting to attack the airship again, only to be blown by the cannons. She frowns at them.

"They are stubborn."

"They are just stupid grunts that only follow orders without thinking," says Daroach. "They will continue no matter how much it's no use or how many die."

"It is said that they are the poor guys that Necrodeus has been able to kidnap before transforming them into these things," says Spinni. "It's probably why he sends his minions to take some medals before letting those skull keys behind, so the poor fools taking the bet would end up turned into more minions."

"But those rumors aren't confirmed," informs Daroach. "Let's avoid jumping into such horrible conclusions."

"And yet, it's really possible. I mean, those Skullys must come from somewhere."

Sweetie Belle frowns thinking about this. "I hope that you are wrong and that they are just created the same way that Zero created the Dark Matters: from his body."

"But then, why would he try to kidnap people?"

Nobody knows...

...

Daroach clears his throat to divert the attention of everyone before speaking. "So, what is the plan against Dedede this time?"

"Just try to not be hit by his hammer. After that, there are no real strategies. And don't think that attacking him at distance will keep you safe, Dedede can easily get you no matter the distance if you let your guard down. The best way is just to attack him with everything you have until he is down."

At this, she gives the Kirbys the abilities Fire, Ice, Spark, Beam, Sword, Hammer, Bomb, Ninja, Cutter, and Fighter. Once done, she hears a Squeaker shouting that the resort is in sight, and looks at the front window, waiting for the coming fight.

Soon, they land beside the hotel, and they start exploring it to find Dedede. As they explore, they are attacked by the Waddle Dees working in the hotel, obviously controlled by Necrodeus, but they don't last long against the power of the whole group.

But no sign of Dedede...

They search in his chamber, where he takes his meal, the pool,and so on without finding him. They eventually enter a room at the top of the hotel without a roof and with a big window giving a great view of the lake.

"Not here too. Where is he?" asks Sweetie Belle irritated.

"Is there a secret room in this hotel?" asks Daroach.

"Not that I know..."

The eyes of the Cutter Kirby suddenly open wide while looking at the window, and points his arm at it with a "Poyo!"

Looking at the window, they see through it a big balloon looking like Dedede's head floating up. Attached to it is a basked, with Dedede himself inside it, looking at them with a smirk promising suffering.

"I didn't know that he had a balloon!"

The balloon continues to float up, before stopping above them, Dedede looking at them over the edge of the basket before he takes something from inside it and drops it, revealing it to be a bomb with a countdown.

"That's new..."

"Pff! No problems!" says Daroach before grabbing the Hammer Kirby and tossing him at the bomb. The Hammer Kirby hits the bomb, causing it to bounce back up at Dedede just as the countdown reaches 0, making the bomb explode in his face.

"Good thinking Daroach!"

"Instead of praising me, you should do something for the Kirby. They can't attack Dedede with their current abilities."

"Right!" She looks up at the Dedede balloon as Dedede drops two more bombs, and smirks. "And I know what to do. I let you deal with the bomb!" She shouts the last bit as her wings appear, before she flies up to the balloon without letting time for Daroach to reply. A sword then appear at her side, and as soon as she reaches the balloon, she swings the sword at it, opening a big hole causing the air in the balloon to escape. With the balloon losing air rapidly, the basket quickly lose altitude, barely escaping the explosions of the two bombs that Daroach has bounced back, before crashing in the middle of the Kirbys, all the puffballs ready to attack.

Angry, Dedede takes his hammer and jump from the basket, targeting Spark Kirby. In the middle of his jump, one of Sweetie's shields hits him on the top of his head, making him crash on the floor. Sword Kirby slashes him first, before the Kirbys that can attack from a distance, which are Fire, Ice, Spark, Beam, Bomb, Ninja, Cutter, and Fighter (with his Force Blast), throw all their projectiles at him. They are joined by Daroach with his bombs, and Sweetie Belle with her beams. Despite the assault, Dedede is able to get up before he starts to spin around with his hammer, forcing the Kirbys closer to him to run away., only to be stopped by Hammer Kirby bonking him on the head. Sweetie Belle also materializes the hammer and quickly flies toward Dedede before hitting him under the chin with it with enough force to make him fly back in the basket now covered by the balloon now empty of air. Daroach then smirks and throws another bomb at Dedede in the basket.

A basket full of those time bombs he has used at the start.

They jump out the window just before the resulting explosion engulfs the whole room. When they land at the base of the hotel, Sweetie Belle looks at Daroach. "Don't you think that was a little overkill?"

"You are the one telling me that? At least, it ended the fight faster."

"True. I'm not scarred for Dedede surviving this explosion, but now, he has probably been propelled by it, and he could have ended anywhere. And I was thinking of asking him to join us."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAA"

"I'm sure that the Squeakers in the airship saw-"

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!" CRASH!

Someone suddenly crashing not far beside them interrupts their discussion, the crash expelling a good amount of dust toward them, which forces them to protect their eyes. When the dust settles, they look at who crashed, which is none other than Dedede, totally blackened and upside down, his head stuck in the ground. At this moment, the purple fire gets out of him before disappearing.

"Seriously?" deadpans Yin and Yarn.

Sweetie Belle giggles. "Seems like we are lucky. Can you help him while I go in the hotel to search for something to heal him?"

Daroach and the Kirbys nod, and Sweetie Belle enters the hotel through a window.

---

It hasn't taken long to heal Dedede and to explain everything to him, the penguin growling at being controlled, again. When Sweetie Belle asks him if he wants to join them to fight the Skull Gang, he accepts immediately, swearing to take his revenge.

Dedede saved, Sweetie Belle has then led Daroach to her chamber to give him the medals from Sandy Canyon and Dedede Resort, and Daroach notes that they are effectively all here, to Sweetie's relief.

Now done with Dedede Resort, they all go back in the airship, finding out that Doc is now aboard too, his saucer parked at the right of the wheel, while Doc himself is now piloting the airship while Storo is napping against a wall and Spinni is simply looking at them. However, when he spots Sweetie Belle and the Kirbys...

"YOU! Don't think that because we are now working together I forgive you about all the wrongs you have done to me the previous time!"

"But Daroach, Storo and Spinni forgave us easily. Why not you?"

"Because I'm not as forgiving!"

Spinni then whispers to the filly "Remember, he is a grumpy old mule."

"Mmh..." Sweetie Belle ponders what to do. She looks at Doc, before looking around at the gondola, smiling. "Say, Doc..."

...

"Doc?"

...

"Doc!"

"What?!"

The joy of being old... She waves around her. "You are the one that built this airship if I remember well."

"Exactly! This airship is my baby!"

"How does it work? I mean, I know that there are airships back in my world, but none of them are like this one! Shooting tornadoes from the propellers! Firing a big laser! Being able to fly backwards! That's really impressive! Can you tell me please?"

"Of course I can! Take the wheel Squeaker."

"Yes Doc!"

"Prepare yourself to be mind blown by my genius!"

Spinni looks at the scene with his jaw dropping. "Did she just use his ego to..."

"Yes she did," confirm both Daroach and Dedede.

Daroach then looks at the Squeaker now at the wheel. "To Volcano Valley."

Chapter 59: Volcano Valley, Part 1

"Volcano Valley. There are many things to say about this island, and listen well, because they are all important. First of all, there was a war on this island long ago, and remains of this war, especially war machines, can still be found a little everywhere in this island. Some of them can be obstacles, but others can be useful to our quest.

However, this war caused a nasty side effect on the island: it became home to many supernatural beings, and I'm not just talking about ghosts. Yes, there will be a haunted mansion, but prepare yourself too to walk through giant cemeteries full of zombies."

Sweetie Belle gulps. "Zombies as in the kind that turn us into zombies if they bite us?"

"No thankfully. The only thing dangerous about them is that they will want to eat your brain."

"So, haunted mansion and cemeteries full of zombies. There's more?" asks Dedede.

Daroach nods. "Close to the center of the island, Space Oohroos built a base."

"Space Oohroos?" asks Sweetie Belle. "Seriously?"

"I know, this sound stupid, and yet, that's the truth. In the Popopo Islands grow the best bananas, and so, Oohroos from space came to take them, building their base somewhere they know that nobody would normally bother them thanks to the zombies and ghosts. Only, in their greed, they also took some of the medals, so we will have to take one of their spaceships to go into space and take them back."

"So, volcanoes, war machines, ghosts, zombies, alien monkeys... Something tells me that that's not all," says Sweetie Belle.

"Yes, there is one last thing. You see, with the ash expelled from the volcanoes, the sun is constantly covered, creating by the way the perfect ambience for the ghosts and zombies. Because of this, the Skull Gang turned this island into a stronghold. The Skullys built a tower that they use as their HQ, and the Skullseer, their leader, has been spotted floating around. Finally, Necrodeus turned a greedy pig into a giant monster with his dark powers, and now, the pig calls himself the Skullord, the commander of the Skullys invading the islands. If we defeat the Skullord, the Skullys patrolling the sky will go away, and Necrodeus will be forced to come back, giving us the perfect occasion to go fight him."

"This sure is a lot for just one island," comments Dedede. He then smirks. "But nothing we aren't used to. Well, it's the first time that we will fight zombies, but it's not that different from the hostiles creatures that we fight all the time."

"Uh... Does the Mumbies, or mummies in general, count as zombie-like enemies?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"Mmh? I didn't think about them..."

Daroach then continues speaking. "So, the island will be like this: near the edges, it will be a normal volcanic area without anything special. The parts with ghosts and zombies will be more inside the island and go all the way to near the center. The haunted mansion is halfway between the coast and the center, and so is the den of Skullseer. The tower of the Skullys is closer to the center, and the base of the Space Oohroos is at the opposite side. Skullord is at the center, however, to reach it, there is only one way, and the area where it starts has been sealed. There are two switches that we will have to press to destroy the seal. One is at the top of the tower, and the other is near the base, so it's probable that Necrodeus controls the Oohroos too."

"So, we first explore the edge of the island, then the cemetery until we find that haunted mansion and Skullseer's den. Once done, we go climb the tower and invade the base of the Oohroos to press the switches. We take the occasion to use one of their spaceship to go wherever they took the medals in space, then come back to go to the unsealed area to reach the center of the island and fight Skullord," resumes Sweetie Belle. "I'm right?"

He nods. "Exactly."

"We reached Volcano Valley, boss!" suddenly shouts Doc.

"Good."

---

As planned, they exit the airship at the edge of the island, immediately following Daroach's instructions to find the medals. Not surprising from a volcanic island, they have to traverse many rivers and lakes of lava, often using bridges. Surprisingly however, there are also water ponds, much to Dedede's joy in this heat. It's so hot that even the trees look like fire!

Speaking of lava, smaller versions of the lava guy in Neo Star come in their way, only to be turned into stone by Sweetie projecting water from her horn before they are smashed into pieces by Dedede. It's also thanks to the use of water and ice that they can traverse some of the lava, solidifying some of it to create a path.

At that moment, they are forced to separate into two groups, one of them with five Kirbys, Dedede, and Daroach, going straight forward through a path with lava rising and sinking periodically, finding a medal in a chest, while the other, with the five remaining Kirbys and Sweetie Belle, has to go down beyond metal blocks through a tunnel before reaching an area with a Skull Key above a big lake of lava, leading to the slaughter of a bunch of Skullys.

The two teams regroup at the end of those two paths before they have to separate again, the first team going straight forward where they have to enter a cavern full of dangerous enemies looking like giant blocks trying to crush them by rolling on them, one of them leaving a medal after being destroyed, while team two use a cannon to go up to a path with a few trees that Sweetie has to water to make them grow and obtain a medal from one of them.

---

"Trees don't grow that fast!" shouts Applejack.

"In this world, they do," retorts Pinkie.

---

They regroup again, and find a fifth medal after watering and plucking a plant in the ceiling of a small cavern before passing a door.

Later, Daroach leads them through another door, and they appear in front of cannon that shoots them up through many metal blocks before they are stopped by a ceiling. As they drop, the Kirbys fall inside a pink angry looking tank followed by Sweetie Belle, only for her to get stuck, while Dedede and Daroach fall beside it, Dedede being as big as the tank.

"What?" asks Sweetie Belle in confusion before looking down, frowning. "Oh come on!" She puts her hooves beside her on the surface of the tank before pulling to free herself, without success.

"Bwahahaha! Seems like someone lets herself go with the food of the resort!"

"Shut up! It's not me who is too big, it's this tank that is too small! This entrance is barely big enough to let the Kirbys pass! And they are barely half my size!" She turns to Daroach. "Is this one of the war machines left after the war? Was one of the factions composed of ants?"

Daroach snickers. "No, not ants. Just small people. Probably originating of Sandy Canyon. Try to find a way to get out once we reach the end of this path. Until then, why don't you play the commander of the tank and shout to the Kirbys when they can fire and where?"

She groans. "Fine! Stop laughing Dedede!"

At this, the tank starts its advance, Sweetie Belle shooting things like "A little to the left! A little up! Fire! Now more up! Fire!" to help the Kirbys in the tank. Each time the tank fires, it actually shoots one of the Kirbys as a projectile, then the Kirby reenter the tank by the cannon.

They quickly find a first medal after destroying a stone star block, then they have to destroy a bomb block, which has for effect not only to destroy the wall blocking the way, but also the floor under the wheels of the tank, making the tank drop a few feet and giving quite the scare to the filly, to the amusement of Dedede and Daroach.

After this small moment of panic, they reach a place where they have to choose either continuing forward, or opening a trap in the floor to make them drop. In one way like in the other, Daroach says that there are medals. Under his advice, Sweetie lets the tank pass on the trap, forcing her to lower herself to not hit her head on the low ceiling, before Dedede opens it by hitting the switch just above. Once the trap opened, Dedede and Daroach jump in the hole, going the second path and leaving Sweetie and the Kirbys to find the medals in the first one.

They find one by destroying another stone star block after climbing a few slopes just before reuniting with Dedede and Daroach, the two of them showing that they have found another medal. Now together again, they continue after destroying a wall of star blocks without destroying the bomb blocks in the floor as told by Daroach, only to reach a small passageway barely big enough for the tank, which means that there is not enough place for Sweetie. To help her, Dedede enters the passageway and starts hitting the ceiling with his hammer, giving all his strength to break it so there is enough place for the filly. Thanking him, they pass, and they now have to destroy a few flying mechanised bombs before finding a rainbow medal that has been trapped in a spheric thing with four green switches.

After that, they reach another small passageway a little longer than the previous one, forcing Dedede to work hard with his hammer so Sweetie can pass, the filly helping him with Giga Force Blasts. they then go down a slope becoming more and more steep, leading to the tak gaining more and more speed. The slope ends in a ramp which help the tank jump above a hole. In the middle of the jump, Sweetie shoots a beam at a bomb block above, freeing another medal for them. They are quickly joined by Daroach and Dedede, who have been left behind with the tank going too fast.

After a couple of minutes of advancing without anything happening anymore, they suddenly hear something rolling and approaching from behind. Sweetie Belle turns her head to see what it is, only for her eyes to widen.

"Kirby! Turn the tank! Quick!"

While the tank still moves forward, the turret turns around to face the thing chasing them. The thing is a giant tank-like machine with a conveyor belt on the front, on which move many cannons, and at the sides, they can see eight eyes, from top to bottom two blues, two greens, two yellows, and two reds, and they are clearly looking at them. The toothy grin painted under the red eyes, similar to Kabula's, doesn't help their case. Behind the eyes are also six smokestacks.

She deadpans. "Of course... 'Hey! They are using a tank! Let's use a bigger tank! With more cannons!' Genius!"

"The Quadgun, a powerful war machine..." says Daroach. "Its only weakness are its eyes."

"Alright, the eyes, nothing new here."

The battle begins, the Kirbys, with Sweetie's help, shooting at the eyes of the Quadgun while the Quadgun shoots back cannon after cannon as they move down on the conveyor belt. Daroach destroys the projectiles with his bombs, and Dedede hits the red eyes with his hammer, leaving Sweetie and the Kirbys to deal with the six others. While giving the instructions to the Kirbys, Sweetie Belle also attacks with her own bombs from the Bomb ability, and before long one of the blue eyes is destroyed by the Kirbys, followed by one of the yellow ones by Sweetie's bombs. Dedede is able to destroy the first red one and starts attacking the other, and Daroach starts attacking the cannons. One by one, cannons and eyes are destroyed, until nothing remains, and the Quadgun explodes, leaving only the wheels and freeing a door on them, just in time because the tank has been about to charge into a wall.

"Note for everyone. Bigger is not better," concludes Sweetie.

"It still tends to help," replies Dedede.

"Now, how do I get out of this tank? I'm still stuck!"

"You wait a week or two without eating anything?" proposes Dedede with a snicker, only to take an explosive ball on the face, blackening it. "Eh. Worth it."

"Poyo!" they then hear, and one of the Kirbys gets out of the tank by the cannon before walking on it to get in front of Sweetie Belle. "Poyo poyo! Poyo Poyo! Poyo!" As he says that, he makes the sign of something getting smaller before pointing at Sweetie Belle.

"You mean I can become smaller?"

He nods.

"One of your abilities?"

He nods again.

"Alright... Let's see..." She closes her eyes, focusing in the power in her corresponding to Kirby's heart. She feels one by one the abilities in it, until... "I think that I found it." And indeed, the next instant, she becomes smaller, a little smaller than the current Kirbys, about as big as a newborn foal, her clothes shrinking with her, before she falls in the tank. Still small, she flies out of it, followed by the other Kirbys.

"So you have an ability to shrink yourself?" she says with a more high pitched, squeaky voice. "This could be useful to pass by small passageways, or to not get spotted by big enemies. I'm sure that I could do the same with my magic. Maybe I could even become giant!"

"I thought you said 'bigger is not better'?" says Dedede.

"But like you said, 'it still tends to help'." At this, she returns to her normal size.

"Becoming smaller and bigger at will is one of my dreams," says Daroach. "It would make infiltrating easier, and I could reach some treasures inaccessible."

"I'm sure that Doc could build a machine to do that."

"He has been working on it, but so far, it has only ended in failures."

The discussion ending there, they pass the door on the remains of the Quadgun, and eventually reach another area a little closer to the center of the island. Here, they find themselves walking on a stone bridge above a sea of spikes, and suddenly, walls of stone come from the ground at both sides of the bridge, trapping them. Then, boulders are expelled from the volcano at the center of the island toward them. Quickly, Sweetie gives the Wing ability to all the Kirbys, and they fly around the wall blocking the way, escaping the boulders, only for more boulders to be expelled toward them, following them.

"That's not a coincidence!" shouts Dedede. "Something is throwing those boulders at us!"

"It's Skullord!" confirms Daroach.

"He can target us here all the way from the center of the island?!" asks Sweetie in surprise, which Daroach confirms.

So they run, Daroach at the head, sometimes having to destroy the boulders about to fall on them. After destroying some star blocks in the way, they find a hidden door that leads them to a group of metal blocks that are destroyed to find a rainbow medal, before they pass another door that gets them back to the previous area, where they quickly enter another door.

In the section that follows, they walk on a platform trapped between two walls, and it starts to rise. Sweetie quickly gives the Bomb ability to all the Kirbys, and they all start to destroy the many falling boulders, finding, to their surprise, a medal in one of them just before the platform reaches the top.

They pass a door, and after it, Skullord seems to have enough, because he throws a giant boulder threatening to crush all of them in one go. They could easily escape it, but Sweetie, the Kirbys, and Daroach have a feeling that they must destroy it. After hitting it many times, they are successful, and a medal drops from the remains of the boulder. With the medal in their possession, they rapidly run away before more boulders start to rain, and they pass a door, transporting them elsewhere in the island.

"I think that we are done with the edge of the island," informs then Daroach.

"So time to go to the cemetery?" asks Sweetie Belle.

He nods.

After some time, they eventually enter a tunnel that they have to climb while fighting a bunch of flying pig-like creatures with a skull on their head and blowing air strong enough to push them back from their snout. They take a cannon propelling them up through metal block, and they landed at the surface, finally discovering the cemetery, spotting in the background a fortified wall, and beyond it, a dark tower with purple smoke circling it and with windows at the top forming an angry face. Two protrusion at the side also form curved horns. As Daroach has said, the sky is totally covered in ashes, plunging the area in an eternal darkness.

"Seems like a fun place," comments Dedede. "Number one place where I will pass my next vacation."

Daroach sighs. "I hate cemeteries."

Sweetie Belle looks at him in confusion. "Why?"

Daroach covers his eyes with his hat. "Have you ever heard stories about people discovering a tomb with great treasures, taking everything, only for the people to die one by one in mysterious circumstances in the following days?"

Sweetie Belle gets shivers. "Yeah, around campfires, while telling horror stories with my friends. It's a classic."

He nods. "You know that from horror stories... But sometimes, horror stories are true. You know that I consider the Squeaks as my family?" he asks her before answering. "Because they actually ARE my family, not by blood, but by bond, because when I was young, they were there for me. There are two reasons why I avoid cemeteries. I don't steal from the dead, and they remember me... of them. Don't steal from a cemetery, or you may end up in one. That's the best advice that I can give. Trust in my experience."

"Oh..." She looks at him in sadness before hugging him, only for him to teleport a few feet away.

"Let's just go."

She sighs before nodding. She then looks at the tower. "Is that the tower of the Skullys?"

"Yes. And if you feel that it is watching you, it's probably because it IS watching you. Just don't mind it for now."

Dedede sighs. "Yeah... So much fun..."

They break a few star blocks to enter a tunnel, only to see a purple cloud-like being with an evil face coming toward them with an off-key whining sound that send chills on their backs.

"Don't touch that thing!" Daroach quickly warns the other. "Let's just move back until it goes away."

As they do so, Sweetie asks "What happens if we touch it?"

"They are named Banishback. Yes, there are more than one. If we touch them, they banish us back at the previous door. It doesn't harm us, but it is really annoying. We don't want to climb this tunnel again."

Once the Banishback disappears through the ceiling, they move through the tunnel before getting out of it. From there, they encounter more of them, along with floating helmets with a spear named Helmees, clearly haunted by ghosts, and spiders. On the way, they find a Skull Key, meaning a new slaughter of Skullys. Not surprising with them being close to their tower.

Not long after, after passing two giant Banishbacks, they pass a door, and in the next area, they have to choose between two paths again one going forward through a door, and another going down through metal blocks. So like the first time, they separate into the two same teams.

Team Sweetie Belle pass by the door, leading to a pass with pulleys, Sweetie using Metal on them to quickly open the way, and they have to fight their first zombies, which are actually Beambons, living beans with a bulbous body, two leaves on it, and orange feet, zombified, with a sickly green color for the body, tattered leaves, red eyes, stitched mouth, and purple feet. At least, the stitched mouth means that they can't bite them, or even try to eat their brain. They find a Jumbo Candy, and thanks to it, they have no problems advancing, even pulverising the Banishbacks touching them. Sweetie takes a chest that has been hidden behind star blocks, and they find the key not long after between two walls of stone blocks each with a bomb block. A new medal in their possession, they pass the door that follows.

Team Dedede-Daroach passes by the metal block, and they have to pass through a section full of murky water with many Banishbacks suddenly appearing in the way before disappearing, forcing them to be cautious. They reach a big shell containing a medal before entering a vertical room, the entrance closing behind them. Two giant Banishbacks then appear below them, forcing them to quickly swing up through many blocks before pushing a large block at the top to get out, having to deal with a few spiders tossing spiky balls while pushing it. After some time pushing it, they pass a door.

The two team reunite just before passing another door that leads them to another part of the cemetery. They avoid some weird black carnivorous plant trying to eat them from under a small bridge, punch it to make it go back down with a whimper, and continue, seeing that this part of the cemetery is in the middle of a dark forest that would pass the Everfree Forest for an enchanted forest. At least in the Everfree Forest, the trees have leaves. But here, not only the trees have absolutely no leaves as if they are dead, the branches looking like claws, but they also have faces looking as if they are moaning in despair or in pain. The ground is totally devoid of vegetation and is cracked everywhere like in a desert.

And there are Skullys everywhere!

"Out of our way, Skull-Faces!" shouts Dedede before swinging his hammer above him, hitting three Skullys strongly enough to break their skulls.

While Dedede deals with the Skullys with the help of two Cutter Kirbys, the others, under the instructions of Daroach, push a gravestone to reveal a cracked flour.

"Please, tell me we are not doing something that will get us cursed," pleads Sweetie Belle.

"Don't worry, it's not a real tomb. There is a cave hidden under it, with one of the medals."

At this, Daroach tosses a bomb on the cracked floor, blowing it to reveal a hole. Once Sweetie Belle calls Dedede and the two Kirbys, they all jump in it, entering a dark cave with a few candles to light it, but most of it is still plunged in darkness. So Sweetie Belle lights her horn with the light spell, and with her at the head of the group, they start exploring the cave, quickly finding the medal hidden in a cracked ceiling. After taking it, they exit the cave by taking the cannon that propels them back at the surface, where the Skullys are waiting for them.

Forced to advance while fighting the Skullys, Daroach floats above a ledge and comes back with a giant purple Skull Key with sharp teeth.

"Wow! This key is scary!" says Sweetie Belle.

"It is the key to the den of Skullseer. This means that it must not be far. Prepare to fight a stronger opponent than those weak Skullys."

"Bah, we will just smash his skull like we did to all those Skullys," says Dedede with confidence. "Strong or not, against us, it will change nothing."

"Remember that he is the leader of the Skullys. He will probably use them to try to get us with their number."

"Their number is nothing against our power! They are just too easy to kill!"

They continue advancing, enter a tunnel where the Skullys don't follow them, pass more carnivorous plants, and find another Skull Key. After dealing with more Skullys -at this point, it's a wonder that there are still Skullys to fight them-, they exit the tunnel, and they now have to deal with living tombstone flying and trying to crush them before using a cannon shooting them through metal blocks in the floor.

With this, they exit the cemetery part and return to a more volcanic part with Beanbon mummies. After passing a door, they are in an elevator in a cavern where they have to turn a crank, raising the elevator. They quickly see that the lava here is also rising so they hurry, dealing with moles coming out of the walls to throw bombs at them, Beanbons mummies, and even Gordos, including a giant one that they barely avoid.

Once reaching the top, they press a few musical switches to get another medal, and take a cannon that brings them back in the cemetery. Another cannon later, and they are attacked again by the Skullys, including one holding a chest. Targeting this one in priority, which is surprisingly more resistant than the others, they take the chest before arriving in front of a big double door with a dark golden skull at the top and a big purple lock with finds sculpted on it, making it looks like someone's holding it from behind.

"Skullseer's den," says Daroach.

"Wait!" shouts Sweetie. "We should find the key to this chest first!"

"Already done," they hear Dedede say, the penguin pointing at the Kirbys, one of them holding the chest. "They went ahead and found it."

"Poyo!"

"Wonderful Kirby!"

Once the chest is opened, they use the big purple Skull Key to open the purple lock, and they pass the doors to Skullseer's den. This leads them to an area similar to the one they go each time that they find a Skull Key, and they are welcomed by a dark cackle, prompting them to look up to see the Skullseer himself floating. He is certainly the leader of the Skullys, because he actually looks like a bigger version of them, only he possesses red eyes, sharp fangs, and two big curved horns at the sides.

"Here he is," says Dedede. "Not that impressive. It will be fast."

With another dark cackle, Skullys appear around the Skullseer before they attack the group, only to be massacred like the weak and stupid grunts that they are. But the Skullseer continues to send more while remaining out of reach. Or so, he thinks. Letting the others deal with the Skullys, Sweetie Belle uses Wing to rapidly fly to him before she grabs him and slams him on the floor, cracking his skull. Before he has time to fly again, Dedede jumps and falls on him with all his weight to pin him down, and Sweetie Belle comes to grab him.

She giggled while looking at the cracked skull in her hooves. "To be, or not to be, that is the question. But for you, the answer is clear." She crushes the skull between her hooves, leaving a rainbow medal. "Not to be."

With this, the Skullys stop coming, and a door appear, signifying the end of the fight.

"Bwahaha! That's the end of the Skullseer! Told you! And soon, it will be Necrodeus' turn!" shouts proudly Dedede.

"Don't underestimate Necrodeus. With his staff, his powers have nothing to do with this weakling," warns Daroach.

Sweetie Belle giggles. "Daroach, remember that I half killed him just by myself despite his staff. What do you think his chances will be with all of us?"

He smirks. "Good point."

At this they pass the door.

---

...

"Did she just use Shake Spear?" asks Twilight.

Chapter 60: Volcano Valley, Part 2

Following the victory against Skullseer, the group continues its journey through the cemetery, dealing with a few living tombstones trying to crush them. However, they eventually come before a wall with nowhere to go beside left or right to go around it. But before they start to do such a thing, Daroach points up his wand, letting the rest of them spot a red ribbon seemingly floating in the air, or more exactly, dropping from something invisible. Understanding what to do, the Kirbys jump at it and pull it down, tugging down a tarp that has been camouflage like the background and that Sweetie could swear hasn't been there before they tug the ribbon, or else, they would have seen it when they have come. It's even more confusing when the tarp reveals a mansion hidden behind it, looking really hold, with bones used as frames to the windows, and two giant bones mounted with skulls decorating the front, the eyes of the skull glowing. Nothing can be seen through the windows. Oh, and the roof looks like it's half dematerialized. Now she knows that there has been some illusion at work, or they would have seen the mansion from the side.

Stupid ghosts playing with their minds.

"Is that the haunted mansion that you talked about?" she asks. Dumb question, she thinks, because the appearance of this mansion really screams 'haunted'. But it's always good to ask just in case.

"Yes, it's this one," answers Daroach. "But before we enter it, I must warn you. There are many dangerous things that loom in the darkness in there and that we will not be able to fight back. In this manor more than anywhere else, remain in the light, unless you want to become another inhabitant of this mansion."

His warning give chills to everyone, and Dedede says "Noted."

At this, they enter the manor, entering a dark room with a few lights coming from lamps in the ceiling. From the little that they can see thanks to the light, the room, and probably the whole mansion, is really decrepit, with many holes everywhere, the forest and the cemetery visible through them, torn curtains hanging from the ceiling, and more spider web that they have ever seen in their life. There are also sculpted pumpkins, their sculpted eyes seemingly looking at them, some of them even looking through holes in the wall, making them uneasy. Add in candles that are not lightened, a chandelier with angry eyes looking more like a ghost, silhouettes of bats flying in the darkness, and an atmosphere that screams 'get out or you are gonna die', and you have the perfect haunted mansion for a good Nightmare Night. Excepted that nopony in their right mind would willingly want to go in it, even in Nightmare Night. This mansion is just too... scary. Even Sweetie, despite having fought ghosts, zombies, mummies, and creepy abominations, is glad that to be with her friends rather than being alone in this place. Even the cemetery and the dark forest outside aren't as wrong as this manor.

As Dedede knocks out the bats attacking them, Daroach points his wand in front of him, showing a door up on a platform, and a bomb block in the floor. "There are two ways. We will have to separate again. Sweetie, you will go up. Normally, this is the more dangerous path, but I have heard that you can create light with your horn, so you should be safe. Meanwhile, me and Dedede will take the way down."

"Alright, but just in case..." She gives the Fire ability to all the Kirbys, their fire hats producing light.

"Good thinking."

So Sweetie Belle and five of the Kirbys take the door, entering another part of the manor where Sweetie immediately lights her horn. Advancing slowly, they avoid being crushed by those block-like beings before seeing weird mirror-like blocks. When they are lightened, they disappear, letting the team continue until they reach a room with some lamps currently on and with a platform that they will have to press with their weight. They also see a Beanbon and a skull flying back and forth in panic. But then, the lamps turn off, and the skull covers himself in a purple cloud before charging at the Beanbon, devouring him.

Even if it's the Beanbon's fault for coming all the way here despite the clear danger, it's still disturbing to see something being eaten alive. At least, now, they know not to attack these things in the dark. But thanks to Sweetie's light spell, and the Kirbys' Fire ability, this will never happen.

So they easily destroy the skull before pressing the platform to open the door to let them exit this room. Before long, they reach a cannon that shoots them up through metal blocks, and in the following room, they have to pull down a tarp again, destroying the illusion, making a wall and windows disappear and revealing a couple of Waddle Dees that has been hidden behind them, bombs ready to be thrown. More victims of Necrodeus.

Rather than letting them here to be devoured by those flying skulls, they first knock them out before lifting them, two Kirbys for each Waddle Dees, and they continue. Another tarp further reveal however four more Waddle Dees... This time, Sweetie is the one lifting all of them with her magic.

Following the path through more of those skulls, mirror blocks, and mummy Beanbons, they find the first medal of the manor inside a flower blooming thanks to the light. However, just after, they have to choose between two doors. Three Kirbys take the door above, Sweetie hoping that they will be able to survive without her help, while the filly and the remaining two Kirbys take the door below. In the next section, they have to push big candle blocks blocking the way, including one that is being pushed toward them, but whatever has been pushing it hasn't been strong enough against them. When the block falls in a hole, Sweetie tries to not think about the squishing sound she hears. A second medal is found just after that, and they join with the three other Kirbys before passing another door.

But now, they enter a room full of blue clouds similar to the purple ones, except that they don't move, and when the light reaches them, they simply disappear before reappearing when the light goes away. The most dangerous path indeed. If that wasn't for their light, they would have had to follow a moving lamp, and it would have been very risky. While traversing the room, they find a third medal on a platform just before reaching the exit door.

The door leads them outside of the mansion, where Dedede, Daroach, and the remaining Kirbys are waiting for them on a big stone blocks that they have pushed, the mouse showing them a medal. Smiling, Sweetie Belle shows them the three medals they have gotten, as well the six Waddle Dees they have saved.

"There were Waddle Dees in there?" asks Dedede in surprise.

"They were ready to embush us with bombs. To think that Necrodeus would send Waddle Dees here despite the clear danger of them being eaten alive by those skulls things..."

Daroach takes a communication device and starts talking to it. "Hey Doc, we need you to come at the haunted mansion with your saucer."

...

"We need you to use your tractor beam to lift six Waddle Dees back to the airship."

...

"Yeah I know, but you can thank Necrodeus for this. That thing has no mercy."

...

"Very well, see you quickly. We are at the back of the mansion." And he turns the device off. "Doc is coming. He will bring the Waddle Dees to safety."

"Thank you Daroach."

They don't have to wait long before they see Doc approaching in his saucer. Using his tractor beam to lift the Waddle Dees, he flies away, letting the group continue.

While dealing with zombies coming out of the ground, Daroach says "We aren't finished with the mansion yet. There are still some medals in it."

"Then why are we outside?" asks Dedede.

"To use a door in the garden to enter the second part. It's also a good occasion to find the medals there."

Speaking of medals, they find a rainbow one by destroying a metal block in the floor, before they have to fight a bunch of living tombstone to open the way. just as they finish the fight, everything suddenly becomes darker, and lightning appear, making the dark area flash every few seconds, making the area even more scary.

"Just what we needed..." says Dedede with a groan.

They pass a door leading them to another part of the forest/garden behind the manor, Sweetie and the Kirbys using light to lead them through the dark. Thanks to this, they find a new medal in a star block not long before reentering the mansion, only for the door that they pass to lead them beside some kind of plantation of pumpkins, all sculpted with faces of course, along with a few trees. Not minding the pumpkins that are REALLY looking at them, they follow the path, avoid more block-like things wanting to crush them, which they probably wouldn't have seen in the dark, and they reach a small passageway barely big enough for Sweetie and Daroach to pass, forcing Dedede to crawl, to his annoyance. In it, they destroy a few metal blocks, opening a way in the floor.

Jumping in the hole, they pass a door that leads them to another part beside the pumpkins, and they have been forced to destroy a giant block thing trying to roll on them and blocking the way. They avoid spiked giant star blocks suddenly moving up of down, and use a cannon before destroying another block thing containing a rainbow medal.

Entering a room where the door closes behind them, they pass a door flying with bat wings, not minding the false one with the evil face beside it. After a small cannon maze, finding a medal in it, they enter another room with the door closing behind them, and pass another flying door, still not minding the false doors, this time two. In the next area, they suddenly hear an evil chuckle, before something charges at one of the walls, almost destroying it.

"What is it Daroach?" asks Sweetie Belle, gulping.

The thing charges at the wall again, fully destroying it, revealing what it is. A giant shadowy monster with a big mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, with no limbs. Somehow, they can see through the eyes. It chuckles again.

Daroach sweats. "Shadowbite, the master of this mansion... Probably the responsible of the war that shook the island in the past."

Shadowbite looks at them evilly before advancing, only to hesitate upon reaching the light.

"Oooh?" says Dedede with a smirk. "Master fears the light? Hahahahaha! A shadow is still a shadow! We have nothing to fear from it!"

Shadowbite growls at this.

"Even so, let's fight this thing," says Sweetie Belle. "Leaving it behind would be too dangerous."

"And how will you fight it, clever girl?" he asks.

Sweetie answers by taking Yin and Yarn who yell "Hey!"

"Time for you to do your job."

And so, she starts knitting, creating something rather big. Clawed feet, an elongated, muscled body ending with a long tail, two clawed hands, spikes on the back, a long neck, and a head with a big jaw full of sharp fangs and more spikes on it. For the eyes, she uses buttons. And thus, she creates a dragon, with a purple body, green light at the front from chin to tail, and green spikes.

Dedede's jaw drops. "Clever girl..."

Sweetie climbs the dragon, who roars at a sweating Shadowbite.

---

"Hey! that's me! I mean, that's adult me! Made of yarn! And smaller!" shouts Spike.

"Go Spikezilla!" they hear Sweetie shout.

The yarn dragon roars again before punching Shadowbite on the nose, sending it flying back where it comes from and through a wall. The shadow leaves behind a medal that Sweetie quickly takes before the slack-jawed expression of everyone, except the Kirbys who just jump in joy shouting "Poyo".

"Good job Spikezilla! So much for the master of this mansion." She looks at Yin and Yarn. "You saw that? That's a real dragon. Not like that oversized lizard that you created against me."

"Yeah yeah..."

"We understand..."

"You saw that everypony?!" shouts Spike. "She used me! SHE USED ME!! Scootaloo and Apple Bloom will not believe me when I tell them that! And I was so cool! Did you see when I punched that shadow thing through the wall?"

Applejack chuckles. "Yeah we saw."

"Woah, the power to give life to what she creates with yarn," says Rainbow Dash in awe. "You imagine what she could create with it?" She then starts to get excited. "She could create a giant robot me that shoot lasers from the eyes! That would be beyond awesome!"

"And meanwhile, she broke our dear princess nerd, again," says Discord with a laugh while pointing at Twilight who is looking at the portal with wide eyes without moving. "I thought that she learned her lesson."

"Seems like things a little too much impossible but still happening are still her weakness," says Pinkie. "Like creating and giving life to a dragon from yarn coming out of nowhere and without any spell to animate it. Don't worry, she will quickly recover."

"I know," replies Discord, before taking a marker. But before he can start to use it on Twilight, his arm is covered in magic, stopping it, and Twilight looks at him with an annoyed frown.

"Don't think about this."

"Drat."

Pinkie giggles. "Told you."

---

With Shadowbite gone, Sweetie has made the dragon disappear with a swing of Yin, and after some praises, the group advance, finding a last medal by plucking a plant hanging from the ceiling, before they exit the mansion, this time for good.

But their next destination should be as dangerous: the tower. After a small walk through the cemetery, the storm disappearing, making the area clearer, they return to the art of the island with the tower in sight. Destroying a giant hand made of stone cause a cannon to appear, which shoots them toward the tower, entering it through star blocks.

Inside the tower, there are thankfully no Skullys, probably all gone patrolling the sky around the islands of the cemetery, but another problem appears: it's teetering, forcing them to quickly move from one side of the tower to the other to not make it topple while climbing the platforms. They rapidly find a first medal before passing a door, reaching a part of the tower with holes in the walls and spiked balls that roll with the tower teeters. At least, they can use the holes to make some of the balls fall from the tower. The pigs with skull on the head return too, the air that they blow threatening to propel them through the holes and make them fall. Dedede is also eventually forced to wait outside the tower, being too big to pass through some parts of the tower, unless he wants to always crawl, making him vulnerable. However, once he is out of the tower, he has to deal with zombies and Skullys, but it is no problem for him.

After more climbing, they traverse a section where the walls at two sides of the tower have been fully destroyed, making the threat to fall in this section constant, but the walls quickly come back as they pass another door. But then come more of those giant hands of stone, those things ramming the tower to try to knock it over, forcing Sweetie and the others to quickly destroy them. They find a second medal on the way before they reach the top where a switch and a cannon are waiting for them. Daroach says that the switch is one of the two that will unlock the way toward the center of the island, so they press it before they take the cannon that propels them toward another hand, destroying it before it can hit the tower. With the hand destroyed, they continue until reaching the clouds where they find a rainbow medal before they find the mommy bird who accepts to bring them back on ground not far from the tower. They are joined by Dedede who has seen them on the bird.

"So we are done with the tower?" he asks.

"Yes," answers simply Daroach.

Sweetie looks at the tower with a frown. "Then let's destroy it."

"Let me do it!" shouts Dedede.

"Ok, but let me give you a little boost," replies Sweetie Belle before taking Yin and Yarn. She then uses them to create a cannon pointed toward the tower.

Dedede smirks. "Perfect."

He enters the cannon and is propelled toward the tower. While flying, he prepares his hammer, and as he is about to ram it, he swings his hammer and hits the tower violently with it, making it teeter enough so he can walk on the wall. On it, he jumps and drops back on it with his hammer again and again until he sees the tower started to fall. Clinging to it, he jumps from the tower just before it hits the ground with a big crash. When Dedede lands on the ground, all that remains of the tower are rubble.

"Ah! You! Have! Been! DEDEDEMOLISHED!!!"

---

Done with the tower, the group now go to the opposite side of the island, toward the base of the Space Oohroos, to search for the last switch and a spaceship to go search the medals taken by the monkeys. After traversing a bridge above muddy water, they find the switch in front of the base, along with two Oohroos wearing a bubble-like spacesuit with a visor in front of the eyes. When the Oohroos spot them, they panic and take the switch before quickly bringing it inside a spaceship that looks like a big saucer with a purple bottom, a grey top, two yellow eyes at the sides of the door, and two horns. The Oohroos jump in the ship that takes off toward space.

"Hey! Come back here or I swear you are gonna be on the menu tonight!" shouts Dedede.

"You eat monkeys?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"I eat everything that has meat and is not poisonous! Of course, I avoid eating things that can talk." He then looks up at the spaceship flying away. "Well now we have a new reason to find a spaceship."

"And quick before they go too far," says Daroach before running toward the entrance of the base, rapidly followed by the others.

Inside the base, they take a few elevators and fight some Oohroos before finding a room with the blueprint of a spaceship. However, the Oohroos in the room divide the blueprint into nine pieces before running away with eight of them, chased by the group.

"I already have enough of those guys," says Sweetie Belle.

The Oohroos go through three different doors a blue, yellow, and red, and the group first follow the one that has gone through the blue door. They leave the Waddle Dee that they encounter -he risks nothing in the base-, push a giant stone block, crushing the being that has been pushing it from behind, pull down another tarp to reveal more Waddle Dees, pass through a wall of star blocks, and pull another tarp to reveal one of the pieces of the blueprint.

Another tarp reveals a medal, and they find a second piece after pushing another stone block before they pass a green door that brings them back in the room with the three doors. This time, they take the yellow door, leading them to a dark room with lamps. Because Sweetie has given back to the Kirbys the Fire, Ice, Spark, Bomb, Stone, Needles, Ninja, Sword, Hammer, and Cutter abilities, there is only one Kirby that can light the way, but with the filly's light spell, it is enough.

They spot a painting of a Space Oohroos that is slightly tilted. Daroach huffs at such a stupid way to hide something before he knocks the painting away, taking the piece hidden behind it. Pulling down another tarp reveals the path, and they find another piece after destroying a couple of metal blocks in the ground. Before taking a green door that would probably bring them back to the room with the three doors, they spot a switch, and pressing it causes a few lamps to turn on, revealing another painting higher on a wall that they have missed in the dark despite the light from the light spell and Fire Kirby. This one is not tilted, but no need to be a genius to understand that something else is hidden behind it. So Daroach knocks it away and takes the piece hidden behind it.

Now they take the red door, and they have to swim through murky water full of jellyfish wanting to shock them. After a wall of star blocks, they find a piece in a clam, and another behind a stone block in the ceiling, before the Kirbys have to eat a bunch of green apples (in the murky water, yuck!) to make a medal appear. They find the last piece just after, under metal blocks in the floor, before they pass through the green door, returning to the room with the ninth piece of the blueprint.

Once the blueprint is assembled, the Kirbys take wrenches on the worktable, and in a cloud of dust, they build the spaceship like shown in the blueprint, a pink rocket-shaped spaceship with three orbs for landing gear, to everyone's amazement.

"With a good blueprint, Kirby can build a spaceship in record time..." says Daroach being chuckling. "Doc would be jealous."

"You are amazing Kirby!" shouts Sweetie Belle. She then gets an idea. "If I can ask Meta Knight the blueprint of the Halberd, does this means that you could build one too? A Halberd for us?"

The Kirbys look at each other, exchanging a few poyos, some rubbing their head, before they shrug. They don't know, but maybe. The Halberd is much bigger than this spaceship after all.

However, a small problem appears for Dedede: the door is too small.

"Curse!"

"Sorry Dedede, it seems like you will not be able to come..." says Sweetie Belle before thinking of something. "Unless I can shrink you with the Mini ability? I didn't think of that in the tower." She looks at the Kirbys. "Can I do that?"

"Uh... Poyo?" answers one of the Kirbys with a shrug.

"Well, let's test it."

She then turns toward Dedede, horn pointed at him, making his sweat in worry. After a couple of seconds, she shouts a beam, and sure enough, the next instant, Dedede shrinks until he is half his normal size, about as tall as Sweetie Belle.

"Sweet! It worked!" says Dedede. "Be happy everyone! I can finally come! Space! Be prepared to welcome the great Dedede!" he shouts while entering the ship, followed by the others.

"I should really test all I can do with this Mini ability. I should also see if there are other abilities that I have missed." says Sweetie Belle both to herself and the others while they enter.

Inside the ship, there are five computers in front of seven seats, and on the ceiling, there are three giant orange buttons. Seven of the Kirbys go on the seats to use the computers, while the last three go under the three buttons. The Kirbys at the computers then start pushing buttons, and the next instant, the ship takes off, exiting the base through a hole made for it. The three computers in the middle then start showing the exterior of the ship, reticles appearing in them, before the three Kirbys in front of those computers each take a wheel. The three Kirbys under the orange buttons keep a close eye on those computers.

"So, if I understand well, those three computers are for manipulating three cannons for targeting, and those orange buttons are for shooting?" asks Sweetie Belle.

The Kirby at the center confirms it with a nod and a poyo.

"What about those two computers at the sides?"

"Monitors," answers Daroach. "Probably to see things like the damage taken by the ship, the remaining fuel, the speed, and so on."

The Kirbys at those computers nod at him.

"So we just watch while the Kirbys do all the job?" asks Dedede.

They all nod.

"Alright."

Soon, following the direction taken by the Oohroos' spaceship, they exit Popstar's atmosphere, and the Kirbys at the three middle computers start to target the asteroids that threaten to ram the ship, and the Kirbys under the buttons jump at them to fire the cannons and destroy the obstacles. On the way, Daroach spots through the computers three medals floating in space, and he exits the ship to retrieve them, saying that he will join them later when they land.

After destroying a few small Oohroo UFO, the spaceship is eventually able to catch the one with the switch, and a space battle between the two spaceships start. Cannons come out of the Oohroo spaceship, only for them to quickly being destroyed by the Kirbys, each cannon destroyed damaging the enemy ship. After a moment, the Oohroos start to be tricky, and they try to trick the Kirbys by activating smaller cannons, only to immediately retract them, but this isn't enough to get the Kirbys who, even if they shoot at the wrong cannons, they still shoot at the right cannon. Later again, however, things start to become harder, with the Oohroos now using umbrellas to absorb the projectiles before firing them back at the Kirbys, damaging the ship. This force the Kirbys to be more cautious, not firing right when the spots open and waiting instead for when the cannons or the umbrellas get out. Thanks to this, they are able to destroy the Oohroo spaceship, which releases the switch that is propelled into space, and the Kirbys quickly chase it to catch it.

However, the chase is cut short when a big asteroid suddenly rams the ship from the side, taking everyone by surprise while forcing the Kirbys to land the ship on a small planet close enough. Once back on land, they all quickly escape the ship in fear of it exploding, discovering that on this planet, there is no gravity, making them float. In the end, the ship doesn't explode, but judging by the lights turning off, it will not be able to take off anymore.

The good news is that they have seen the switch land on this same planet, somewhere else. They have also spotted a base here, which is probably a Space Oohroo outpost that the apes wanted to hide the switch in. It's even probably here that they have taken the medals.

But now, they have to wait for Daroach to join them with the three medals, hoping that he has seen them land on this planet. So while waiting for him, Sweetie gives Dedede his normal size, and they admire the view, the group being able to see the wonders of space with the absence of atmosphere here.

"You know, despite the whole 'world in danger', 'almost dying every time', and 'fighting abominations' things, I love going on adventures. They almost always lead us to see wonderful things," She waves at the view. "Like this. The Rainbow Resort. That cloud world when we went to invoke Nova. The Mirror World. Just... anytime we go in space! Like now! Who knows what other wonderful things we will see in the next adventures?"

"Mmh... Maybe I should build a space station. No, better, a space resort, so we can have a good time while admiring the view and playing some games in low gravity,"

"You would need to ask Meta Knight to help you to transport the materials with his Halberd."

"I'm not sure that he would accept..."

"Then we can build our own spaceship. Seeing your new hammer, it is possible. And we can ask Kirby to help us."

"Poyo!"

"Ahahah! True! With him, the ship would be finished in a few seconds."

"I'm really thinking about this project of Halberd 2.0."

"And I hope that it will come true. Meta Knight wouldn't be the only one with an awesome battleship anymore."

"How would you name it?"

"The Warhammer!"

At this moment, they are finally joined by Daroach who floats down toward them. "Is everyone alright? I saw the asteroid crashing into the ship."

"Poyo!"

"We were waiting for you," says Dedede.

"The switch is somewhere on this planet."

"That's what I saw. I called the gang. As I'm talking, they are coming with the airship to take us back to Popstar. Until then, let's find the switch and the medals."

They all nod, before they pass the door, leaving behind the wreck of their spaceship. Swimming in space as if they are in water, they enter a tunnel full of creatures, including one that generate a black hole to try to pull the group toward it to devore them. They have to fight a giant space jellyfish to open a door, and not long after, they have to press a few switches to open more doors, leading them to a Skull Key, to their surprise. One slaughter of Skullys later, with a new medal in their possession, they press a switch to open a door before they pass another door leading them inside the base of the Space Oohroos, where there is gravity.

Not long after entering it, they enter a room where one of the Oohroos spot them before running away in panic. The Oohroo then presses a button, causing an alarm to resound in the area, and the doors of the room close, trapping them.
"They will not let us pass that easily," comments Daroach.

Dedede huffs. "We will still pass, no matter what they will bring against us."

Having no choice, they press two musical switch, making the room start to raise. Destroying all the obstacles and eliminating all the Oohroos attacking them, the room eventually does a whole loop, leading them to where the Oohroo has pressed the button earlier. Just before, they find a rainbow medal in a small space.

Once back on their original path, they pass a door and enter a room full of Oohroos busy eating bananas. Before they can understand what is going on, they are all knocked out in a few seconds, and the group pass the opening door to continue their exploration of the base. Just after, they find a blue switch that causes the gravity to disappear for a few seconds, letting the Kirbys eating a bunch of bananas. Another switch further lets the group fly swim up to find another medal, and to continue, they have to destroy a lot of metal blocks.

Now they have to choose between two paths: through a blocked door below, or swimming up through a corridor. In both cases, they have to press a switch to stop the gravity (or simply fly). Daroach and Dedede decide to take the door, leaving the corridor to Sweetie Belle. Once they press the switch and stop the gravity, Dedede and Daroach return to the door with five Kirbys and swim up to press a bunch of musical switch to open the door, while Sweetie and the five other Kirbys swim up through the corridor toward a door at the top.

While team Dedede-Daroach is busy swimming through a big corridor full of obstacles, team Sweetie Belle ends up exiting the base, finding themselves among many cannons on the roof. After passing another black hole creature, they discover a door that leads them to a switch that makes green apples appear in another room. But when the Kirbys eat all of them, it just causes a bunch of fruits to appear, much to the Kirbys' joy. The door that follows leads them back in the previous area.
Just after, they find a Jumbo Candy, and they charge through the many obstacles in the way, Sweetie taking a key that she uses on a chest a little further to obtain a medal. Not long after, as the Kirbys return to normal, they take a cannon that shoots them away from the base, inside a tunnel, quickly joined by team Dedede-Daroach who has found another medal.

"I think that's it. Now all that remains is the switch," says Daroach.

"It's right here!" shouts Sweetie Belle, who points at the exit of the tunnel, at the top of a stone pillar.

---

After pressing the switch, they haven't had to wait long for Daroach's airship to come. With his instruction, the Squeaks have quickly found them, and before long, they are back on Volcano Valley, ready to start exploring the unlocked area, where they will find the last medals, and the path toward the center of the island to fight Skullord.

Putting behind this space episode, they traverse again the cemetery, fighting many zombies They quickly find a key, but while searching for the chest, they have to fight Skullys harassing them. A rainbow medal is also found under a tombstone. Pushing another tombstone also opens the way into an underground tunnel leading to a crypt. Here, they find a big double door locked and chained, the chains coming from two other doors, with a third, blue door between those two.

"Do you know what is in there, Daroach?" asks Sweetie.

"I think... It's the den of Buzzybat, a redoubtable bat that can call its family to swarm us and protect itself. It is probably guarding the path toward Skullord. As for what is in those three smaller doors, I don't know. Probably powerful enemies to guard the chains and the key."

"Powerful, but not enough. Let's go," says Dedede.

They enter the first door above them, and they enter a room with a being familiar to Sweetie and Kirby: a giant robotic gear.

"Oh. Great Gear," says Daroach.

"Seriously? That thing? This will be a piece of cake," says Sweetie Belle.

Its weak points, some red small gear, is visible. However, Great Gear covers it in glass, and Stone creatures drop on the chains beside Great Gear, making it turn to cover the glass. Already knowing what to do, Sweetie and Kirby destroy some of the stone enemies, making Great Gear turn and reveal the glass that they attack and destroy before attacking the red gear, damaging Great Gear. At this moment, angry, Great Gear spits sand, turning the floor into quicksand, and spits two mummies. More stone enemies then come on the chains to make Great Gear turn, some of them covered in spikes, but against their projectiles, they don't last long. Easily dealing with the mummies and the stones, they reveal and attack Great Gear's weak point for the second time. A third attack on the weak point definitively destroys Great Gear. The door back to the previous area appears, and when they take it, the chain linking the door they come from to the big one is destroyed.

"So, which enemy do you think we will fight in the next one?" asks Dedede.

"Among all the ones we fought on those islands, I have no idea. We will quickly see," answers Sweetie Belle.

They pass the next door, the blue one, and this time, they have to fight the giant worm-like creature with the spiked helmet and that have had a door trapped in it. They remember smashing it without even fighting it thanks to a Jumbo Candy. Well now, seems like they will have to fight it, but now, the metallic segments are now magenta and spiked, and the orange parts are now yellow, a giant key trapping in them. And it has clearly become an undead. Daroach calls it a Big Warmiggle.

They quickly attack the yellow part to hurt it before it goes back in the ground. Each time that they feel the worm coming back under their feet/hooves, they run away and attack the yellow part before it returns in the grounds. After a moment, it comes out of the ground and enters the ceiling before coming out of it above them, and they quickly avoid it before attacking its weak point. As a last stand, the worm tries to surprise them by coming directly from the ceiling, but they see it coming, avoid it, and attack it, making it spit the key before it stops moving, its body remaining hanging from the ceiling. They take the key, which the head looks like a purple bat, and pass the appearing door, leaving the corpse of the giant worm behind.

Back in the room with the big door, Dedede says "Alright. We got the key. Only one chain to destroy."

"We got an enemy from Green Grounds, and one from Sandy Canyon," says Daroach. "The last one will probably come from Dedede Resort."

"The only one that I can see is the giant eel that I fought in the underwater caverns of the lake," says Sweetie Belle.

"King Eelongo. Yes, I see it too."

After putting the giant key in the lock of the big door, they enter the third door, which is orange, and they enter a room that is flooded in murky water, and before long, they see the giant eel of stone, now purple, charging at them, jaw wide open. Sweetie Belle puts herself in front of the eel, and at the last moment, as the eel closes its jaw on her to bite, she turns into metal, breaking its teeth. While in metal, still in its jaw, she charges her energy between her hooves, like when she charges her Giga Force Blast. But she charges more, much more, before releasing it in an energy beam almost as big as her that traverses King Eelongo from head to tail, causing the stone parts of its body to crumble, only leaving the skeleton that breaks down into pieces.

"Oh, now you can shoot energy beams from your hooves?" asks Yarn.

She giggles. "Since my battle against Dark Mind, I always wanted to shoot another one without needing the energy boost from Meta Knight's sword. I trained a lot since then, so I wanted to test if I could do it now."

Dedede rubs his head in wonder. "Maybe I should start training to use my energy too..."

They return to the room with the big door, and with the last chain destroyed, they open it. They enter a room, and find Buzzybat, which is surprisingly adorable. Buzzybat is a yellow bat that is just a head with two purple wings. The head resembles the one of a cat, with two big round red eyes. Similar bats, those ones black with blue eyes, are also in the room, putting themselves between them and Buzzybat.

They don't lose time and quickly attack the black bats to open the way to attack Buzzybat. Sweetie and Daroach are able to fly to it and hit it a few times before sending it with a big punch toward the ground where Dedede and the Kirby swarm it until it suddenly disappear, only to reappear with more of the black bats, and also a big round red bat with spikes on its body. A bomb eliminate the spiked bat, and the black bats quickly get the same fate, leaving the group to swarm Buzzybat who quickly disappears. When he reappears with more black bats, he turns red in anger and absorbs the other bats, turning into a flying, one eyes grave that tries to crush them. They avoid it, and Dedede immediately counterattack with a swing of his hammer before it can fly back up, destroying the grave and slamming the bat itself on a wall. Buzzybat recovers, disappears, and reappears surrounded by both the black and red bats that turn rapidly around it while they approach to ram the group. Some projectiles quickly eliminate the bats, and they attack Buzzybat again until, with one last whimper, the skin of the bat disappears in a poof, leaving its skeleton to fall on the ground.

"I wouldn't be surprised to learn if this bat was actually some kind of lich bringing back the dead to defend itself or to hunt its prey," says Daroach.

"If that's the case, then maybe this island will become safer from now," replies Sweetie Belle.

"But we still have to eliminate Skullord."

At this, they pass the door, reaching a new part of the crypt where they find a medal after lowering a platform. After a secret door, they also find the chest that the key they have found earlier opens, and they obtain the last medal. And so, they exit the crypt, and start their way toward the center of the island.

---

From there, they have taken a path that makes them climb toward the center of the island, which is also its top, leaving behind the cemetery and all its horrors. After some climbing they start to see a big volcano at the very center of the island, and they eventually take a door that leads them closer of it while also dropping them on a fragile rock platform between two walls similar to that moment with the falling boulders at the start of the island. Everything then shakes, until an absolutely titanic pig-like creature with a skull covering his head excepted his snout and his eyes comes out of the volcano. The pig wears a crown made of bones, with a humanoid skull on the front, and fire comes out from his ears.

"That's him. The Skullord," says Daroach.

"He is HUGE!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

"He could feed the whole army for at least one month," says Dedede, making Sweetie facehoof.

While the platform starts to raise, Skullord shoots boulders from his snout at them, forcing the group to destroy them so they don't destroy the platform. After some time, they reach a cannon that propels them toward Skullord, hitting him on the head where the skull doesn't cover it with enough forcing to push Skullord in the volcano and stunning him. On his head, they take the occasion to attack him with everything they have until Skullord recovers his senses and blows air toward them to propel them out of the volcano.

Quickly, Sweetie gives the Wing ability to all the Kirbys and uses the Mini ability to shrink Dedede before getting him on her back (By Celestia, he is still heavy!) and they all fly out of the volcano as Skullord gets his head out. They fly back to attack him, and Skullord rapidly restarts shooting boulders, those ones covered in fire. They easily avoid the boulders, but when they get too close, Skullord tries to slap them as if they are flies. But they are just too many for him, and they are often able to land a hit on his head not covered by the skull, or on the eyes. Dedede also uses his hammer to deflect the boulders back at the giant pig, greatly hurting him.

After a time, Skullord shoots a giant boulder, at least five times bigger than the others, and when Dedede hits it with his hammer, he ends up stuck in a showdown. Seeing this, the Kirbys and Daroach come to help him, and together, they send the boulder back at Skullord, the boulder hitting him on the snout and stunning him. While he is stunned, Sweetie flies above Skullord followed by the Kirbys, and she gives the Metal ability to all of them and herself, making all of them drop on Skullord's head, pushing him back inside the volcano. On his head, while he is still stunned, they all jump on it at the same time, their total weight hurting him when they all land at the same time.

While they jump again and again, Daroach comes and fires his ice beam at the snout, trapping it in ice, which forces Skullord to open his mouth to breath. Understanding what Daroach is about to do, sweetie gives the Bomb ability to all the Kirbys, and together with Daroach, they throw dozens of bombs inside Skullord's mouth, hurting him from inside. When Skullord finally recovers, he rapidly punches his own snout to destroy the ice, and he propels them out of the volcano again.

Once out, Skullord starts to climb out of the volcano, having enough of this fight. His action causes the volcano to spit lava, and cracks appear everywhere, more lava coming out of them. When Skullord spots them flying again, he takes a big shunk of the ground and throws it at them. Sweetie has thankfully gotten enough time after understanding what skullord has been about to do to call her Warp Star, and with all of them clinging at it as best they can, they are able to avoid the attack. With difficulty because of their weight, Sweetie then turns the Warp Star toward the walking Skullord and rams him on the head, making him slam head first on the ground, which causes the whole island to shake.

Skullord gets back up with difficulty, and discovers that Sweetie and the others are now on his head again. Instead of expelling them, he jumps and turns on his back, wanting to crush them between his head and the ground, but they fly away before that, and Skullord just provokes another earthquake that starts to collapse the whole area, the volcano crumbling and giant chunks of ground disappearing under rivers of lava that quickly grow in size and number. This comes to the point that Skullord loses foot and falls in it. But for someone who has been living in a volcano for many years, a lava bath is nothing, so he emerges a few seconds later with not even a burn. But then, he is hit on the head by the Warp Star followed by Sweetie and the Kirbys, all metal, dropping on his head before the filly gives them the Wing ability and they fly away as Skullord returns fully in the lava with a big yell of pain.

Skullord comes back out of the lava, only for some dark clouds to come out of him, the power given to him by Necrodeus seemingly escaping him. As this happens, Skullord thrashes around, his yells of pain becoming louder as they see the lava starting to burn his skin. He tries to get out of the lava, but at this point, the whole area as been submerged in lava, and the few ground remaining crumble under Skullord's weight. As more dark clouds come out of him, more of his skin burns and melts, until Skullord disappears in the lava, seemingly giving up. Only for him to come out a few seconds later, now just a skeleton as the last dark clouds escape his body. At this, the skeleton stops moving, breaks down into pieces, and sinks in the lava.

Thus disappears the Skullord.

Author's Notes:

Yeah... Crocomire's death in Super Metroide marked me.

Chapter 61: Necro Nebula

Sweetie Belle and the others, still flying (or on Sweetie's back for Dedede), look down at where the Skullord has disappeared in a gruesome death, the filly frowning thinking about this. There is nothing she could have done to prevent this, but it has still been hard to watch the giant pig burning, and melting alive. Now at least, with his death, Necrodeus should come anytime, and the Skullys should stop patrolling the sky.

"Let's return to the airship," says Daroach.

They nod.

---

"Okay? I can watch?" asks Spike to Twilight who has her hoof before his eyes.

She sighs and remove her hoof from his eyes. "Yes, you can watch now."

"That goes for you too Fluttershy," says Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy nods and removes the blindfold that is on her eyes, and tends it to Discord. "Thank you Discord. You can take it back."

With a shake of his head, Discord pushes the blindfold back to Fluttershy. "No. You should keep it... Just in case..."

She gulps. "You-you are right. Thank you again."

"Let's... just not talk about this horrible death," says Rarity. "It's better to forget it."

"I don't think I will forget it anytime soon..." replies Pinkie.

"Thankfully the fillies aren't here," says Applejack.

---

As they return to the airship, reaching the edge of the island where the ashes of the volcanoes don't cover the sky, Dedede looks up and squints his eyes upon spotting something.

"Hey. What is it?" he asks while pointing up.

They all look up, and spot far away, many miles up there in the sky, a giant dark cloud that definitively hasn't been there when they have used the spaceship.

"It must be Necro Nebula. Necrodeus is already here, probably preparing his counterattack. We must hurry," says Daroach. "We will use the airship to go up there and use the rainbow medals to destroy that cocoon of dark clouds that covers his island."

"So you are still gonna help us even if we found all the medals?" asks Sweetie Belle.

Daroach smiles at her. "It's the least I can do after you saved us the previous time and for helping me find the medals."

She smiles back. "Thank you."

In the airship...

"It's confirmed boss. All the Skullys are gone. They returned to that dark cloud in the sky," informs Doc.

"That's good, but the Skullys will be the least of our problems if we don't stop Necrodeus quickly," says Daroach. "The Skullions will soon come, and those guys are no laughing matter."

"The Skullions?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"An evolved form of the Skullys, more powerful, enough that they should be able to damage the airship and enter the gondola. We may have to fight to approach Necro Nebula, and we will have to fight much more to reach Necrodeus. All the survivors of the Skull gang will be there." He turns to Doc. "Let's take off."

"Yes boss."

You heard that Storo?" asks Spinni to the big mouse. "Ready your fists. We will have to break some skulls."

"I'm already ready!"

Dedede turns to Sweetie Belle. "You should return me to my normal size."

"Oh! Of course!" Once done with Dedede, she continues. "I should also prepare myself." At this, she walks away, at the other side of the ship, and activates the Fire ability, then the Ice, then the Sword, and all the other abilities one by one, testing some of them.

"Poyo?" asks one of the Kirbys.

"I'm trying all your abilities to ready myself to use them when the time comes. I'm also taking the occasion to see if there are more like the Mini ability that I don't know about." At this moment, she activates the Fighter ability, a bandana appearing around her forehead, and does a storm of kicks in the air, kicking so fast that it seems like there are five hooves kicking at the same time. She then change abilities, and a chef's hat appear on her head."What?" She takes the hat and looks at it before turning to the Kirby. "You have an ability to cook?"

He nods. "Poyo."

She looks back at the hat. "Probably by eating a Chef Kawasaki. What can you do with this ability? I mean, I know that it helps you to cook, but how does it work?"

The Kirby approaches her. "Poyo!"

Sheunderstand and gives him the Cook ability, giving him a chef hat. A big pot full of soup suddenly appears beside him and a frying pan and a spatula appear on his arms. He then bangs the utensils together, and everyone in the ship, the other Kirbys, Sweetie Belle, Dedede, and all the Squeaks are sucked inside the pot, to their surprise. The Kirby then stirs the soup, salts it, and after a few seconds, he moves away and everyone is propelled out of the soup and falls in a big pile beside the pot without any burns, but extremely confused. The pot then disappears.

After a dozen seconds or so of confusion, they get up and look at the Kirby in rage, ready to gang up, even the other Kirbys. In a panic the Kirby, who has lost the Cook ability, points his arms toward where the pot has been and reveals dozens of yummy looking plants that has popped out of it along with everyone.

Sweating and smiling sheepishly, the Kirby says "Poyo poyo! Yum yum!"

Dedede raises an eyebrow. "I won't say no to food..."

"And I know that I asked you to show me what this ability does but..."

"You could have at least warned us!" they both shout.

"I almost got a heart attack!" shouts Doc.

"I thought that I would die cooked alive!" shouts Spinni.

One of the Kirbys slaps the ex-Cook Kirby behind the head. "Poyo!"

"Poyo..."

They then look at the food that Storo, the remaining Kirbys, and some of the Squeakers have already started to eat.

"Hey! Don't start without me!" shouts Dedede before joining them.

"So, with this ability, you cook everyone close enough to produce food..." resumes Sweetie Belle. "This is good if we ever need to heal, but I will make sure to warn everyone if I end up using it. Also, is there a means to avoid sucking everyone in the soup? If I have to cook in the middle of a battle, I will need someone to defend me."

The two Kirbys shake their head.

"Then I suppose that I will have to defend myself..."

At this, she continues shifting from an ability to another while Doc returns at the wheel with Daroach. Spinni decides to join Storo and the others, along with the last two Kirbys. Not long after, they hear something falling on the floor, and see Sweetie Belle now sleeping, a nightcap on her head.

Seems like she has discovered the Sleep ability...

---

After waking up Sweetie Belle (who is wondering why Kirby has an ability like the Sleep ability), and after a few more minutes, they are finally close enough to the dark cloud, which is actually in space above the atmosphere of Popstar. They open the door and the Kirbys move at the edge of the gondola, the rainbow medals assembled in a bag. They raise the bad, and the medals are covered in a rainbow light that takes the form of a sphere. One of the Kirbys raises the rainbow sphere, and it shoots a rainbow beam toward the cloud. After a few seconds, the cloud dissipates, revealing Necro Nebula, a floating island void of any life. They can see a stair leading to what seems to be a shrine, with a giant structure possessing two red glowing eyes looking at them with malice.

Dozens of small forms then raise from the island, and fly toward them. As those forms approach, they can see that they look like Skullys, but they have more slanted eyes, larger teeth, and a horn on their heads. The Skullions.

"Here they come!" shouts Daroach. "Doc!"

"On it boss! I will get us on this island of death, and those Skullions will taste the power of my baby! Mwahahahaha!!!"

The weapons of the airship are activated, and it starts its course toward Necro Nebula. It's not long before they reach the first Skullions, and the cannons at the front already fire their missiles, blowing a few of them. Doc also fire the laser, effectively eliminating a bunch of them, but many more come, and with just a charge at the windows, the Skullions are able to enter the gondola, ready to snatch anyone they get their hands on, only to meet fierce resistance from the crew and the heroes.

As Daroach as told, the Skullions being an evolved version of the Skullys, they are faster, and take more damage before being eliminated, so if Sweetie and the others don't watch out, a Skullion could grab them and take them away before they know it. This forces the Squeakers, the most vulnerable in the ship, to remain together to protect each other, and they also remain close of Daroach just in case. Storo and Spinni remain beside Doc to protect him while he is busy piloting the ship.

Among the Skullions come also many Skullys, threatening to overwhelm the crew with their number, but with a rain of bombs from the Squeakers, and Sweetie throwing projectiles after projectiles in rapid succession, their number doesn't matter in the end. And before long...

"We are reaching Necro Nebula!" shouts Doc.

Daroach clenches his teeth. "They are more numerous that I thought they would be. I fear that when we leave, the crew will not be able to resist them."

sweetie looks at him. "Then either we remain here until we eliminate all of them, or... you leave the island with your friends to safety and leave Necrodeus to us. You should be able to protect them if you remain with them."

Daroach doesn't reply for a moment while they fight Necrodeus' minions. When the airship finally lands, he then says "Then I will leave Necro Nebula with the Squeaks. I'm sorry that I can't go further with you."

"Don't worry, we understand. Then we will go. Goodbye Daroach, see you another time," says Sweetie Belle before getting out of the ship.

"Yeah, goodbye," says Dedede before following her.

"Poyo!" shouts the Kirbys with a wave before leaving.

Daroach nods at them as they start climbing the stairs, and closes the door. The next instant, the airship takes off and flies out of the island, followed by some of the Skullys and Skullions. Now down to only Sweetie Belle, the ten Kirbys, and Dedede, they continue to climb the island toward the structure at the center, still fighting dozens and dozens of minions trying to stop them. Sometimes, a Skullseer would also come to cause problems, slowing down the group, but thankfully, they don't seem to be too many. Not like they are hard to fight, but their resistance makes them troublesome with all those Skullys and Skullions coming without stopping.

But in the end, they are able to reach the shrine at the center of the island, and they find themselves in front of four purple flames floating on the four corners of an elevated part of the shrine with a small stair. On this part looms a statue that looks like Necrodeus, its three eyes glowing in a deathly purple light and the staff in its right hand. Behind the statue is the structure they have seen from afar, with the two red eyes.

"Uh? I thought that we would encounter Necrodeus here," says Sweetie Belle.

"He is probably elsewhere preparing his invasion... Or invading," replies Dedede. "But we are lucky! He left his staff here. It's the occasion to bring Kirby back to normal before fighting him."

Hearing this, the Kirbys jump in joy before running toward the statue, only for the staff to suddenly disappear before their eyes.

"What/Poyo?"

Then, a lightning bolt strikes the statue, destroying both it and the structure behind it, and scattering everyone on the shrine. Everyone quickly gets back up and look at the origin of the lightning bolt in the sky: Necrodeus, staff in hand. The staff is pointed toward them, and Sweetie quickly puts mirror shields above everyone, just in time to deflect a curse sent from the staff toward her. The curse is deflected back at Necrodeus, only for him to put the staff in the way, and with a swing at the right time, the curse is deflected into space.

With his ambush thwarted, Necrodeus takes the time to glare at Sweetie Belle in hate, revealing that his injuries have almost been healed, only a few cracks remaining around his right eye. He then places his hands beside his head, showing a red spot at their back, and a group of Skullions comes and covers those spots for a few seconds before flying away, the spots now covered in glasses.

While Necrodeus has been busy preparing himself, Sweetie Belle has given to all the Kirbys an ability she has just discovered in the airship, Cupid, an ability that gives to Kirby both wings and a bow to shoot arrows with heart-shaped heads. To complete it, it also makes a halo appear floating above the Kirbys' head. Thanks to this ability, the Kirbys will be able to fly and attack Necrodeus with arrows at the same time. A powerful ability if well used. It's clear that the spots on the back of Necrodeus' hands are weak spots, and the arrows will be useful to target them. However, they will have to smash the glasses first. For this, she has equipped herself with Hammer and Wing. Sadly, there is not much she can do for Dedede. She could use Mini on him so he could go on her back, but he would slow her, and to avoid Necrodeus attacks, she will need to be fast. If Necrodeus tries to punch her with his big fists, she doesn't think that using Mirror will help her that much. Without forgetting that he can fire lightning bolts powerful enough to destroy a statue.

Which is what Necrodeus is doing right now. He points a finger from his left hand toward her and fires a lightning bolt, and she quickly flies out of the way along with the Kirbys, the bolt striking the ground under her instead. The Kirbys fire dozens of arrows at both the hands and the skull, but they just bounce on them just leaving small scratches that quickly disappear, Necrodeus cackling at their pitiful attempt to hurt him. However, an arrow is able to hit Necrodeus in his left eye, making him yell in pain as he puts his left hand on it.

He counterattacks with his staff, firing a storm of black lightning bolts at the Kirbys and Sweetie Belle who dodge them with difficulty. A hammer thrown by Dedede then strikes the right hand, stopping Necrodeus from firing with his staff, and Sweetie takes the occasion to charge at the left hand still covering the eye, and swing her hammer on its back, destroying the glass covering the red spot.

Skullions then come to reform the glass, and she quickly eliminate them while the Kirbys shoot arrows at the red spot, causing the left hand to start to crack. Necrodeus uses his staff to force them to fly away, also using his left hand to slap them, but Sweetie comes back from slaughtering the Skullion and hits the left hand of the red spot on the back with her hammer. The hand falls on the floor beside Dedede who destroys it with a swing of his own hammer.

Now missing his left hand, Necrodeus roars, pushing everyone away, and raises his staff. The staff glows brightly with a purple light, and a black hole suddenly appears on the ground, which forces Dedede to quickly jump away in fear of being engulfed in it. From the hole, a black mass comes out, and soon takes a form: the one of Whispy Woods, but his bark is a deathly purple, and he also possesses dark purple leaves. The fake Whispy then shakes his leaves, throwing apples and spiked balls at them.

"Uh... This may complicate things..." says Sweetie Belle.

"Leave him to me!" shouts Dedede as he starts to attack the tree while deflecting the apples and spiked balls with his hammer. Seems like he won't need help. And thanks to him, fake Whispy has stopped attacking them.

But then, Necrodeus raises his staff again, and another hole opens on the floor. Out of it come spiked vines that rapidly covers the ground, forcing Dedede to climb Fake Whispy, and among the vines comes the recognizable form of Lady Ivy, now purple with a yellow stem. The plants immediately starts to spit seeds at them.

The vines then open a place where a third hole opens, and out of it comes Dedede's balloon, with a clone of Dedede himself in the basket, with purple where it is normally red. As the balloon starts to float around, and Lady Ivy's vines recovers the floor where the hole as been, the Fake Dedede smirked evilly at them and starts to throw his bombs, which some of the Kirbys headbutt to bounce them away, while other Kirbys have gone to attack fake Lady Ivy, leaving only three of them with Sweetie Belle.

She gulps as she sees Necrodeus raising the staff again, and she rapidly charges at it, only for a purple shield to form around him, repelling her. Then, under the vines, a fourth hole appears, and a giant black mass taking the form of a familiar leg comes out, but now purple, the vines covering it. Another leg comes out, followed by the skull covered head of Skullord himself, the rest of his body following it, the vines of Fake Lady Ivy entirely covering him, Fake Lady Ivy herself now on top of his head. Fake Skullord then grabs Fake Whispy Woods, plucking him out of the ground and making Dedede fall, and places him on his back among the vines. The vines then cover his roots, maintaining him in place. Fake Dedede's balloon starts to fly above Skullord, among some Skullys and Skullions.

"We are screwed," say both Yin and Yarn.

Sweetie frowns. "This will certainly be hard..." She then turns to Dedede and tosses Yin and Yarn to him. "I will deal with those fakes!"

As Dedede catches the needles, he replies "By yourself? Are you crazy?!"

Before Sweetie can say anything back, Necrodeus points his staff at her and fire a big dark laser. Some of the Kirbys have seen this and have charged at Sweetie Belle to get her out of the way. At the same time, Fake Skullord starts to fire his boulders at the whole group along with Lady Ivy and her seeds forming spike-like plants and cactus-like enemies that forces the Kirbys to fly away and Dedede to jump back while attacking the cacti.

"Thank you Kirbys," says Sweetie Belle to the little balls that have saved her before turning back to Dedede. "Don't worry!" She shifts from Wing and Hammer to Cupid, showing an arrow which has its heart-shaped head covered in a sharp spike formed with Ice. "Out of all of them, Necrodeus is still the most dangerous with his staff. You have to take it away from him while I stop the fakes from attacking you and the Kirbys. Yin and Yarn should help you."

At this, she flies toward Fake Skullord, leaving Dedede sighing before looking at the needles with a serious look. "She is right. You will help me clobber Necrodeus. Don't try anything foolish with me, okay?"

The needles smile sheepishly at him. "Okay!"

So, using them, Dedede knits a giant spring, and uses it to bounce toward Necrodeus who is busy trying to gobble a Kirby who has come too close of his face. He prepares his hammer, and bonks Necrodeus on the head before rapidly swinging his hammer at the right hand beside him, making it crash with the staff on the floor. The Kirbys all charge and cling to it, stopping it from flying back to the main body, and they punch the glass covering the red spot, cracking it. The hand however is able to fend them off with a sudden shake, but before it is able to fly away, Dedede has landed not far, only to jump again before falling toward the hand, crushing it under his hammer, destroying both the glass and the red spot, making the hand crack, and causing it to drop the staff.

Dedede finishes the hand with another hit, but before the Kirbys can grab the staff, Necrodeus' head comes and inhale the staff before flying away with a cackle.

"Seriously?!"

At the same time, Sweetie Belle flies toward Fake Skullord while dodging or repelling the projectiles fired at her. Once she is face to Fake Skullord, she fires the arrow with the head covered in ice at hi right eye, making him jerk his head and yell in pain. On his head, the sudden jerk from Skullord causes Fake Lady Ivy to lose balance, making her stop firing her seeds. Avoiding a swing from one of Fake Skullord's legs, Sweetie Belle flies by his right, changing Cupid to Wing and Sword, covering the sword in Fire. Upon reaching the top of his head, she charges at Lady Ivy, and with one single slash, beheads her, also burning both the head and the part of the stem that has been close to it.

the Fake Lady Ivy no more, she now uses Fire on the vines to put them on fire, the fire spreading among the vines until they reach Fake Whispy Woods who tries to puff air at it, to no use. As the fire starts to burn his roots, Sweetie flies around him while shooting a stream of fire at him without stopping, until he is entirely covered in fire. As the vines snap when the fire has consumed them enough, Fake Whispy starts to slide on Fake Skullord's back, until he ends up falling, now nothing more than a screeching giant ball of fire.

Finished with Fake Whispy, Sweetie now flies toward Fake Dedede just above, quickly destroying the Skullys and Skullions with her beams. He throws his bombs at her, but she catches his bombs in her magic and upon reaching him, opens his mouth wide and makes him eat the bombs. As she flies away, the balloon explodes, nothing remaining of the fake in it.
Three down, one to go.

Suddenly, everything becomes black, and she finds herself pulled in some tunnel with soft and wet walls, before she enters a room where she falls in a lake that burns her. She quickly flies out of the lake and lights her horn, discovering that the lake is a lake of acid, and the walls are made of flesh. She is in a stomach. That giant pig has eaten her!

For this, only one answer. Let's give him an explosive stomach ache!

Crash ability!

BOOOOOOOM!!!!!

Once the explosion ends, Sweetie Belle looks around, seeing that she is back outside. Or rather, seeing what remains of Fake Skullord, her prison of flesh is no more. Thankfully, the remains disappear in black masses, so she doesn't have much time to observe the result and getting sick from it.

She spots Dedede and the Kirbys further away, and flies back to them.

"I'm done! What about you?"

"We could see that. I think that I will not be able to eat tonight. As for us, we destroyed the right hand, but Necrodeus gobbled the staff."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah..."

So she looks toward a really angry Necrodeus floating in the sky, now without hands. He clenches his teeth in rage before roaring, causing the whole island to shake, then crack, before crumbling into pieces under their feet. The pieces then disappear, leaving them to float in space like on that alien planet they have visited about an hour ago.

Necrodeus then spits mines that shoot lasers in four directions at the same time, the number of mines leaving not much space to dodge. Sweetie eventually fire her beams at the mines to destroy them, only for Necrodeus to spit a giant ball of electricity at them. Thankfully, the ball is really slow, so they have no problems to dodge it, only for a second ball to come behind, hitting Dedede and electrifying him. More mines are spat, and this time, three of the Kirbys are hit by the lasers. Necrodeus then opens wide his mouth, revealing a purple eye inside it, and charges energy before firing a giant laser at Sweetie Belle. The filly uses Jet to fly away before charging at Necrodeus, only for him to headbutt her.

she quickly regains her senses and as Necrodeus spits another mine, she uses her whip to send it toward him, one of the lasers hitting his forehead, which pushes him back. Covering her hoof in energy, she then punches him on the right eye like the first time, creating a hole. She then uses Mini to shrink, and enter the hole, lighting her horn to better see. She spots the purple eye hidden inside him, which reminds Sweetie of Zero's eye, and the eye looks at her. She takes a sword, which is half its normal size like her, and impales the eye with it, making the eye jerk and screech as the head opens its mouth in extreme pain.

Sweetie quickly uses it to fly away as Necrodeus' skull cracks more and more, and his body of dark clouds loses form, turning into a black hole. The hole grows, and the head disappears in it, before the hole shrinks, then implodes, fading into oblivion, only leaving the staff floating in space.

Sweetie Belle sighs in relief, then turns toward the Kirbys. "It's done. Necrodeus is dead. It's time to use the staff to reform you."

The Kirbys nod and start to swim toward the staff while Dedede simply joins Sweetie Belle. Then, Kirby's heart, which has been inside Sweetie Belle all this time, comes out, and touches the staff not long before the Kirbys. When all the Kirbys have touched the staff, everything is covered in a bright light, and when it fades, only one Kirby remains, about the same size as Sweetie Belle, staff in hand.

She hugs him. "You are back!"

"Poyo!"

Dedede chuckles. "That's too bad, because it means that Sweetie Belle is not overpowered anymore."

Hearing him, Sweetie tries to use Jet, but the wings don't appear. She tries the same with Wheel, but no more luck. Yep, she is back to normal too.

Oh well. At least, I had some fun! She then releases Kirby from her hug and says "Let's return to the resort. We all need some rest after this fight."

"Ahahah! Yeah! I will order the Waddle Dees to give us the 'Great King Treatment'! You will see, after this, you will feel like you are reborn! I will also order a banquet!"

"Yeah/Poyo!"

And so Sweetie and Kirby use their Warp Stars to return to the Popopo Islands, Dedede clinging to Sweetie's.

---

"So, was Necrodeus also a creation of the Dark God?" asks Rarity.

"He had a giant eyeball! Like Zero and Dark Nebula! Of course he was!" replies Rainbow Dash.

"How many abominations did he create?" asks Twilight. "This is the fourth confirmed so far."

"Who knows?" says Discord. "He could have created dozens. Or only a few." He then closes the portal. "No matter the number, it seems like Sweetie Belle and Kirby are fated to fight all of them. I just hope that the next time will be more foal friendly. Blowing that fake Skullord from inside was a little too much pegi 18 for my tastes."

"Don't remind us!"

---

As Sweetie, Dedede, and kirby return to Dedede Resort discussing about their adventure and what to do with Necrodeus' staff, they get an unexpected surprise upon entering the dining room: the whole Squeak Squad is here, stuffing their face with the many fruits of the resort, especially Storo.

Daroach spots them. "Oh you are back. And I see that Kirby is back to normal. So I presume that Necrodeus is dead. Good job!"

"What are you doing here?!" asks Dedede.

"Isn't it obvious? We are resting before we go to more treasure hunting."

Sweetie nods while Kirby joins them in eating the fruits. "You deserve that. You were a great help for us in this adventure. i'm sure that Dedede will give you the 'Great King Treatment'. Right Dedede?"

"Uh yeah! Yeah! You are gonna have it!"

This makes all the Squeaks except Daroach and Doc cheer.

Sweetie then takes the staff and approaches Daroach. "Here. You should have it. It will replace the Triple Star."

Daroach looks at the staff before taking it, inspecting it. After a few moments, he puts it under his cape and says "Thank you. I'm sure that it will help me greatly."

"You're welcome! Now I think that I will join Kirby and eat some of those fruits. All this action starved me."

Chapter 62: Sweetie Belle Right Back At Ya!

The Squeak Squad has rested a whole day before moving away to more treasure hunting. To think that Sweetie now considers them like friends when she had first wanted to beat them... As for Sweetie, Dedede, and Kirby, after this whole incident, they have decided to remain in the resort three more days before returning to the castle. Just before the return, Sweetie has received a letter from Rarity saying that Princess Cadance is pregnant! She has been so happy to learn it, and she can't wait to see the baby princess!

To Dedede's joy, Bandana Dee and the others have been able to totally repair the castle. Nothing remains of the previous incidents, like the hole in the wall where Kirby smashed into the castle with the Dragoon to enter it, or the one left by Dedede when he has been propelled out of the castle, without forgetting the treasure room. The servants have even done some treasure hunting to replace the ones destroyed in the battle against Yin and Yarn!

All seems to return to normal, but then, the next day, Dedede asks something in the reunion hall.

"Do any of you have any idea of what I should do now?"

At this, the whole room falls into silence for a dozen seconds, before Sweetie eventually asks "What do you mean?"

"Well, since Kirby made sure that I couldn't show my greatness through great acts..."

"Like stealing everyone's food?" interrupts Sweetie with amusement.

He sweats. "Y... Yes... So I was saying. Since I can't show my greatness this way, and Kirby is stealing the majority of the spotlight for the heroic stuff, then I ask you, all of you, what action we should take from now to make sure that I'm recognized by everyone."

"But isn't it already the case thanks to Sweetie Belle saving the world?" asks Bandana Dee.

"A little, but like I said, Kirby is stealing the spotlight, because he's THE hero. Sweetie is seen as just the sidekick."

"But she fights the bad guys as much as Kirby! Sometimes, she is even the one doing the most work!"

"Yeah. But they don't know it. They aren't here to see when Sweetie is the one dealing the finishing blow or saving Kirby's butt."

"So I'm seen like Hum Drum," says Sweetie. "But I don't mind. At least, I save the world. It's all that count."

"Who is Hum Drum?"

"I don't know. Probably some sidekick from her world."

"But I do mind! You work hard! Even harder than Kirby! And yet all you get is 'Hey! Look! It's Sweetie Belle! The adorable pony that follows the adorable and heroic Kirby in his adventures!' Just thinking about it makes me want to..." He takes the mike that he has been using to talk to the whole room, splits it in two, throws the two parts on the ground, and tramples them in anger. Once finished, he takes a big breath and continues talking. "But we are getting away from the main subject. So because those idiots only see the Great, Wonderful, Powerful, Super Heroic Kirby, I decided to use another method. But which method?"

At this, everyone in the room starts to talk to each other about ideas.

"A tournament?" proposes a Blade Knight.

"I don't think it will be enough," rebuts Dedede.

"We sculpt a whole mountain in your image?" proposes a Waddle Dee.

Dedede rubs his chin at this. "Mmh... I like this idea."

"Or we could produce goodies to sell in all Popstar!"

"Ah yeah! King Dedede plushies! Clothes with the emblem! Toys!"

"This will not work," says Cape Knight to them. "Goodies work only when the subject of the goodies is popular, and sadly, as the king stated, he is not popular enough. Maybe if we sell goodies of Kirby or Sweetie Belle, it would work, but of King Dedede, no. He must become popular first, then we can sell goodies of him."

"Becoming popular, uh?" asks Sweetie Belle. "In my world, a good way to become popular is to become something like a model of a singer." She looks at Dedede. "Modeling will definitely not work..."

"Hey!"

"But you may have a chance with singing."

"The king? Singing?" asks Bandana Dee. "I never saw him singing, so I don't know..."

"Do you know how to sing, Dedede?"

"Of course I know how to sing!"

He clears his throat, then takes a big breath.

"Who is the best?
I am the best!
My name is Dedede
And I am the Great King!
So remember it
Or you will be clobbered!
I have a hammer
And I will not hesitate to...

He's interrupted by rain suddenly falling on him... Surprised, Sweetie looks up, and spots indeed a cloud that has somehow come, or appeared, above Dedede.

"Wow... That was so bad that he made rain... inside the castle... And I'm not even surprised that it is possible in this world."

Dedede looks at her with deadpan eyes.

"So, singing is a big no," says Broom Sunglasses.

"After, there is another method that is starting to appear in Equestria: make a movie. I know that there are cameras here, so I'm sure that it could work. And when princess Twilight described the mirror world to Rarity -I'm talking about Equestria's mirror world by the way, nothing to do with Dreamland's mirror world-, she told that many celebrities over there are movie makers or actors. Or even both."

Dedede looks up in thought. "A movie..." He smiles. "Yeah... Yeah! This will work!" He raises an arm, taking a proud pose. "And I will be the main character! And Kirby will be the bad guy!"

"No my king," says Cape Knight. "Let's avoid making Kirby the bad guy. The inhabitants of Popstar would only see this as jealousy."

"Beside," continues Bandana Dee. "I have heard that people tend to prefer bad guys! So wouldn't it be best if it were you the bad guy, Great King?"

"I will not be the bad guy!"

"Too bad. I was already seeing Sweetie Belle playing the cat that the bad guys love to pet while they monologue. We could have made a catsuit," says Broom Sunglasses.

"You barely survived the maid suit, are you sure you want to see Sweetie Belle in a catsuit?" asks Bandana Dee.

"Uh..."

He imagines Sweetie Belle in a pink catsuit, putting a hoof/paw beside her head like a real cat and saying "Meow!" By the end, his whole body turns red, and smoke comes out of it, before he falls on his back, unconscious.

Knuckle Joe looks at him in panic. "Aah! Just thinking about it almost killed him! Medic!"

Sweetie giggles before saying to Dedede "Like he said, that's too bad. Put a black suit and a curling moustache, have a cat, and talk with an accent, and you would be a really good bad guy." She then mimes grooming a moustache and starts to talk deeply in an accent. "I need a monstoi to clob-boi tat dere Kirrrby.*"

Mini-Discord watching secretly the scene has to retains himself very hard from laughing while everyone in the room, excepted Dedede who deadpans at her again, applauds her acting.

"That was very good Sweetie!" exclaims Bandana Dee.

"Thank you!"

"So what you are proposing..." starts Dedede. "Is that we make a movie where I am the bad guy, and Kirby is the hero? You know that this means that Kirby will just gain ever more popularity, right? No, Kirby will not be the hero. And I will not change my mind, I don't want to be the bad guy no matter what you say."

"I think that I know what will be the story," says Cape Knight. "I know my king that you would prefer to be a hero, but I think that the movie would work better if we put Sweetie Belle as the hero, with you as some kind of mentor. Thanks to the fact that she is seen as Kirby's sidekick like you said earlier, she already has some popularity, so she will attract more people. Her cuteness should help too."

"And she is really badass too!" shouts Knuckle Joe. "Not that you are not badass my king. But so far, you can't shoot lasers or energy balls." He bows. "Sorry!"

"Ugh..." Dedede can feel his pride breaking. "I'm... okay with those roles..."

"So, to continue, we will need a bad guy," says Cape Knight. "Kirby is out of the question. We can easily pick one of the bad guys fought until now, from Nightmare to Necrodeus."

"The Dark Matters!" proposes Sweetie Belle. "They are so far the worst enemies that have ever appeared on Popstar. A movie where they would be the main bad guys is obvious!"

"Yeah, the Dark Matters will be the best bad guys," confirms Dedede.

"Then we have our bad guys," says Cape Knight. "Now, here is my next idea. If the movie work, we make a sequel in the form of a serie. I already see how it would play out. The heroic Sweetie Belle succeeded in defeating the leader of the Dark Matters, the frightful Zero! However, Zero survived his defeat, and now under a new form called Zero Two, he comes back, this time trying to eliminate Sweetie Belle by sending monsters after monsters, only for our heroine to defeat them one after another until the ultimate fight between her and her archnemesis."

"We have our scriptwriter!" shouts Bandana Dee.

"That's perfect! While Cape Knight writes the script, we will build the movie studio! You hear that everyone? Go build one at once!"

"YES MY KING!"

As everyone leaves the room, Sweetie Belle comes to Dedede. "Wait, Dedede!"

"Yes?"

"I'm gonna find Meta Knight to ask him the blueprints of the Halberd. Remember what we talked about?"

"Ah yeah! I almost forgot!" He then turns to the servants in the room to order them something else, only to see that the room is already empty. "... They are fast. Go find Meta Knight. I will start the building of the hangar."

---

Finding Meta Knight can be hard, but thankfully, when she has gone to the hangar of the Halberd, the Meta Knights has been able to tell her where he is. And so, she finds Meta Knight sitting under a tree, reading a book, his favorite pass time outside of training.

Hearing her approaching, he raises his eyes from the book. "Hello Sweetie Belle. Do you need something? Also, good job in the Popopo Islands."

"Thank you. And let me present to you..." She takes the knitting needles. "Yin and Yarn. They tried to conquer Dreamland by turning everything into yarn, but I was able to 'convince' them to give up. And now they help me. Yin, Yarn, this is Meta Knight, leader of the Meta Knights, and second strongest warrior of Popstar behind Kirby. Yes, he is stronger than me and Dedede."

Of course, Yin and Yarn understand the hidden message. He's strong enough to turn the both of you into toothpicks, so don't mess with him.

"Nice meeting you Meta Knight!" they both say with sweat pearling on their head.

Meta Knight glares at them for a few seconds before nodding and turning to Sweetie Belle. "You haven't come here just to present them to me I presume."

"No. I'm here to ask you something. Can I take a copy of the blueprints of the Halberd?"

This makes Meta Knight raises an eyebrow, Sweetie can clearly see it through the mask. "Why?"

"Me and Dedede got the idea to build our own battleship like the Halberd." She then giggles. "Dedede also wants a ship big enough so he could build a space resort thanks to it."

He sighs. "I have nothing against it... Very well. Let's go to the Halberd's hangar to search them."

"Thank you. I'm sure that this new battleship will be useful one day to fight the bad guys. Oh, and Dedede is also starting to do a movie."

Meta Knight looks at her in silence before saying "Really?"

"Yes. He wants to be famous. Forcing the inhabitants to acknowledge him didn't work. Being a hero doesn't work too. So we got the idea of making a movie. Cape Knight is writing the script right now, but if you want, I'm sure that we could give you a role. It would be fun. For info, I will be the heroine, Dedede will be my mentor, and we will use Zero as the bad guy."

Meta Knight chuckles. "I will think about this."

---

The following days, words about Dedede working on a movie have spreed in all Dreamland. As the studio is finished, many are the ones wanting to have a role in it, forcing Cape Knight to always change the script to include them.

Despite some... protestations about what happens to some of the characters, or their role given, the script is eventually accepted.

Sweetie has also gone to the frozen Earth to ask the robots here some help for the special effects. With their technology, they will not have to worry about using cardboard and that kind of thing. The robots have gladly accepted. With the help of the Halberd, some of the robots have come to Popstar with the necessary technology.

Now, they are in the studio, about to do the first scene. Kirby is beside a fake fountain looking like the Fountain of Dreams. The water is pink, and at the top, there is a rod with a heart-shaped head. ChuChu is also present, in the water of the fountain.

Cape Knight, who is now the director of the movie, is sitting on a chair, using a megaphone. "Alright everyone! Let's start to turn our first scene! Kirby, the Guardian of the Fountain of Love, invokes a hero to fight the threat of the Dark Matters! Take 1! Aaand... Action!" At the word 'action', he takes a clapboard and claps it.

Kirby is looking at the ceiling in worry. "Poyo..." He then starts to walk back and forth under the worried eyes of ChuChu, repeating "Poyo... Poyo...", until she touches him on the side with one of her arms, gaining his attention. "Poyo?" ChuChu then looks at Kirby in determination before turning toward the rod on the fountain, and pointing at it with a nod. "Mmh?" Kirby then gasps before smiling. "Poyo! Poyo poyo!" Inflating, he flies to the rod, and touches it, closing his eyes, murmuring "Poyo..." Then, he looks at the rod in surprise, then at a spot beside the fountain, landing beside it while looking down on the floor, protecting his eyes.

"And cut!" shouts Cape Knight. "Very good you two!" He now turns to Sweetie Belle. "This is where you appear."

"So I go lie down on the floor beside the fountain where Kirby as been looking and open my eyes as if I was waking up?"

"Exactly."

"Okay... Well, I think that I remember my text, so I should be alright. I have repeated that scene at least ten times."

"If you need to read the text a last time before we start, you can."

"I will at least try before." After saying that, she goes toward the fountain, beside Kirby. "You are a really good actor Kirby. Is there anything you are bad at?"

He giggles and shrugs. "Poyo."

While giggling, Sweetie lies down on the floor at Kirby's feet and closes her eyes.

"Good!" says Cape Knight as he takes the clapboard. "The apparition of the heroine! Action!" Clap!

"He's really good at this job," comments Bandana Dee from the side.

"Probably thanks to his experience as captain of the guard," replies Dedede. "But I didn't know that he had the soul of an artist."

"We all have hidden talents," says Meta Knight. He looks at Kirby. "Some more than others. I heard that he built a whole spaceship in just a few seconds?"

"Yeah. We got back the pieces of the blueprints, and five seconds later, there was a spaceship." He rubs his head. "Sometimes, I wonder how he does it..."

"But how do you expect me to defeat those things?! I don't even know how to fight!" they hear Sweetie yell at Kirby.

"Poyopoyo poyo! Poyo!" replies Kirby before ChuChu gives him the rod, which he gives to Sweetie Belle. "Poyo poyo poyopoyo! Poyo!" He then points toward one of the walls of the studio. "Poyo poyo! Poyo poyo! Poyo!"

"Someone who will train me? Who?"

"Poyo."

She sighs. "Ok..." She then looks at the rod. "I don't know if I will be able to do it, but..." She looks back at Kirby. "If losing means the end of this world, then I will do everything to avoid it."

"Poyo!"

"And cut! Well done!"

---

Surprisingly, the following months are really peaceful. Not a single bad guy trying to take over or destroy anything. So as the time pass, they simply continue to work on the movie.

"I'm glad that I was able to save you from being devoured by this possessed monster. So your name is Pitch?"

"Cheep cheep cheep!"

"Nice meeting you Pitch. I'm Sweetie Belle, and as you can guess, I'm the one that has been called to save the world from those Dark Matters."

"Cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep!"

"What? You want to come with me? Why?"

Pitch starts to fly around Sweetie Belle, doing some figures to show Sweetie Belle that she can count on him.

However...

"Watch out!"

"Cheeeep!"

Diving a little too early, Pitch crashes on Sweetie Belle, getting the two of them on the floor.

"Cut! Pitch! Watch out when you do your figures!"

"Cheeep..."

"Ugh... It reminds me of Rainbow Dash... Maybe you should work those figures a little more before we retry this scene."

---

"Watch out Marx!"

Marx, on his ball, rolls back to avoid being crushed by the hammer of a Bonkers.

"Oh! You asked for it!"

Marx jumps from his ball and kicks it toward the Bonkers, only for the Bonkers to hit it with his hammer to make it bounce away.

And the ball hits a Scarfy that has been prepared for another scene. The Scarfy has been at the edge of a small herd, and upon being it by the ball, it is projected toward others Scarfys, who rams into more Scarfies, until at least half of the herd, fourteen including a big one, are turned into their monstrous form and start flying toward Sweetie, Pitch, Marx, and Bonkers.

Pitch yells "Cheeeeep!!" before flying away, followed by a panicked Bonkers, and many servants working in the room.

Sweetie and Marx looked at each other before sighing as Marx turns into his 'bat' form.

"We will avoid to place the Scarfys too close in the future."

"At least, we get to have some real fun!"

---

"You must keep an eye for the enemy's movements. Your fight against the Bonkers proved that against a real fighter, you... You..." Meta Knight looks at Sweetie Belle without saying anything anymore.

She giggles. "Forgot your text?"

At this, Meta Knight looks away.

Take 2!

"You must keep an eye for the enemy's movements. Your fight against the Bonkers proved that against a real fighter, you wouldn't stand a chance by yourself. A smart fighter knows how to deceive you and pass your guard. You..." He plants his sword in the ground in frustration.

"You almost got it."

Take 3!

You must keep an eye for the enemy's movements. Your fight against the Bonkers proved that against a real fighter, you wouldn't stand a chance by yourself. A smart fighter knows to... how to... Rah!" He throws his sword at a camera, impaling it, which causes the Waddle Dee using it to lose consciousness in fear.

"Hey! Don't destroy the equipment!" shouts Dedede.

"I think that we should have a small break," proposes Sweetie. I didn't think that he could lose his temper over something like that, and so rapidly...

---

"Star darn it Sweetie Belle! Why did you fire a real giant laser beam? You knew that we would have used the special effects to make one!" yells Dedede before showing the hole in a wall... And in the wall behind it... And in the wall behind this one... "Now we have to repair five walls! And everything in between!"

"Sorry! I got carried away in our 'fight'!"

"Yeah... You forgot that this was a fake fight, right?"

She laughs sheepishly.

---

Adeleine, with a sadistic smile, paints an Ice Dragon who immediately comes to life and jumps out of the canvas. Sweetie, Pitch, Marx, and Meta Knight ready themselves to fight it. The painted Ice Dragon roars, but then, spots Dedede at the other side of the room, eating some juicy meat along with Kirby who eats a strawberry shortcake. The painted Ice Dragon roars again, and runs toward them.

"H-hey! Come back!" shouts Adeleine.

"Dedede!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

Hearing her, Dedede looks toward them, only to see the painted Ice Dragon jumping toward him.

"Wh-" BAM!

They all look away the moment of the impact as they hear Dedede scream before looking back, sweating.

"Note to self: never paint the Ice Dragon beside meat," says Adeleine.

---

"So the Dark Matters are back..." says Dedede, seated on his throne, after receiving a letter from one of his soldiers outside his castle. "Bandana Dee!" he then calls.

A few seconds later, Bandana Dee comes running toward the throne before bowing. "What can I do for you Great King?"

"I need Sweetie Belle to save the world again!"

"Then I'm gonna search her right away!"

"And don't forget to bring your spear so you can help her!"

"And cut!" shouts Cape Knight.

Everyone starts to cheer, jump in joy, and hug each other. It's done! They have finished to turn the scenes! Now all they have to do is to finish with the special effects and to put the scenes in their places to do the movie.

"We are not finished yet!" shouts Cape Knight.

"What? But that was the last scene of the movie!" says Bandana Dee.

"I have the feeling that the movie will be a great success! So while we put the finishing touches to it, we can start to turn the first episode of the series!" He shows them a bunch of papers. "I already wrote the script! We can start anytime!"

...

"He got a little too much in his new job..." says Bandana Dee.

---

A few days later, Dedede leads Sweetie Belle who now possesses a golden belt where she has put her whip and Yin and Yarn, Bandana Dee, and Cape Knight to the hangar that has been built in the mountain under the castle.

None of them need to ask why. They already know.

It is finished.

And when they arrive after taking an elevator, they finally see it.

An elongated red hull full of cannons, golden gliders, folded bird-like wings, a bridge that looks like a castle, Dedede's symbol painted on the sides, the wings, and on the deck, and Dedede's head on the bow, with a giant version of his crown at the top.

Dedede's own battleship.

The Warhammer.

"It's... Woah..." says Sweetie Belle.

"Awesome..." says Bandana Dee.

Dedede smirks. "Wanna a ride?"

"Yes!" shout both Sweetie and Bandana Dee excitedly.

At this, they enter the ship through one of the doors on the sides. The inside is pretty much like the one of the Halberd, but much more decorated, much like the inside of the castle. It really looks more like a luxurious ship than a battleship. It's a luxurious battleship.

They soon reach the bridge, which looks more like a throne room, with even a throne in front of the wheel, a red, white rimmed carpet leading from the throne to the wheel. The wheel itself has Dedede's symbol at the center. A Waddle Dee is just in front of the wheel, ready to pilot the ship when the order is given.

Dedede sits on the throne, laughing. "Bwahahahaha! I feel powerful!" He waves his right arm in front of him. "Let's take off!"

"Yes my king!" answer everyone on the bridge excepted Bandana Dee and Sweetie Belle.

An alarm starts to sound in the hangar, and red lights turn on. As the crew starts to work for the take off, the wall in front of the Warhammer, which is in reality a giant door, opens. Once it is fully opened, the battleship rises, and with a sudden push from the engines, it advance, getting out of the hangar. Once out, it bends up to gain height, and the wings unfold, finishing the take off process.

"I will never get tired of this!" says Sweetie Belle as she looks through a window at the right of the bridge. Eventually, she looks back at Dedede. "But wait, how will we return to the hangar? We can't move back, and if we enter the hangar normally, the Warhammer will be stuck."

"There is a second door that we can use at the opposite side. So no matter which one we enter, we can go out by the other."

"Hey look!" suddenly shouts Bandana Dee at an opposite window. "The Halberd!"

Hearing him, Sweetie rapidly joins him, and see indeed the Halberd now flying alongside them, side by side, at their left. She looks at the bridge, spots Sailor Waddle Dee through the window, and waves at him.

"Something tells me that our two ships will form a good team one day."

---

The ponies look in joy as Coloratura sings, free from the image imposed by her ex-manager, until Rarity jumps in fright at suddenly hearing a voice coming from right beside her hear.

"Hello! I'm not bothering I hope."

"Hiii! Di-Discord! Don't scare me like that! Where are you?"

"I'm here, but I'm not here at the same time. This way, I just accidentally scare you, and not everypony in this concert. As much as it would be fun, I know that Fluttershy wouldn't like it. Anyway, I've a package for you from Sweetie Belle. Seems like they finally finished their movie. She even sent the first episode of the series. I put everything in Twilight's castle."

"Thank you Discord."

So when Coloratura finishes her concert, Rarity says to her friends, Coloratura and the Crusaders among them, the news.

"So, movie night?" asks Rainbow Dash.

"Movie night!" shout Apple Bloom and Scootaloo.

"You have a sister trapped in another dimension?" asks Coloratura.

"Not trapped. More like 'Following her destiny'."

"I will explain, but you will have a hard time believing me," says Applejack.

"You are the most honest mare than I know. You proved it to me with Svengallop. I will believe anything you say."

---

The movie starts by showing the peaceful world, and how the inhabitants live in happiness, only for the world to be covered in darkness, starting with the castle of King Dedede. When the darkness spreads over a fountain, Kirby looks up in worry before walking back and forth, wondering what to do. His friend, Chuchu, then shows him a rod on the fountain, and Kirby gets the idea to use it to invoke someone that would be able to fight the darkness.

And so, in a bright red light, comes Sweetie Belle.

"Uh? Where am I?" she asks upon opening her eyes.

"Poyo!"

"Hiiii!!" She jumps away in fright. "Who are you?! And... What are you?! And where am I?!"

Kirby puts his arms in front of him, signing to her to calm down. "Poyo. Poyo." Once he sees that Sweetie Belle has calmed down a little, he starts to explain the situation, the filly seemingly understanding him, probably thanks to the power of the rod that has invoked her.

"So, let me get this straight. This world is in danger of being plunged in darkness by creatures of darkness and hate that you know are called Dark Matters. You know that their weakness is love, like the one produced by this fountain, but because you are the Guardian of this Fountain of Love, you can't get too far, so you used this Heart Rod to invoke someone that could use the power of love to defeat the Dark Matters. I see what you want but... But how do you expect me to defeat those things?! I don't even know how to fight!"

"Poyopoyo poyo! Poyo!" replies Kirby before ChuChu gives him the rod, which he gives to Sweetie Belle. "Poyo poyo poyopoyo! Poyo!" He then points in one direction at the horizon. "Poyo poyo! Poyo poyo! Poyo!"

"Someone who will train me? Who?"

"Poyo."

She sighs. "Ok..." She then looks at the rod. "I don't know if I will be able to do it, but..." She looks back at Kirby. "If losing means the end of this world, then I will do everything to avoid it."

"Poyo!"

At this, Sweetie Belle bids Kirby, or rather, "the Guardian of the Fountain of Love", and ChuChu goodbye before starting her journey in the direction pointed by him, Heart Rod floating in her magic beside her.

"So what do you think so far Rara?" asks Applejack.

"They are good. Maybe it's a little too fast. Also, the pink ball is adorable."

"I know! I so want to hug him!" shouts Pinkie Pie. "But I have to wait for Sweetie to beat the Dark God so she can return to Equestria and get us to Popstar! It's so long!"

In her journey, Sweetie Belle quickly encounters a small bird named Pitch, which she saves from a monster that has been about to eat him. Despite being scared of the monster, Sweetie has been able to charge at it and ram it by surprise before punching it in the face again and again until it has lost consciousness. Something has then gotten out of the monster, some kind of black orb with a single eye, and it has started to attack Sweetie Belle. Understanding that it has been a Dark Matter, she has taken the Heart Rod and has fired a heart beam at it, destroying it.

Following the rescue, owing his life, Pitch decides to follow Sweetie Belle to help her, and to guide her in this world. Later, as she is chasen by two dozens Scarfys, she is saved by a jester, Marx, who understands that she is the one that must defeat the Dark Matters, and helps her. With his help, they are able to defeat a possessed Bonkers, which Sweetie has really had a hard time to fight, because he has known how to fight.

Just as they defeat the Bonkers, Meta Knight, who has been observing them from the shadows, talks to them, revealing that he is the one that will train Sweetie Belle to fight, and seeing her fight against the Bonkers, she really needs it. So for some days, Meta Knight trains Sweetie Belle, until he thinks that she has become experienced enough in a fight to not be killed by some simple minion. Once done with this training, he decides to follow them, to continue to train Sweetie, but also to help them fight the many possessed beings, especially King Dedede's army.

And fight them they do. Many possessed beings get in the way to stop them, including the human girl Adeleine, and the more they approach the castle of King Dedede, the epicenter of the darkness, the more there are enemies and traps. When they enter it, Sweetie is forced to continue alone with Pitch, Bandana Waddle Dee and Cape Knight forcing Marx and Meta Knight to remain behind.

So she fights Dedede alone on the roof of the castle, Pitch not really being of any help, and after an epic fight, she is able to defeat Dedede and force Zero, the leader of the Dark Matters, out of his body. Armed with the Heart Rod, Sweetie jumps on a shield and fights Zero in the sky among the darkness, but the powerful being almost manages to defeat her. About to lose, Sweetie Belle desperately charges at Zero's eye, and impales the Heart Rod in it. The eye then disappears in a big explosion of red light while the body disappears in the darkness.

And so, with Zero defeated, peace comes back to the world. As a thank you, Dedede accepts to let Sweetie Belle live in his castle, and Marx and Meta Knight bid her goodbye before returning to their life.

But one day...

"What can I do for you Great King?"

"I need Sweetie Belle to save the world again!"

"Then I'm gonna search her right away!"

"And don't forget to bring your spear so you can help her!"

And the movie ends on this.

"A cliffhanger? Really?" asks Spike.

"Probably to announce the series," says Twilight.

"Well then let's start the first episode!" says Rainbow.

"So that Zero really is something that Sweetie Belle had to fight?" asks Coloratura while Spike is busy preparing the first episode of the show.

"Yes. Everything said about the Dark Matters in this movie is true," says Applejack. "Also, they made his death more foal friendly. Discord told us that in reality, he died with his eye expelling itself of the body to ram Sweetie Belle and Kirby before exploding in a bloody mess. I'm really thankful they haven't done that in this movie."

"It's ready!" announces Spike.

The episode starts where the movie has ended, Bandana Dee searching Sweetie Belle to tell her that she needs to save the world again. As the filly starts to prepare herself, the opening starts.

"Sweetie, Sweetie, Sweetie, that's the name you should know!
Sweetie, Sweetie, Sweetie is the star of the show!
She's more than you think,
Doesn't have to be pink,
Sweetie, Sweetie, Sweetie's the one!
She comes right back at ya! She comes right back at ya!
Give it all you got, take your very best shot,
She will come right back at ya for sure! Yeah!"

"What can I do for you Great King?"

"I need Sweetie Belle to save the world again!"

"Then I'm gonna search her right away!"

"And don't forget to bring your spear so you can help her!"

"Sweetie, Sweetie, Sweetie, saving the day!
Sweetie, Sweetie, Sweetie's coming home, so make way!
Don't be fooled by her size, you won't believe your eyes!
Sweetie, (Sweetie!)
Sweetie, (Sweetie!)
Sweetie, (Sweetie!)
Sweetie, Sweetie, Sweetie's the one!
RIGHT BACK AT YA! YEAH!"

---

A few days later...

"Sweetie Belle, your new whip is ready."

She smiles. "Good. About time."

Author's Notes:

*I used a Fake Italian Accent Generator for this one. I hope that it's good.

Thanks again kelduo647 for the lyrics of the opening.

Guess what we will start in the next chapter? I'm sure that you have all been waiting for it.

Chapter 63: A New Friend in Need

More time passes.

As expected, the movie, Sweetie Belle's Dreamland, has known a great success, but even if they have already turned the first episode of the series, they have preferred to wait to turn more episodes before starting to broadcast them. By now, they are at five episodes, and they are about to finish the sixth.

They have also started to build the space resort with the help of the Warhammer. It's a really slow process however, having to build the resort piece by piece, before using the battleship to bring them in space where the minions are assembling them together. And because the space in the Warhammer is limited, they can't bring too much pieces at the same time, and the pieces can't be too big. At least, now, the resort is half finished.

By now Sweetie Belle just knows that it is always Spring in Dreamland. It has been over half a year since she has appeared in this world, and yet, no changes in the season. When she has arrived, it has been Spring in Dreamland, so by now, it should be Autumn, or Winter, and yet, it's still Spring. Well, she doesn't mind, because like it's always Spring in most Dreamland, there are places where it's always Summer, Autumn, or Winter, so if she wants to change season, she just has to go to one of those places. Or that world where you can change the season by passing some doors.

She has quickly showed the others her new whip, without revealing anything of what it can do. The new whip is made of metal, and actually looks more like a rope. The metal seems to be made of ten sections of equal length, but nobody knows yet why. But if this whip is anything like Dedede's new hammer that he has used in his last fight against Kirby on the ring, then this whip has probably many tricks hidden in it, and what are those tricks are the subjects of many discussions in the castle, and a few bets too.

Taking this long period of peace, the longest since she has come here, Sweetie Belle has been training very hard, to learn to use her new whip, to learn new things with her magic, with her soul energy, to better fight with her body, with other weapons, and without forgetting Yin and Yarn.

And now, she thinks that she is ready.

Right now, Sweetie Belle, Dedede, and Bandana Dee are strolling on one of the roads of Dreamland. The filming of the serie's sixth episode has finished for the day, so they have decided to spend the rest of it by simply having a good time before returning to the castle.

"How many episodes do you think we will turn?" asks Bandana Dee.

"Depending on the series' success, probably a lot," answers Dedede. "And judging from the movie, if we don't screw up, then I know that it will have a lot of success. Bwahahahahaha! My plan is working!"

Sweetie giggles. "Remember who gave the idea to do a movie?"

"Of course! And that's why, once the space resort is finished, I will name it after you! And don't forget that you have 40% of the profits. When you will come back to your world, you will be rich! And powerful! Hahaha! You could become the queen!"

"No thanks. I will not overthrow the princesses. Speaking of princess, I received a letter from Rarity saying that princess Twilight has now a pupil. I still remember the day she became a princess as if it was yesterday. And the day she first came to ponyville like it was just last week. Time goes too fast!"

Dedede gives a noogie to Sweetie Belle. "Yeah. I'm thinking the same thing. We are getting close to one year since you appeared, and yet, I still remember that moment as if it just happened!"

"Oh boy, yeah. Me falling in your cake. You chasing me in all the castle."

"Me convincing the king to spare you," says Bandana Dee.

"You being an harmless child that couldn't hurt a Waddle Dee, so you became a simple servant, cleaning the castle, trying to cook... Then you started training your magic, then I started training you to fight, and now, here you are, my second in command, Popstar's second greatest hero, and it's a matter of days before you surpass me!"

"Actually..." Sweetie Belle gets out of Dedede's arms and faces him. "I think I'm ready. No..." She smirks. "I know that I have surpassed you now. I just need to prove it."

Dedede stares at Sweetie Belle in surprise before guffawing. "You think so? Ah! We will see! Very well! Let's fight! On the ring!" Growl "But first, a snack!... Does any of you have food?"

They shake their head. "Nope."

"Sorry my king."

"But there is a strawberry shortcake over there," says Sweetie Belle as she points behind Dedede to a strawberry shortcake beside a tree. "You can praise this world having food popping out everywhere, unlike my waistline..."

"A shortcake. It's not much, but it should calm my hunger enough until we reach the castle." However, as Dedede start approaching the shortcake, they spot Kirby running toward it and take it, water in his mouth. "Wh- Hey! I wanted it!"

Kirby looks up at Dedede, then places the shortcake at his side, away from Dedede. "Poyo. Cake."

"No! It's my cake! I saw it first!"

"Poyo!"

"Mine!"

"Poyo!"

"Mine!"

Those two... thinks Sweetie Belle with a sigh.

Kirby suddenly runs away with the shortcake.

"Hey! Come back here!" shouts Dedede as he chases Kirby. "Give me back my cake!"

"Poyo!"

Bandana Dee starts to run after them. "Wait, my king!"

Sweetie Belle just sighs in exasperation while shaking her head before running after them. "You know we can simply find something else?" she shouts, only for Dedede to ignore her.

The chase continues on the road, neither Kirby or Dedede wanting to give up on the shortcake. After a few minutes, they pass beside Meta Knight sitting beside a rock forming a small arch, reading peacefully a book, not paying attention to what is going on. However, when he spots Sweetie Belle, she waves at him, and he nods back before returning to his reading.

The chase is however interrupted by a sudden bright light coming from the sky, which gains the attention of everyone excepted Dedede who bumps on Kirby as the pink ball stops in curiosity, making him drop the shortcake, to his dismay. Bandana Dee and Sweetie stop beside them, and they all look toward the sky at the origin of the light, some sort of swirling anomaly.

Then, from the anomaly, a star-shaped portal appears, and out of it comes a flying ship that is familiar to Sweetie Belle. It's blue and white, with two wings at the sides, and stars at the bow, including a yellow one at the very front while the others are blue.

Before Sweetie Belle has time to see in her memories where or when she has seen this ship, just as it finishes to pass the portal, something hits it on the back in a big explosion. This affects the portal as it starts to collapse with some cracks around it, causing everything to shake as the ship starts to lose height. Escaping it are many small spheres that Sweetie and the others can't identify from where they are, and quickly, the oars break off, followed by the wings, the stars at the bow, and the mast, the parts being enveloped in some kind of bubble before going in all directions with the small spheres. Along with the sphere, whatever has caused the explosion and the collapsing of the portal has also some star-shaped energy that also falls a little everywhere.

That's when Sweetie Belle is able to remember where she has seen this ship: on Ripple Star. It is one of the artefacts created by the Ancients that queen Ripple has shown to her!

She starts running after the ship, quickly followed by Kirby, then Dedede, Bandana Dee, and even Meta Knight. A few seconds later, they lose sight of the ship, but they hear it crash, so they continue in the direction it has been diving toward, and they rapidly reach the crash site. To their surprise, the hull of the ship is still intact.

Now that they are close, they can see that the bridge is a dome, but through the windows, they can't see the inside, the bridge being seemingly covered by a dark space that swirl, as if there is a small universe inside it. From the holes left by the oars and the stars at the base of the wings, they also can only see what seems to be space.

They slowly approach it from its left side.

"It's the ship that queen Ripple showed me in that book about the Ancients. It's one of their creations," says Sweetie Belle.

"So... Do we destroy it? So far, almost everything made by the Ancients were bad news," says Dedede.

"I don't know. I don't know if it's one of the artefacts that was corrupted by the Dark God."

"We first have to find out how to enter," says Meta Knight. "I don't see any door."

He has talked too quick. As they approach the ship, a part of the left side of the hull is covered in light, and when the light disappears, a round door has appeared, with a ramp leading from the ground to it. And at least, the doors doesn't seems to lead into space, but into light. They look at each other in wonder, then, seeing that nobody is getting out of the ship, Kirby advances toward it, starting to walk on the ramp. Sweetie, then the others, follow him, and they enter the ship.

The inside, unlike the outside, has clearly been damaged by the crash, many parts of the walls having fallen, leaving some holes. But there doesn't seem to be much, the room they have entered being big, revealing by the way that the inside is bigger than the outside, white, and above all, empty. All they see beside the debris is a large floating screen flashing a warning sign in an unknown language, closed doors at the sides, and in front of the screen, unconscious, an alien, probably the owner of the ship.

And nobody else... Wait. Then who has opened the door? Does the ship have some automatic door opening or something like that? Sweetie wouldn't be surprised then to suddenly a voice coming from the screen talking to them.

...

Nope, no voice. Not even one that screams "WARNING! WARNING!"

The alien himself has a egg-shaped body, with no legs and disembodied hands, he also possesses two horn-like ears. The only part of his body that they can see is the top of his head around his eyes, the head seemingly to be brown. All the rest of his body is covered in clothes. A blue suit with a golden cog design at the front, a white cape with gold trimmings, a white scarf with a blue belt interwoven covering his mouth, a blue hood covering his head with the cog design at the rim and white at the pointe of the ears with a golden ring just below the white, and cream mittens covering his hands.

As they approach him, the alien wakes up, revealing that his possesses oval-shaped yellow eyes.

"He-"

Sweetie's greetings is suddenly interrupted by the alien jumping before looking around in panic at the damages, his body floating above the ground. Without paying attention to Sweetie Belle and the others, he turns toward the screen and starts to push buttons on a keyboard, muttering "Please no please no please no..."

The screen stops showing the warning signs, and now shows an image of one of those spheres that have been expelled from the ship earlier, revealing that there are cogs inside those spheres. Beside it is an arrow pointing toward a 120/120 and a full green gauge. But then, one of the 120 decreases until showing 0/120, and the gauge is now empty. A big red cross now flashes on the sphere, and the screen flashes red.

After that, the screen shows an image of the ship, and reveals one by one the parts that have broken earlier: the oars, the wings, a part of the bow with the stars, and the mast, the parts in question replaced by red crosses.

This greatly saddened the alien, whose ship clearly can't fly anymore.

"I'm trapped..."

"Uh... Hello?"

Hearing Sweetie's voice, the alien turns around and finally pays attention to his guests.

"Oh! Hello! Sorry if I have been rude, but I had to check the damage after this crash."

"And it's not good I presume," says Dedede.

"Not at all. The Lor Starcutter has lost its mast, oars, wings, and emblem, as well as its 120 Energy Spheres, which are its energy source. Without those five parts and a certain number of those spheres..." He looks down in sadness. "The Lor will not be able to take off anymore..."

Kirby approaches the alien before smiling at him and saying "Poyo!" with a bounce.

Sweetie joins him. "He is right. We can help."

They are joined by Dedede and Bandana Dee. "I will not miss this occasion to do some good action!" shouts the penguin.

"Yes! Because we are heroes! And heroes help others in need!"

Meta Knight then joins them too. "We will not let you down."

The alien jumps in joy. "Oh thank you! Thank you!"

"But what happened?" asks Sweetie Belle.

The alien's ears lower at this. "Well... Hmm! How about we do the presentation first before I explain everything to you?"

"Of course! My name is Sweetie Belle! And the pink ball here is Kirby!"

"Poyo!"

"I am king Dedede! The ruler of the kingdom where you crashed! And Sweetie Belle here is my second in command!"

"And me, I'm his loyal soldier, Bandana Waddle Dee!"

Meta Knight simply nods. "Meta Knight. Nice to meet you."

"I'm glad to meet all of you. My name is Magolor, and I come from another dimension, from a world named Halcandra."

Sweetie gasps. "You are from another dimension? Me too!"

"Really?"

She nods. "A magical accident sent me there."

"A magical accident that transported you across the dimensions? It must have been really powerful! Then the Lor will be able to help you. It can open portals to other dimensions. Once it's repaired, I can transport you back to your dimension!"

"Thank you, but no need for now. I have yet to do some things here before I can go back home."

"If you say so. So, back on topic. Like I said, I come from Halcandra. In this world, for ages, a dragon named Landia slept. It was said that he was a guardian of the land, protecting it from dangers. But then, he awakened and started to rampage. I tried to fight him with the Lor, but the dragon was too powerful. I had to escape. The Lor is a powerful ship, but Landia possesses a source of infinite power named the Master Crown, and it's thanks to it that Landia has been able to damage the Lor so much."

"A rampaging dragon and a crown of infinite power... Ok, that's new," says Dedede.

"Now..." Magolor pushes some more buttons on the keyboard, and the image on the screen now shows the five pieces of the Lor going toward the five branches of Popstar, with more signs appearing beside them. "Here are where the five pieces have fallen. The oars have fallen on the land named Cookie Country, the right wing in Raisin Ruins, the left wing in Onion Ocean, the Emblem in White Wafers, and the mast in Nutty Noon."

"How does the Lor know about Popstar and all those places? It's the first time that it comes here," asks Sweetie Belle.

"Good question, but I may know why. I will gladly tell you more later, but I think that we shouldn't lose too much time while Landia is left rampaging my world."

Meta Knight nods. "Yes. We can talk while we replace the pieces of the Lor."

"Yes. As for the Energy Spheres, many of them have fallen on Popstar, but some have fallen on Halcandra, so we will not be able to retrieve all of them right away. Thankfully, the number on Popstar should be enough for the Lor to take off and open a portal back to Halcandra.

However, there is something that you must watch out... Landia hit the Lor just as it passed the portal, which caused the barrier between this dimension and the other to weaken, and the crown's energy that was in the fireball to disperse on all Popstar. To put it simply, if that energy has fallen on locals, then the capacities of those locals will be boosted. Like, a swordsman will be able to invoke a giant sword.

As for the consequence of the weakening of the dimensional barrier, it means that you may fight dangerous creatures from my dimension named Doomers. They are creatures of negativity that eat positivity, like the Dream Matter that the Lor uses. Because those Energy Spheres are full of this Dream Matter, then the Doomers will be after them, and you may more than once have to chase a Doomer through a portal toward my dimension to fight them and recuperate the spheres. You may also have to open them using the energy of the crown somehow."

"That's easy!" says Bandana Dee. "Kirby will eat whoever has received this energy, and use those boosted abilities to find those portals!"

"Did I hear it well? Kirby can copy the abilities of the ones he eats?"

"Poyo!"

Magolor looks at Kirby, then at Meta Knight, then back at Kirby. "Could you be..." He shakes his head. "W-well then, I'm sure that you will have no problems gathering the parts and the spheres."

"And I will finally be able to explore more of Popstar!" says Sweetie Belle. "Let's go everyone!"

As Sweetie starts to run excitedly out of the Lor, quickly followed by the others, Magolor intercepts Meta Knight. "Hey. Are you a..."

"A Child of the God, yes."

"And Kirby..."

Meta Knight looks toward Kirby exiting the Lor. "Is much much more." He looks back at Magolor. "Maybe you know something about him. We will talk once we are back. Sweetie Belle will be happy to hear what you know, descendant of the Ancients."

At this, Meta Knight gets out of the Lor, and catches up to the others thanks to his bat wings. Magolor walks out of the Lor, watching them take off on two Warp Stars.

"I can't believe it." He frowns. "If it's really him, then I may have a problem."

Chapter 64: Cookie Country

"It was nice to meet you miss Glimmer. I am glad that Twilight has been able to find such a promising pupil."

"Thank you princess. I will do my best to learn about friendship," answers the lilac unicorn with a bow, making Twilight and her friends smile.

"Oh, so Twilight found a student? I don't know what to think about her becoming more like you Celestia," she suddenly hears from her left, making her jump in surprise with a "Eep!"

"You should really stop appearing without warning Discord," says Celestia.

"Never! It's too funny to see them jump like that. Anyway..." He turns toward Rarity. "Guess what!"

It doesn't take long for her to understand. "Sweetie Belle?" A medal in chocolate appears on her heart.

"Winner!"

"Young Sweetie Belle is on another adventure?" asks Luna from beside Celestia. "Huzzah! I have missed watching her! The letters about her adventures were so exciting to read!"

"But we must return to our duty Luna," says Celestia.

"I don't have any duty before tonight! So you can return listening those idiots that call themselves nobles, I will not miss this adventure now that I have the occasion to watch one!" She turns to Discord. "What is this about this time? Another abomination of darkness?"

"From what mini-me told me, not this time. This time, she will have to fight a dragon bearing a crown giving him unlimited power in another dimension. But before that, she must help an alien repairing his spaceship that can traverse through dimensions, and the pieces have fallen all over the world."

"I must not miss this!"

Starlight looks at Discord and Luna with round eyes, not sure what to think. "Alien? Spaceship? A dragon from another dimension bearing a crown of unlimited power? What?"

"Ahahahahahah! You will get used to this!" says Discord. "Even Twilight has more or less gotten used to those crazy things."

Starlight looks at Twilight, only for her to nod. "Wait, he's not kidding?"

"Not at all," answers Twilight. "The dimension where Sweetie Belle is... is crazy. You will see soon enough."

"They can walk on clouds without cloudwalking spell or without being a pegasus, they can breath in water..."

Pinkie puts a hoof on Spike's mouth. "Hush! Don't reveal too much!"

"Oooh! If she's like Twilight, maybe she will have one or two meltdown!" says Discord. "I will have to think of the popcorn!"

"I'm gonna get Apple Bloom," says Applejack. "She'll want to see this."

"No need to go." Discord snaps his fingers, and Apple Bloom and Scootaloo appear beside him, the later on her hind hooves, front hooves in front of her, which leads her to fall the next instant.

"What?"

"Hey! I was on my scooter!"

Discord snaps his fingers again. "There. Now it is beside the door of the castle."

Apple Bloom looks around, and quickly puts two and two. "We're gonna watch Sweetie Belle? It's been so long!"

"That's right!" shouts Pinkie in joy. "And there will be aliens, spaceships, and a dragon!"

Scootaloo gasps. "Spaceships?"

"Yes!"

"Just one spaceship," corrects Twilight. She then frowns. "One minute." A paper appears in front of her. "Is that the spaceship of this list? And that crown of unlimited power, is it the same crown from this list too?"

"The ship, yes. The crown..." Discord rubs his chin. "Maybe. It's not confirmed, but very probably."

"Too much talking!" shouts Luna. "Let's go watch before we miss too much!"

Hearing her, the fillies spot the princesses and quickly bow. "Princesses!"

"No need to bow, little ones," says Celestia. She then looks at the other ponies, biting her lower lip. "Give me one minute." And she disappears.

Discord looks at where Celestia has been before turning to the others. "Well then, let's go."

---

"So Magolor is an Ancient?" asks Sweetie Belle to Meta Knight as they still fly on the Warp Stars.

"Yes."

"Wait..." She thinks back to that picture that queen Ripple has shown her back on Ripple Star. "The ears! The Ancients in the picture had horn-like ears, like Magolor! If he is an Ancient, then it's no wonder then he possesses the Lor, because it is a creation of the Ancients! Wait, does this means that this Master Crown is the crown that Ripple showed me that the Ancients created? And Magolor said that Halcandra is his world, so was it the world of the Ancients? So does this mean that the Ancients actually come from another dimension? What about the God?"

"Rather than ask those questions in the air, why don't you wait to ask them to Magolor? If he is an Ancient, then he should be able to answer all of them," says Dedede.

"Maybe he even knows something about the origin of Kirby!" exclaims Bandana Dee.

"We are getting close to Cookie Country," warns them Meta Knight.

As they look in front of them, they can see that they approach a land full of grasslands and forests, with many hills that look like...

"Are those hills actual cookies?" asks Sweetie Belle, mouth watering.

"Oh, I think I will come more often to this place," says Dedede.

"Poyo."

Meta Knight chuckles. "They are chocolate chip flavored."

"Meta Knight! Please, stop!" pleads the filly.

"And they are very delicious."

"It's already hard to resist! No need to make it harder! I don't want to become a ball!"

"Pff. Chocolate chip flavored hills are nothing," says Yin.

"Yeah. Back in Patch Land, there is a whole place made of cakes, with cakes the size of mountains!" continues Yarn.

Sweetie looks at them. "So that exist. I knew it! I knew that there would be a land like that somewhere in this crazy universe! And remind me to never go to that place! I would never be able to leave it! Ugh! Next time I have the occasion, I will wish to be able to eat what I want without gaining weight! Like Kirby!"

"You would have to find another Nova for that," says Bandana Dee. "And it's not like we can find one on every world."

"There must have another way to grant my wish! Everything can happen in this universe! Maybe one day, I will find a genie in a lamp. And don't say that's impossible! Now stop talking about food and let's land!"

---

"Now I can see what you meant. They fly on stars toward a land with hills made of cookies," says Starlight. "We barely started watching, and already, I just said something imp-"

She is interrupted by something pink passing rapidly beside her toward the portal, only to crash on it, revealing it to be Pinkie Pie who starts sliding down.

"Sorry Pinkie. This portal is just a window, not a door," says Discord, snickering.

"But I want to go eat the giant chocolate chip flavored cookie hills!"

"I could create one, but I don't want to be held responsible for half the foals of Equestria becoming obese."

She crosses her hooves. "Not fair! You could just snap your fingers so nopony would become fat!"

Discord raises a finger about to say something before stopping and lowering it. "Hey. You are right." At this, both Apple Bloom and Scootaloo turn toward him with pleading eyes, along with Pinkie. Discord turns toward Luna with a raised eyebrow.

"I say yes to the Cookie Hill!" she shouts, making the fillies and Pinkie cheer.

That's when Celestia appears. "Done. We are free for the rest of the day."

"Then come join us! They are about to explore a land with hills made of cookie!"

"Hills made of..." She looks at the portal, spotting the hills. "Everything can really happen in this universe..."

"They even talked about a land made of cakes, with mountain cakes," says Discord with a smirk.

Hearing this, Celestia's eyes grow wide, and she gulps.

"Don't think about this Celestia!" shouts Luna. "Or you wouldn't be able to sit on the throne anymore! Tartarus, you wouldn't even be able to enter the castle!"

Celestia looks at her with pleading eyes.

"No! Now sit and watch the badass filly kick flanks! They are about to land!"

Kirby's Warp Star is the first to land, Kirby, Meta Knight, and Bandana all jumping from it just before it exploded upon crashing on the ground. Seems like Kirby has gotten more or less the hang of landing. However, Bandana Dee lands on his face.

"Watch out!" they hear Sweetie shout, but they barely have time to turn around before Meta Knight is rammed by Sweetie's Warp Star before it explodes, sending Sweetie, Dedede, and Meta Knight to fly in three directions, Dedede getting his head stuck in the ground when he lands. Yep, this is not yet it for the filly... for the amusement of Discord and some of the ponies.

Dedede gets his head out of the ground then shakes his head to regain his senses. "I thought you had learned to land since then..." he says while rubbing his head.

"Sorry..." says Sweetie on the floor. "I passed more time training to improve my fighting than to learn to land with the Warp Star."

Meta Knight gets up and glares at Sweetie Belle. "Once we are finished with Landia, I will teach you how to land with the Warp Star."

"Can I have my fight against Dedede before that?"

He raises an eyebrow. "You want to fight Dedede?"

"Yeah, she thinks that she has become strong enough to beat me."

"I don't just think it. I know it!"

"Yeah yeah. We will see. Once I get my hands on my mecha hammer, I will clobber you for the... Uh... One hundredth times? I stopped counting."

"That was during our training all those months ago! I'm much stronger now!"

He smirks. "Me too."

"Alright you two. You will see who is now the stronger after our fight against Landia," says Meta Knight. "For now, let's just start to search for the Energy Spheres and the parts."

"How will we find them?" asks Bandana Dee. "We don't have something to guide us like the crystal back then!"

"They use the power of Dreams. I think that Magolor called it 'Dream Matter'," says Meta Knight before turning to Kirby. "I'm sure that Kirby will be able to... 'feel' it."

"Poyo?"

"Your inhaling and Copy ability comes from the Dream Matter. The ability to use powers like in dreams. Use elements, invoke weapons, make wishes come true, traverse through dimensions, without the need to call any power from inside us, that's the power of Dream Matter."

"Wait a minute," shouts Sweetie Belle. "So the Dream power created by the God is called Dream Matter? Does this means that Heart and Soul are called Heart Matter and Soul Matter?"

"Probably."

"But then... Does this make the Dark Matter an actual fourth power? That this universe is composed of Dream Matter, Heart Matter, Soul Matter, and Dark Matter?"

Meta Knight frowns in thought. "The Dark Matters didn't possess any Dream, Heart or Soul, but they were still a creation of The God. So it may be the conclusion. There is a fourth power in this universe, which we have been fighting for some months. The power that doesn't come from our Dreams, from our Heart, or from our Soul... The Dark Matter. And this means that Zero and his minions, despite their name, were not really Dark Matters, but incarnations of the Dark Matter. They were a part of a greater whole."

"Maybe Magolor can confirm it," says Bandana Dee. "If he knows about the Dream Matter, then he probably knows about the other Matters."

"It's even certain. Meta Knight told us that Magolor is an Ancient, and Ancients were champions in using those Matters in their technology and magic," says Dedede.

"Even if Magolor is an Ancient, it doesn't mean that he knows everything about his ancestors. It was so long ago, and many things have been lost to History," rebuts Meta Knight. "But yes, he probably knows about the Matters. But first..." He turns back to Kirby.

---

Kirby understands and nods before closing his eyes, trying to sense the Dream Matter from the spheres. After a few seconds, he is able to sense an energy that reminds him of the Star Rod, and understands that it is the Dream Matter. Actually, without knowing it, he has been able to feel it all this time, and because of it, he has never payed attention to it, but now that he focus, he is able to see it for real. Quickly, a problem appears. He has no problems to feel the Dream Matter in the air but... IT IS EVERYWHERE! This whole world is made of Dream Matter! With some Heart (reminding him of the Love Love Stick), and Soul (by elimination, and because it reminds him of the power he has felt when Sweetie Belle has sung in their fight), and even of Dark (he can easily identify it), but in very small quantities, put in. This explains why he has been able to feel it like he feels the air all this time.

Wait. He can feel the Matters, but how is it possible? This is not simply because he is using Dream Matter for his Copy ability, right? There must be more.

But rather than focus on those questions, he tries now to find any way to identify the Dream Matter that comes from the Energy Spheres and the oars that he knows are somewhere on this land.

After a few more seconds, he is able to feel Dream Matter that seems to be expulsed from a direction. He is not sure that it is an Energy Sphere, but it's better than nothing, and at least, it means that the sphere must be close. Until they find it, he should be able to learn to better feel the Matters.

So he opens his eyes and waves the others to follow him.

---

Kirby starts to run in one direction, following a road, and Sweetie Belle and the others quickly follow him.

"You found something?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"Poyo!" says Kirby with a nod.

So they follow Kirby, passing not far of a giant tree with giant leaves that turn like the palm of a mill. In the way, Kirby eats a Blade Knight to gain the Sword ability.

"Did he just eat someone?" asks Starlight in horror.

"Don't worry, the people he eats reappear somewhere close," says Rarity.

"And it starts," says Discord, chuckling.

After jumping/flying above a rather high ledge, they enter a tunnel where Kirby decides to change his Sword to Fire by eating a Hot Head before they find a key with a star-shaped head.

"Oh? Will we find a new treasure chest?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"More treasures for me!" shouts Dedede.

However, it turns out that the key simply opens a door a little further ahead, to Dedede's disappointment. But luckily for them, behind the door, they find their first Energy Sphere floating in the air, which makes Kirby jump in joy.

"You did it Kirby!"

Meta Knight flies toward the sphere to take it before letting Kirby eat it.

They continue through the tunnel, Dedede destroying a stone star block only to find nothing behind it. "Normally, there is food in places like this! I'm still hungry!"

Not minding him, Kirby jumps to continue, only to encounter... a giant cardboard Waddle Dee slowly waddling toward him?

"Poyo?"

Destroying it with his fire reveals that there are three Waddle Dees hidden inside it.

"They were probably thinking that by using a giant cardboard costume, they would have a better chance against you," says Sweetie Belle.

Not minding the Waddle Dees, hey continue their way, Dedede finding a few fruits in some star blocks.

"Better than nothing."

After climbing a ladder, they exit the tunnel, only to encounter a curious scene.

"What happened to you dude?" asks a Blade Knight to another who is a little bigger with a star on his forehead and glowing with energy.

"I don't know. Some kind of star fell on me and now I'm like this. But look!" The big Blade Knight shows his sword, which grows in size, to the amazement of a couple of Waddle Dees watching them.

"Awesome dude!"

"I know! Now the girls will not resist me."

"It's like Magolor said. That Blade Knight has been infused with the energy of the crown," says Meta Knight.

"Kirby. Eat."

Kirby deadpans at Dedede. I'm not your dog...

"Too bad for this Blade Knight, but we may need this boosted ability," says Sweetie Belle.

He nods and gives up the Fire ability before running toward the two Blade Knights who spot him.

"Watch out dude! It's Kirby!"

"Ah! He doesn't scare me! With my giant sword, I will cut him in two in one swing!"

But before he can do anything, Kirby starts to inhale, which the Blade Knight can't do anything against. Before long, the two knights are inhaled, which lets Kirby gaining the Sword ability. But there are differences.

The green hat is longer, with a star at the end, and a glowing star at the front. Three swords are now coming out of shells protruding from the hat at each side of the glowing star, forming wings, and the sword that Kirby now holds is a bigger version of the one he normally use, with a star now on the gem at the base.

Kirby then turns toward the two Waddle Dees that are on a cracked piece of the ground, and the two quickly run away in fear. Still, Kirby does a few circles with the sword before raising it. Then, the sword becomes huge, the handle now has big as Kirby, and with just one slow swing, Kirby is able to destroy the cracked ground, revealing some food and showing the new power of this boosted version of Sword, to everyone's amazement.

"What the buck?!" shouts Rainbow Dash.

"THAT's the power of the Master Crown?!" shouts Dedede.

"No. That's just a glimpse," corrects Meta Knight.

Hearing this, Bandana Dee faints.

"Magolor did say that the crown possesses infinite powers," says Sweetie Belle. "But seeing this... We hadn't realized what it meant. The fight against Landia will be hard. And it puts into perspective how powerful the Dark God must be."

"Oh... Stars..." At this, Dedede faints too.

"Poyo!" shouts Kirby to gain their attention. Then, with a smirk toward Meta Knight, Kirby's sword grows... and turns into a giant version of Meta Knight's sword. Seeing this, Meta Knight turns his back and crosses his arms.

"The size of the sword doesn't matter."

"And yet, you seem upset," says Sweetie Belle with a giggle.

"I'm not. Just wake up those two so we can continue."

"Alright alright."

So Sweetie forms a bucket with her shield and fills it with water produced from her horn before emptying it on Bandana Dee and Dedede. Once they stop coughing, Kirby starts moving, followed by the others.

"So this is some of the power from that crown?" asks Applejack.

"Whoever wears it must be more powerful than an alicorn," says Twilight. "And it's a dragon who wears it! I'm... scared..."

Kirby and the others come to a group of Sir Kibbles. His sword then turns into a giant cutlass and he swings it down on the Sir Kibbles, dealing with them and destroying the ground under them, revealing some fruits.

"Hey! Leave some for us!" shouts Dedede.

More uses of the sword lead to it turning into some wooden stick like in some dojos, a meat cleaver (the ponies looking at it in horror), and even... a paper fan.

What?

Then, it turns into a giant fish.

The buck?

After destroying a big chunk of ground, they discover a star-shaped portal.

"Oh. Like Magolor said. This means that we will have to fight one of those Doomers. With a name like that, I wonder what they will be like," says Sweetie Belle.

"Only one way to know," says Bandana Dee.

They all nod, and jump into the portal. When the ponies can see Sweetie and the others again, they are now... in a monochromatic version of the land they have been. However, only a straight road is present, floating in what seems to be a space tunnel with planetoid floating here and there. The space seems to distort to form shapes like stars or squares.

And somehow, there are Waddle Dees here! And contrary to everything else, they have their colors!

Also, Kirby doesn't have his super ability anymore.

"What is this place?" asks Rainbow.

"This is Magolor's dimension?" asks Sweetie. "I have so many questions..."

"No time to tell us about them," says Meta Knight before pointing behind them. "We must run."

They all turn around at this, and they see a... purple space wall approaching, everything that enters it disappearing, as if this whole place is erasing itself.

"I didn't miss this!" shouts Sweetie Belle before running with the others.

Running and jumping above holes, they try to escape the purple wall, not minding the Waddle Dees who don't even try to run away. They punch away a giant one, then come in front of a pile of three big stone star blocks that are even bigger than Kirby. But to everyone's surprise, he's able to inhale all of them! Which he couldn't before! He then spits all of them under the form of a giant star with two smaller stars orbiting it, destroying everything in its way.

Bandana Dee raises his arms in frustration. "His inhaling ability has become more powerful! As if he wasn't already powerful enough!"

"Bandana! The wall!" warns Sweetie Belle while Kirby continues.

Bandana Dee turns around and sees that the wall has almost reached him. Screaming in fright, he runs away with the others.

Following the way, destroying everything in the way -mainly blocks and some Waddle Dees-, they eventually reach a door that leads them to a similar place, only this time, no purple wall following them, letting them take their breath.

"Magolor will have some explaining to do," says Dedede.

After a few seconds, they move again, and it doesn't take long for them to spot two Energy Spheres floating further. But knowing that a Doomer is around, they remain calm and look around while approaching. But when they get close enough, the spheres start to glow, and from behind in the light comes a purple thing that surrounds the spheres and fuses them into a single sphere. The purple thing on the sphere then separates into two halves, forming a fanged jaw all around it. Then, two yellow eyes, two wings, a tuft of hair on the top, and a tail with two tail-feathers on the lower part, appear. Finishing forming, the purple thing turns toward them.

"This is a Doomer?" asks Dedede. "I'm disappointed..."

The Doomer doesn't like what Dedede has said, because it charges at him, only for Dedede to intercept it with a swing of his hammer, crushing it. But the Doomer doesn't give up, and spits some purple orb as big as Kirby at Dedede from the ground, hitting him in the face. The Doomer is then covered in a green aura, and is lifted in the air by Sweetie Belle, before being slammed on the ground. It is lifted again, and Sweetie sends it toward Meta Knight who slashes it three times, with Bandana Dee impaling it with his spear just after. Kirby finishes it by gripping it before suplexing it, slamming it head first on the ground.

The Doomer explodes, leaving the two Energy Spheres. Curiously, its destruction causes colours to appear in this previously monochromatic place.

"Since when can you do a suplex without the Suplex ability?" asks Sweetie Belle.

Kirby answers her by punching the air.

"He trained, obviously," says Meta Knight. "Smart move. It can save him in case he doesn't have an ability during a fight. It's probably not as good as if he had the ability, but it's still better than nothing."

Dedede gives the two spheres to Kirby. "Did you really need it? You kicked my butt the first time without any abilities after all. No need to make Sweetie's job any harder..."

"Don't worry Dedede. This just means that it will take a little longer to beat him. Anyway..." She points further away, at a portal that has appeared. "Our way home is here."

---

Following their search of the spheres and the oars leads them to a succession of wooden platforms made of logs. A little before, Kirby eats a Leafan, some plant being with a red round body, a white face, and leaves fanning out, using them to fly. Eating it gives Kirby a new ability with a hat made of leaves with a gem at the front. Thanks to this new ability, the Leaf, Kirby can attack with leaves in various ways that can cut the enemies.

Following Kirby's lead, they use Warp Stars wooden platforms higher in the sky, above a forest, and this time, Sweetie is alone on her Warp Star, no one wanting to crash. Thankfully, she doesn't ram into anyone, and she follows Kirby's example to jump just before reaching the floor. The best would be to avoid that the star explodes when hitting the ground, but no matter how much she tries, she can't slow down enough to avoid it. Kirby too, apparently.

They follow the platforms and pass many Comos along with a few other beings before reaching a door, Dedede eating the meat just beside it. After the door, they find some kind of red cannon with a blue star that Sweetie recognizes as a Cracker, that activates when Kirby takes it, starting to fire bullets in an arc without stopping. Thanks to it, they are easily able to destroy metal blocks blocking the way to an Energy Sphere before it overheats and explodes.

Passing another door, entering a giant holed tree that they have to climb. At the top, back on wooden platforms, Kirby finds another Energy Sphere hidden in leaves before they pass another door toward a section where they end up against a Gigant Edge, a giant knight covered in green and teal armor with a white chest plate, a black base, a spike on the helmet, and a black metal shield with a spike at the center.

The Gigant Edge swings down his sword at them, only for Meta Knight to parry it, opening it to the others, but despite their attacks, the knight is remains strong and after spinning with his sword to force the ones close to him to jump away, he charges at them sword pointed at them. Sweetie counters it with a shield, and Meta Knight ends the fight with a slash on the knight's chest, who falls on his back unconscious.

Leaving the Gigant Edge behind, Kirby uses the leaves through a hole in a wall of logs to cut a rope, dropping a platform and opening the way to another Energy Sphere not far before a door that leads them to a succession of wooden platform forming a stair back to the ground.

"You have gotten really better with your spear Bandana," says Sweetie Belle.

"Thank you. Like you, I have trained hard. Now look what I can do." At this, Bandana Dee twirls his spear above his head very rapidly, and he starts hovering.

Sweetie Belle looks at him in awe before applauding. "Impressive!"

---

"Why can't our guards do that with their spears?" asks Luna.

"Because it should be impossible!" shouts Twilight, eye twitching.

"Breath Twilight. You know by now that you shouldn't think logically with this world," says Fluttershy.

---

Kirby leads them to a cave, having to reveal the door by destroying a bomb block. Inside the cave, they have to pass a few Shotzos while going down ladders before finding an Energie Sphere at the bottom of the section, below the next door.

The door leads them to a different part of the cave with a big underground lake and many crystals, and sections of the ground moving up and down. Despite the moving floor, they don't have any problems reaching the door to the next section, the only particularity being a door blocking the way that they have had to open by pressing a switch just in front of it.

Still in the cave with the lake, they get to drop a few Shotzos in pits by destroying star blocks under them before reaching two sections of ground moving back and forth in a larger pit. Before those two sections of ground is a closed door, and after them is the key opening it, letting them take the sphere trapped behind the door. After more Shotzos dropping, they reach the next black door.

Now they have to watch out for sections of ground full of small spiky crystals, forcing them to jump above them. After a long corridor full of obstacles, they encounter a Key Dee, a rare kind of Waddle Dee that looks more like a monkey, with a yellow furred body, a pink face, a yellow tail, and red swirls on the cheek. Like their name indicates, the Key Dees are key keepers, and divide into two kinds: the ones that will not let you open the door that their key opens, meaning that they will make sure that you don't get the key, even jumping in pits if they have to, and the ones that will help you open the door that their key opens.

This one if clearly of the first kind, because upon seeing them, he starts to run toward the nearest pit, so Sweetie quickly fires a beam at him to make him drop the key, which opens a door just after the pit, letting them get another sphere. Just after the door is a black door that leads them to a new section that they have to climb, exiting the cave.

"So, Sweetie Belle. Will you finally show us what your new whip can do?" asks Dedede.

"Only if I'm forced to. I want to keep some tricks hidden for my fight against you, and even for my future one against Meta Knight."

"It's always good to keep some attacks hidden to surprise your opponents," approves Meta Knight. "Remember how you and Kirby reacted to my tornadoes? I didn't show them to him at our first fight in Orange Ocean, so I was able to use them to surprise him."

"Does this means that you have some hidden moves? It has been months since our last fight, you probably got some new ones."

"You will see the day you decide to fight me." He looks at her. "I'll be waiting for that day. I'm always searching challenging opponents to improve my skills."

"Maybe you should fight Dedede. He has become much stronger since you both fought each other when he tried to recruit you."

At this, Dedede and Meta Knight look at each other, then nod.

"The day after my fight against Sweetie Belle."

"Very well."

"The ring in my castle?"

"Anywhere is fine, but no low-blows. I know that you used an electric cage against Kirby."

"This is not a low-blow when it affects both the fighters. This cage was a danger both for me and Kirby. I was just advantaged thanks to my heavier weight. But ok, no electric cage unless you ask for-"

"Watch out!" suddenly shouts Sweetie Belle as she uses a shield to push Dedede just as a pillar of boulders has been about to fall on him, Meta Knight avoiding it with a small jump.

Groaning, Dedede gets up from the floor. "Thank you Sweetie Belle. Could you just move those shields a little slower next time? I don't think that I needed to be projected that strongly..."

"Sorry. I didn't have time to think."

Dedede then looks around and sees that there are more of those pillars. "We will have to keep an eye."

"I will remain behind you so I can see when a pillar starts to fall on you, my king!" shouts Bandana.

Following a road, they are able to avoid being crushed by more pillars, and find a hole in a ledge leading to an Energy Sphere. Avoiding more pillars they pass a door that leads them out of this area full of pillars, before a new section with wooden platforms like earlier. Here, after pressing a switch destroying iron blocks, an Invincibility Candy falls on Kirby, and he quickly does a mouth to mouth to all of them to give them the invincibility before they all start running, easily reaching the end of this section of platforms thanks to it.

Just after the platforms, they enter a door that leads them inside a tunnel, where stalactites constantly fall, new ones taking the place of the ones that fall before them. Thankfully after a ladder, they find a Prism Shield, some kind of horn that makes a prismatic shield appear above the one that hold it. Dedede takes it, and everyone regroup around him under the shield, Sweetie Belle not having to use her magic anymore to protect them.

With the shield, they are able to pass many stalactites and even a few Shotzos firing from the ceiling, and they reach a switch that destroys iron blocks, letting them find a new Energy Sphere. Giving up the overheating horn, they climb a ladder toward the exit of the tunnel.

Outside, they encounter a Hot Head glowing with the energy of the crown and a glowing star on his forehead between tree stumps.

"Ooooh! Let's see what the boosted version of Fire looks like!" says Sweetie Belle excitedly.

"And again a moment where we will just follow and watch Kirby destroy everything without us doing anything," says Dedede with a sigh.

"Not much we can do about this," says Bandana Dee.

So Kirby gives up Leaf and eats the Hot Head. With the energy of the crown, Kirby's fire hat is bigger and hotter, with four horn-like decorations protruding from the star on the forehead. Kirby then raises his arms, and a huge column of fire comes from the hat before it separates and starts to fly around. Then, Kirby lowers his arms in front of him, and the fire, now looking like a fiery dragon, comes from behind him to burn everything in the way, turning the tree stumps into ashes in not even one second!

Again, this leaves everyone in awe.

---

"Boy..." says Discord before putting sunglasses. "That's hot."

The ponies and Spike are too awed by the terrifying display of fire power to groan or laugh at Discord's pun.

"This thing is powerful enough to burn all Ponyville in ten seconds flat!" shouts Rainbow. "And you are telling me that this is just a small part of the crown's power?!"

"And Sweetie will fight... Ohhh..." says Rarity in horror before fainting.

"I'm... sure that they will find a way to surpass the power of the crown..." says Applejack with uncertainty.

"How will they be able to surpass something that possesses infinite power?" asks Discord.

"With something that has infinite plus one power?" proposes Pinkie.

This makes Twilight groan.

---

With the help of the boosted Fire ability, Kirby is able to burn many obstacles before burning a giant tree that reveals a new portal toward the other dimension. Like the previous time, taking it leads Kirby to lose his ability, and they appear in a monochromatic version of the place they have been, here, a succession of wooden platforms. And like the previous time, they have to run away from the place being erased by a purple wall following them.

Again, Kirby's improved inhaling ability is of great help to gain time, because he's able to inhale big and heavy things like the stone star blocks or big creatures, and spits them back as a giant projectile that destroys every obstacle in the way, so they don't have to lose time destroying or passing said obstacles. Kirby takes the occasion to eat a Como, gaining the Spider ability. Thanks to this, they quickly reach a door toward where the Doomer, similar to the previous one, is waiting for them.

And like the previous one, it doesn't last 10 seconds against the team. Too easy.

With two new Energy Spheres safe inside Kirby, they take the newly opened portal back to Popstar and continue their way.

---

"They form a really good team," says Celestia.

"They are the five more powerful fighters of this planet, and they are all friends. Of course they would form a good team," says Luna.

"The five more powerful is up to debate. Remember that there is Marx who is very powerful. Certainly more powerful than Spear-Boy here," says Discord. "And we can add Gooey and Daroach at least."

"They are still very powerful. Nothing will stop them."

"I wonder if there is somepony that will try to fight them," wonders Applejack.

"Nopony would be so stu-"

"The knight earlier," Pinkie interrupts Rainbow.

"Right..."

"Hey! It's Whispy!" suddenly points the pink pony as the group approaches a familiar tree.

"Again? Pfff... The fight will not even last five seconds. If there is even a fight," says Rainbow.

"A living tree?" asks Starlight.

"Yes, they exist in this world," says Applejack.

"Hello Whispy!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

"Poyo!"

"Sweetie? Kirby? Dedede, Bandana Dee, and even Meta Knight? You are on a new adventure all together? Nothing too bad I hope."

"No. We just help a new alien friend to repair his spaceship before we go fight a dragon in his world," says Bandana Dee.

"Repair an alien spaceship? Wait..." He shakes his leaves, dropping the oars that are in a sphere like the Energy Spheres. "Are those oars a part of his ship?"

"Yes! Yes they are!"

"Then take them. I have no need for oars. But can I ask something from all of you?"

"What do you want?" asks Dedede.

"A fight."

Dedede facepalms, while Sweetie deadpans. "Really Whispy? You want to fight me, Kirby, Dedede, Meta Knight, and Bandana Dee at the same time?"

Whispy smirks. "I don't expect to win, but I have some new tricks. We never know. At least, I want to try."

The five look at each other. Kirby simply shrugs while Meta Knight nods, and Dedede says "Whatever."

So in the end, they accept.

Whispy looks at them in determination. "You won't be disappointed."

Suddenly, with a roar, Whispy's size doubles, surprising everyone, Pinkie even doing a spit take as she has been drinking a glass of chocolate milk from Discord.

"That's a new trick alright!" shouts Applejack in wonder.

Meanwhile, Sweetie and the others barely start to prepare themselves for the fight before Whispy starts inhaling!

"What the...?!"

Sweetie quickly forms her shield-claws around her hooves, using them to cling to the ground, and Meta Knight rapidly flies out of the way before the vortex becomes too strong. But Kirby, Dedede, and Bandana Dee are not only surprised, but they can't do anything to escape the vortex in time, the group being too close to Whispy to escape it by running. So Whispy is able to inhale the three of them before spitting them at Sweetie Belle who doesn't have time to put a shield or to move away.

While Sweetie Belle, Kirby (who has lost the Spider ability), Dedede, and Bandana Dee are getting up after this, Meta Knight starts flying around Whispy Woods while slashing him, only for one of Whispy's roots to come out of the ground and to slap him like a fly. At the same time, Whispy shakes his branches, and apples of various sizes start to rain, along with a few Gordos. Bandana Dee twirls his spear above him to shield himself and the others beside him from the apples, and Dedede swings his hammer at the Gordos to get rid of them. When Kirby finally recuperates from Whispy's surprise attack, he starts inhaling the apples, getting a good dozen in his mouth, before spitting them at Whispy. As for Sweetie Belle, she starts to do what works best against Whispy: shooting fire! She also uses her magic to throw some of the apples at him, but it's not as effective as Kirby spitting them back. After getting rid of all the Gordos, Dedede follows Kirby's example and starts inhaling the apples to spit them at the tree.

Comos then come from the branches, and Kirby takes the occasion to eat one to regain the Spider ability, and Meta Knight cuts the others, before the group is forced to run to avoid being inhaled by Whispy again. While he inhales, roots come from the ground under the group, the first one successfully hurting a surprised Bandana Dee that gets inhaled as a consequence, while the others are able to avoid the following roots. When Whispy spits Bandana Dee at Kirby, Sweetie uses her magic to stop his course, saving the both of them, before attacking a root that has come out beside her, which hurts Whispy, only for the root to start sweeping the ground, forcing her to jump above it.

The roots then all come back in the ground, and Whispy suddenly jumps (!!!) to try to crush them!

"You are ki-" BAM!

Too surprised by this move, Dedede isn't able to escape in time before Whispy falls on him. Whispy then puffs air at Meta Knight who is just beside him, getting him on his back, before he jumps again, successfully crushing him while freeing Dedede trapped under him half buried. He jumps a third time toward Sweetie Belle and Kirby who have been attacking him at a distance with fire and webs, only for them to escape in time before Bandana runs at him and twirls his spear beside him, hurting Whispy greatly.

Whispy then starts spinning rapidly before jumping a fourth time, only this time, his roots are stretched all around him, and somehow, he doesn't get back down.

"He's flying?!" shout Bandana Dee and the majority of the pony watchers.

Laughing, Whispy starts flying around before swooping toward the group. Kirby flattens himself against the ground to avoid him while the others are forced to jump or fly out of the way, Sweetie getting on a shield. Despite not hitting anyone, Whispy comes back for a second charge, and this time, he shakes his branches, making apples fall around him. Bad decision, because Kirby gives up Spider before inhaling the apples, Dedede doing the same, and they spit them at Whispy, stopping him and making him fall back on the ground. Meta Knight and Bandana Dee then jump at him and both give a big swing of their weapons, cross-slashing the tree. Then Sweetie Belle, surrounded by a fiery shield and spinning on herself, rams him on his forehead strongly enough to uproot Whispy and make him fall on his back.

The tree returns to his normal size, signifying the end of the fight.

"You win..." he says painly.

"Are you ok?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"I'll heal." With the help of his roots, Whispy is able to get back up. "It was worth it. That was the best fight of my life."

"Those new tricks of yours really took us by surprise," says Dedede in awe. "In a 1 on 1 fight, you may have been able to win!"

"Dedede is right!" says Sweetie Belle. "You can now jump! And fly! That was wonderful Whispy! You have become so strong since our first fight! Now I want to fight you again, but alone!"

"Hehe. Now that you know my new attacks, I know that you will win."

"Maybe, but it will still be an awesome fight."

Meta Knight nods. "Now you truly deserve your title of Forest King."

"Poyo!"

"Thank you."

"Hey!" they hear Bandana Dee shout. When they look, they see him beside a small pile of apples. "I've assembled the apples! Now let's eat them to heal!"

"Good job Bandana!" congratulates Dedede.

"Just one for me will be alright," says Sweetie Belle. "I don't want to have a stomach ache."

"That tree is wonderful! He makes me want to have one like him in Equestria!" shouts Luna in joy.

"There is a whole orchard of apple trees not far from there, I could-"

"Don't think about it Discord!" Applejack yells.

---

After eating the apples to heal, and saying goodbye to Whispy, the group takes the oars and uses the Warp Star to fly back toward the Lor Starcutter. Landing beside it, Magolor comes out.

"You got the oars! Wonderful! Just throw them at the Lor! The ship will not the rest from there!"

Kirby nods, takes the oars, and throws them at the spaceship. The sphere around them disappear, and they get back to their normal size before they start to fly around the Lor until they stop in front of the holes at the sides. The oars then enter them, and just like that, they are repaired.

"That's great! We also got 13 Energy Spheres," says Sweetie Belle.

Hearing her, Kirby spits the spheres into a pile.

"That's a good start! I will place them back in the engine! Thanks to them, the Lor will have enough energy for at least one of the rooms to open."

"The rooms?" asks Bandana Dee.

"You probably saw the two closed doors at the sides of the cockpit. They lead to rooms. Sadly, I haven't yet gotten time to accommodate them. I only found the Lor recently, you see. Then Landia started his rampage."

They nod in understanding before Sweetie asks something. "Magolor, you are an Ancient, right?"

"They are my ancestors, yes."

"So what can you tell us about them and the Dark God?"

"Oh, you know about the Dark God?"

"I know about The God creating the universe and the Great Powers. I know about the Ancients worshiping him and creating artefacts with his help, life the Lor here. And the big lines from the rampage of that Child of The God to the civil war, and the God's sealing. But... If you are a descendant of the Ancients, and that you come from another dimension, does this mean that the Ancients come from another dimension?"

"Exact. Halcandra is the homeworld of the Ancients." He starts laughing. "Boy, I will blow your mind with the next revelations. The God is also from this other dimension. You see, the God, with the four Matters, created the other dimension, then later, the Ancients would use the power of those four Matters to create many things like you said." He waves a hand above him. "They created the Master Crown, so they could use a power close enough to the God without having to call him every time!" He waves his other hand. "They created the Clockwork Stars! Technological miracles that can use the power of Dreams to grant wishes!" He now waves his two hands at the Lor Starcutter. "They created the Lor Starcutter! A spaceship that can open portals and travel to other dimensions!"

He turns back toward them. "But all those things aren't their best creation. You asked earlier how the Lor could already know about Popstar and all those locations. The truth is that this probably isn't the first time that the Lor comes to this universe. Because, you see, the Ancients, and the God, with the power of Dream Matter, Heart Matter, Soul Matter, and Dark Matter, helped by the divine powers of the Master Crown, of Star Dream and the Clockwork Stars, of the Lor Starcutter, of Heart Crystals, and of much more, created this universe!"

"WHAT?!?"

"The Ancients wanted a universe that would be perfect in their point of view. Where dreams come true, where love would be everywhere, where you could live for your convictions thanks to strong souls, and as a result, they created this universe. A universe, where things only seen in our wildest dreams can happen, where the feelings are given form and power... Isn't it marvelous? And this means that with the power of Dream Matter, they created Popstar, a world that would incarnate the dreams. If I remember well, there must be a Fountain of Dreams somewhere there. And the planets around also possess Fountains of Dreams so the inhabitants could use the Dream Matter that compose this world to always dream, and even invoke a Clockwork Star to make those dreams come true. Many others exist in this universe. Worlds of Dreams, but also Worlds of Heart and Worlds of Soul. Who knows what other wonderful things the Ancients would have done to this universe if those incidents hadn't happened? Now instead, this universe has become home to many horrors, incarnations of nightmares, of darkness, of evil... It has become the prison of the Dark God, and many of those great artefacts that have helped in the creation of this universe have been corrupted, destroyed, and forgotten." He sighs in sadness. "What a waste..."

He looks back at Sweetie and the others that look at him in awe. "At least. This universe, and you with it, exists. Even if something has gone wrong to destroy that 'perfection', it's still better than not existing at all. Don't forget this." He laughs. "I know that this is hard to absorb all of this, so you should take time to think about this while you go find the next part of the Lor. And how about this. I imagine that you have more questions, so each time that you bring back one of the parts, I will answer, of try to answer at least one of them. After all, as an Ancient, it kinda means that I'm your father, and as a father, it's my role to educate you. Ahahahah!"

Author's Notes:

Yes. This arc will be heavy in informations.

Chapter 65: Raisin Ruins

"This explains SO much! All those impossible things, like breathing in space, objects flying without reasons, planets shaped weirdly... That's because this universe is made from the dreams of a whole civilization!" shouts Twilight.

"That's Lulu who must be happy," says Discord.

"Don't call me that!"

"But this means no meltdown anymore?" he continues in disappointment.

Twilight deadpans at him. "Yes. Because from now, each time that something impossible will happen, I will just say 'It's from a dream', and accept it." She looks back at the portal. "But to think that a civilization could become powerful enough to create a whole universe... It's..."

"Remember that they were helped by a god," says Rainbow Dash. "Anypony could create a universe with the help of a god."

"When you put it this way..."

"Even with the help of this god, they apparently did a big part of the work," says Celestia. "Their magical and technological knowledge and their use of those Matters reached the point that they became the equals of this god. It would take an untold amount of years for ponykind to reach such a point. I can't even imagine what their civilization was like."

"We will see soon enough. After all, their ultimate destination is the homeworld of the Ancients," says Luna.

"But all we will see will be ruins," says Discord. "After all, they were almost exterminated by the Dark God. Not much must remains..."

---

Sweetie Belle and her friends are on their way toward Raisin Ruins on the two Warp Stars, the group thinking about Magolor's revelations.

The Ancients created this universe.

This is beyond anything they have thought about them. They knew that the Ancients were powerful, and had a great influence over this universe, but to this point, this is just crazy! And for Dedede and Bandana Dee, it's even more crazy to think that they owe their existence to them.

Eventually, Dedede decides to say something. "So, the Ancients created this universe, so what? In the end, this change nothing, so big deal. Yes, that's impressive, but this won't stop us from living. I might learn that my grandfather was a dodo and it would be the same."

"Dedede is right," says Meta Knight. "Let's put it in the back of our mind and focus back to our actual task: repair the Lor and go fight Landia."

"Poyo!"

Sweetie Belle and Bandana Dee nod as the group starts flying above the desert of Raisin Ruins, which has the particularity to have many geysers of sand pushing up giant boulders. Not long after, ruins and pyramids become visible.

Why is this place named Raisin Ruins? It has nothing to do with raisins! At least, Cookie Country had those cookie hills! Even knowing that this universe was created from dreams, this still doesn't make sense!

...

Well, whatever, they are ruins, which means that there will be probably many traps. They will have to keep their eyes open.

Gosh, with all those ruins she has explored since coming to this universe, Sweetie could become the new Daring Do once she comes back to Equestria.

They soon landed on a road in the middle of the desert, and Kirby immediately starts to follow it, forcing the others to follow him. Already, they encounter a Whippy, some tiger-like creature that possesses no appendages accepted a long tail that the Whippys uses like a whip. After dodging the Whippy's tentative to harm him with his tail, Kirby decides to eat it, gaining an ability he hasn't used in a long time: Whip.

The Whip reminds Sweetie Belle of bad memories, but she quickly stops thinking about them before smiling and taking her new metal whip.

"Let's see who is the best whip user."

"Poyo!"

So the two start running, whips ready to crack on the first enemy they encounter, leaving the others in the dust.

"Oh? She doesn't just do it with me anymore?" asks Dedede with a raised eyebrow while they follow behind.

"Seems like she has developed your habit to start a competition whenever she has the occasion to prove that she's superior to her rival at something after all those times she competed against you," says Bandana Dee. "But I'm surprised that Kirby has taken it without her promising cake to him if he wins."

"Because she's Kirby's best friend," says Meta Knight. "Their relationship has just developed to that point where he would accept competing with her just to have fun with her, not for any reward, not even to prove that he's the best. Just for the fun." Behind his mask, a smile forms. "They are still children after all."

Dedede guffaws. "Are you sure that this is just because 'they are still children'?" At this, he places his hands in front of his mouth to amplify his voice. "Hey! Kirby! Just kiss her already!" He quickly ducks to avoid a Hot Head thrown at him by the filly. He starts laughing again, until he finds himself with Kirby's whip wrapped around his neck. Before he has time to try to get it off, Kirby pulls up his whip, sending Dedede in the air, then swings it down, planting him head first in the sand.

"Poyo!"

"Ahah! Who is laughing now?" shouts Sweetie Belle with a giggle before giving Kirby a hoofbump.

"You were asking for it, Dedede," says Meta Knight. "I'm starting to think that you like suffering. Has Sweetie been whipping you too much?"

Dedede gets his head out of the ground and yells at Meta Knight "I'm not that kind of freak! And Dark God da... There are children!"

"I'm an adult, and I didn't want an image like that in my head!" shouts Bandana Dee before bonking his head with his spear. "I must forget it! I must forget it! WHY AM I NOT FORGETTING?!"

"What are they talking about?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"Poyo..." answers Kirby with a tilt of his head, rubbing it in wonder.

Mini-Discord, actually smaller than Sweetie's ear, appears beside her and starts to whisper something to her, only for him to get crushed against the sand by a small shield.

"I don't want to know!"

"Poyo?" asks Kirby to her.

"Nothing!"

---

Everypony is groaning, some of them with their hooves on their eyes or face while others have become all red. The only ones that aren't are Spike and the fillies who look at the adults in curiosity. And Discord who is laughing.

"I don't understand," says Spike.

"THEN REMAIN IGNORANT FOR YOUR SAKE!" shouts Twilight.

---

They pass a door hidden underground leading inside a ruin. They are now in a room with a Maxi Tomato trapped behind a wall of Gordos, and Kirby quickly uses his whip to catch the tomato through them before he gives a part to all of them. With nothing else to do, they return outside and continue their way, eliminating a bunch of Pactos trying to eat them before passing another door to another part of the desert.

After some Nruffs, including one with a Waddle Dee riding it, they find a wick with a cannon on a high slope. Sweetie lights the wick with some fire from her horn, and they quickly run to the cannon and jump in it, getting really cramped in it. The cannon fires them not far of a tilting pyramid that seems to be about to fall in a gulf, and they find an Energy Sphere on a pillar made of rock and sand.

In possession of their first Energy Sphere of this desert, they take a door that leads them back to the cannon, and after climbing the rest of the slope, they pass another door inside a hole in the sand dune. They enter a tunnel, and they have to destroy a bomb block to open the way, but it also causes a boulder to fall behind them. Just as the boulder starts to roll, Dedede destroys it with his hammer, and they continue their way without having to run to escape it. A switch press a little further causes another boulder to fall in front of them, and the boulder rolls away, forcing many enemies to run to not be crushed before it break after falling in a hole. Further, they now find themselves trapped between two boulders rolling in the same direction, but Dedede easily destroys the one behind them while they let the one before them cleaning the way from all enemies, finding at the end another Energy Sphere.

They pass a door to another part of the tunnel where this time, rather than going down a slope, they have to climb one, with boulders coming toward them from the front, so Dedede takes the head alongside sweetie Belle and they destroy every boulder approaching, even the giant one at the exit of the tunnel.

One door later, they end up in front of an Invincibility Candy among the ruins, and so they use it to easily reach the next door while ramming all the enemies that get in the way. After passing it, and after a small treck, they encounter in a tunnel a Bonkers that want to test his skills against them. The Bonkers starts spinning with his hammer, only for Dedede to stop his spinning by smashing his hammer against his before Sweetie gets him to drop his hammer by whipping the back of his hand, then while he waved his hand in pain, she whips his knee, getting him to put his hands on it while jumping on his other leg. Dedede then hits him under the chin with a big swing of his hammer, sending the Bonkers toward the ceiling. His head gets stuck in it, and while he tries to free it, they continue their way. They find a third Energy Sphere not far behind, trapped in a group of metal blocks, before they pass a door.

They reach an oasis with O or 8 shaped trees. They have to watch out for Water Galbos, which are blue version of their red counterparts that spit waves of water that travel across the ground without stopping, which means that they can attack from really far. Kirby gives up the Whip to eat one of them, getting the new Water ability, giving him a golden tiara with a drop-shaped jewel on the forehead and waves at the sides, with a vortex of water at the top of his head. Thanks to this ability, Kirby can not only attack with water, but also create a wave and surf on it! Letting him travel a water point without having to swim!

"Cheater!" shouts Dedede who is swimming with the others while Kirby is waiting for them at the end.

"Why are you complaining?" asks Sweetie Belle. "Swimming while it's so hot is really nice. it's refreshing."

"I was not talking about that! I was talking about him being now constantly refreshed by this Water ability while we have to sweat under the sun!"

Sweetie rolls her eyes as they get out of the water. "Just take off your royal clothes."

"Never! And I don't see you taking off your uniform too! And yet, you must have it worst between them and your fur!"

Sweetie produces some water from her horn with a smirk. "I don't need to. And I don't know. Are you sure this isn't you who must have it worse between those clothes and your fat?" She jumps back to avoid being crushed by Dedede's hammer, then quickly starts running away, chased by the penguin swearing at her.

Meta Knight sighs in exasperation before looking at Bandana Dee. "Are they always like that?"

The Waddle Dee just shrugs in answer. "Always. There is not a day without those two bickering. Adeleine had to slap them with a fan to stop them in one of our previous adventures. At least, we never get bored in the castle." He starts walking. "Let's just go and don't mind them. They will eventually stop and join us."

And he is right. Not even one minute later, as they reach a door, Sweetie Belle and Dedede join them, the filly with a giggle and the penguin breathing heavily, dragging his hammer behind him.

"Why do you have so much energy?"

"I'm young. I'm thin. And I've trained my endurance a lot."

Dedede growls, then looks down in defeat. "Maybe I should start a diet..."

Sweetie giggles again, but stops when she feels someone poking her belly, feeling a finger sink a little in it.

"You should start one too," she hears Meta Knight then say.

Bandana Dee looks at him in horror before slowly stepping back as Sweetie's head becomes red.

---

---

"Let's go," says Sweetie Belle before passing the door. Behind, Kirby and Bandana Dee sweat while looking at Dedede, Meta Knight half trapped in his mouth, only his legs poking out.

"What was that about me asking for it?" he's able to say despite his full mouth.

Meta Knight's legs stop moving before dropping down. "I should watch out what I say to her in the future..."

"Maybe you should above all learn something that is called 'tact'," says Bandana Dee.

Meta Knight doesn't answer anything to this.

---

Kirby eats a Rocky to gain Stone before he turns into a statue of a human sitting in a thinking position at the start of a succession of slopes, ramming everything in the way while the others follow behind him. More slopes follow, until they find a door hidden by iron blocks that have had to be destroyed by pounding a stake at the top. Passing the door, Kirby pounds another stake to destroy some walls of iron blocks, and Meta Knight flies toward the Energy Sphere just before another wall of blocks appear behind him, blocking the way for the others. They unite at the door leading back to the previous section, Meta Knight passing through a trapdoor that could only be open from his side.

They continue going down the slopes, this time Kirby turning into a statue looking like a white cat with brown patches of fur, a leg beside its head. The others have to watch out for some Gordos further down before they reach a door in the water at the bottom.

After the door, they have to swim a little in a submerged tunnel before going out. Kirby quickly takes back the Water ability by eating a Water Galdo, and uses it to surf on more water, only to stop above a door in the water, which leads in a room in some submerged ruin with two bomb blocks destroying two different walls, one freeing two blippers, a Gordo and the other freeing an Energy Sphere.

Back out, Kirby takes a Warp Star and the others understand that they have finished with this part of the desert. So on warp Stars, they go toward more ruins and pyramids, and they landed at the base of one of them before entering it. They find themselves between blocky statues looking like heads of Kabus, but cubic, with some of them colored red and spitting fire. They climb a ladder and have to reach another while jumping from statues to statues forming a stair, having to avoid the fire from the red ones.

Not long after the second ladder, they encounter a glowing Waddle Doo with a star on his forehead.

Well well well.

The very next second, Kirby eats him, gaining the familiar half red half yellow with white stars jester hat, but much bigger with the glowing yellow star on the forehead. The wand is larger, and rainbow colored. Kirby then raises the wand, and a giant ball of energy appears above it before Kirby starts to guide it around by moving the wand, easily destroying the statues with it.

Sweetie looks at the ball. "I could do one like that with enough magic. The fire dragon too."

"Jealous?" asks Dedede with a smirk.

"A little. But I'm also thinking of how powerful I would get if I could use those... Super Abilities. I'm sure that they would be really useful against the Dark God. But I would probably need to be an alicorn to do them without problems."

They start following Kirby as he rampages with those giant energy balls. "Now that you speak about them, I wonder if you would be able to beat one of your alicorns in a fight now."

She rubs her head in thought. "Erh... Maybe princess Cadance, but she's not really a fighter. She has strong magic, yes, so she could fire magical beams as big as you, but that's all. We know by now that against beings firing big lasers, all we have to do is dodge the laser and quickly attack. At this, prince Shining Armor, despite being only a unicorn, would be harder to fight because he's not only magically powerful -not as much as an alicorn, of course-, but as ex-captain of the Royal Guard, he knows how to fight, both with and without magic. I don't know how strong he is, so I don't know if I would win a fight against him."

Dedede taps her on her back with a laugh. "Of course you would win a fight against this guy! Would this Shining Armor be able to win a fight by himself against Yin and Yarn like you did?"

Sweetie looks at the knitting needles. "Definitely."

"Hey!"

"Their dragon was a joke, and the tank form, even if solid, was easy to deal with." She looks again at Dedede. "But back to your question. I would probably be able to beat princess Cadance because she's not a fighter and probably not that great of a magic user, as for the others... This would be harder, but maybe Twilight too."

---

"What?"

---

"Twilight is my friend, but everyone can tell that she's more a brain than brawn. And by brain, I mean the nerd type rather than the strategist type. She would probably be able to use all sorts of magic that I don't even know about, and use them in many unexpected nerdy ways to surprise me. But if I'm able to break her defense and go against her in close quarter combat, she wouldn't last one minute, especially against my soul energy enhanced hooves. And I would make sure that she can't teleport by hitting close to the horn. And her main magic attack consists of shooting magical beams. I know because Pinkie recounted me their fight against the changelings. So if I watch out for her magic tricks, she would be a breeze."

---

Some of the ponies snicker at a deadpanning Twilight.

Rainbow Dash puts a hoof on her. "She's right Twilight. Maybe you should take some martial art lessons. I can teach you."

---

"As for princesses Celestia and Luna, no. I don't know how powerful they are, but from what I've heard, Celestia is pretty much Twilight with the experience, and very probably knows how to defend herself even in a physical fight. I may have a chance against her, but it would probably be a REALLY close victory. But the most worrying would be Luna. Celestia is the diplomat. Luna is the warrior. I have heard that before she turned into Nightmare Moon, she was dealing with the monsters attacking the ponies the night. I wouldn't be surprised if she could beat even Meta Knight in a duel, while I'm still not sure if I could do it right now."

"So, this gives two 'probably', one 'not sure', and one 'not at all'. Not bad," says Dedede before smirking. "If you think that you are already THAT strong, then I wonder how strong you would become if you turn into an alicorn. Probably strong enough to beat Kirby!"

"We already talked about this. Me becoming an alicorn would be like you becoming a God: possible, but it would take a miracle."

"Me? A God?" At this, Dedede closes his eyes and takes a big breath, getting lost in thoughts, a big smile forming on his beak. "Oh yes... The Great God Dedede... This would be... Perfect."

Sweetie facehoofs. "What have I done?"

"Poyo!" they suddenly hear. When they look, Kirby, Meta Knight and Bandana Dee are looking at them, the puffball pointing at a star-shaped portal near a wall. "Poyo!"

"Oh! You found one!" says Sweetie Belle in happiness. "We are coming!"

At this, they enter the portal, entering the other dimension, still in a monochromatic area looking like the oasis, with Kirby losing the Super Ability, and the purple space-wall chasing them. The peculiarity here is that the path is formed by floating cubes of water, so they have to jump in them, swimming in them, and jump to the next. After a moment, they reach a normal platform with a big stone star block that Kirby inhale before spitting back to eliminate some obstacles, mainly Blippers, and gain time. They have to pass through more cubes of floating water, those ones between pillars, until they reach more stone star blocks that help freeing the way toward the door.

On the other side, they reach an arena with some submerged parts, and they have to fight another Doomer. However, this one is different from the previous ones. It's red, and it possesses three feather-tail rather than two. At first, it doesn't seems stronger than the purple ones, but then, the Doomer surrounds itself in fire before rapidly charging at them. Thankfully, the time it takes for the Doomer to prepare the attack is long enough to let everyone jump out of the way. The ball projectiles, which are actual balls of fire, also give Kirby the Fire ability, which he gladly uses to attack the Doomer. But in the end, the Doomer is still as easy to fight as its purple counterpart.

But knowing that there are more than one kind of Doomers is worrisome, because it means that there may be more, and probably more powerful.

Or they could all be that weak. Only time will tell.

Once the Doomer explodes, bringing colors to this part of the dimensions, they leave through a portal and return to the ruin with the statues. Just above the room where they return, they pass a door, which leads them outside of the ruin. From there, Kirby leads them through a path toward a neighboring pyramid.

While they walk, Meta Knight goes beside Sweetie Belle.

"Sweetie Belle. I'm sorry for earlier."

She rolls her eyes. "It's already forgotten. I know that you didn't mean anything bad, and I'm used to that kind of comment in the castle. But next time, you should avoid being so direct."

He rubs his head. "I've always been like that to the others. When I see something wrong, I warn about it even if I know that it may hurt, and the ones that I warned work to fix the problem and get better. Most of the times. No matter how much I say to Vul that he needs to fix his anger problems and to remain calm, he still have them."

"Which is pretty much your role as leader of the Meta Knights to assure that your men are at their best. Cape Knight also does the same thing to the soldiers. But you don't need to tell me about my weight, I know about it and I try to fix it." She waves her hoof all around her. "But this whole world does everything to make it very hard!" She points at Dedede. "And living with him doesn't help!" Dedede hears her and guffaws. "But I'm starting to get a better control of myself around foods like cakes or cookies -after all, I resisted eating those cookies hills back in Cookie Country-, so I should start to lose this weight soon thanks to my training. Or at least, I will not gain more weight. As long as I watch out next time I go to Dedede Resort."

"If you need training in a healthy environment, you are always welcome in my base."

"I will think about it. Sparring with you should help improve my skills greatly."

At this moment, they reach the base of the pyramid, and they start climbing it, jumping from giant step to giant step. After climbing a ladder, they reach a door that leads them inside the pyramid, where they still have to climb by jumping on platforms, sometimes having to separate to go through more than one way, some having food, others having nothing but enemies, or Noddys, before reaching another door.

They are back outside, still having to climb on giant blocks, but now, some of them are moving up and down, and there are those Mumbies creeps. They also encounter some Shotzos, and further up, a giant Shotzo with some red parts named Gigatzo that can fire giant bullets surrounded in fire. After the Gigatzo, Kirby eats a Twister to gain Tornado, easily cleaning the enemies around with it while advancing.

Kirby, however, has to expel the ability soon after to inhale and spit a big stone star block blocking a small passage, but once done, he inhales back the ability bouncing around to get it back, and in the passage, uses it to create a tornado rising above him and destroying many blocks in the way, letting him reach an Energy Sphere. Not far after finding the sphere, they enter another passage leading to a door, entering the pyramid again.

They are now in a big vertical room with a Starman, and Kirby eats him to gain Hi-Jump to destroy with more ease the obstacles in the way of their climbing, the others finishing the enemies that have been able to avoid the puffball. When they reach a part where the room separates into three ways, Kirby takes the center one, destroying many blocks with the Hi-Jump and finding another Energy Sphere while the others take the two other paths at the sides. Things get complicated for Sweetie, Dedede, Bandana Dee, and Meta Knight, because when the three paths unite into a single one, it suddenly shrinks into a narrow path with many Gordos patrolling it. Kirby is able to somehow touch them without being hurt while he does his Hi-Jump, but the others have to avoid them while flying/jumping, Bandana Dee forced to go on Dedede's back because he doesn't want to risk it with his spear twirling flying technic.

After the Gordos, they find a door, and they enter a passage at the side of the pyramid where they end up fighting a King Doo, a giant version of a Waddle Doo about four times the size of a normal one, with a yellow colored body, a purple eye, and a blond ponytail above it. His feet are also pointed at the end, which is not the case of the normal Waddle Doos. He's as big a threat as the Doomers they have fought until now, but they still have to watch out for his bigger whip beam, and sometimes, he charges his energy to fire from his eye a big energy ball similar to the one that Kirby has used earlier, but only going in a straight line. The King Doo also tries to surprise them once by charging at them, but all he gets with this is to facewall against Sweetie's shield, which lets the others finish him.

Once the King Doo knocked out, Kirby inhales him, gaining Beam, and they continue their climbing, using cannons to propel themselves at the level above, where destroying a bomb block reveals an Energy Sphere.

One door later, they enter a section full of cannons that they use to climb, one of the cannons leading them to another Energy Sphere, and another at the top of the pyramid. Taking it leads them at the base of another pyramid, beside the skeleton of something absolutely titanic.

"More pyramid climbing..." complains Bandana Dee.

"At least, there aren't as many traps as I thought there would be," says Sweetie Belle. "Remember that room that was filling with sand back in that world in pieces?"

"Maybe there will be one in this pyramid."

"And I'm prepared for it."

Beside them, they find a key, so they take it before they start climbing the pyramid, which has some parts moving back and forth, threatening to push them beyond the edge. After some steps, they find the door that the key opens, and they enter the pyramid, Kirby eating the Poppy they encounter to gain Bomb.

Just in case they need to blow a wall to get out.

Inside the pyramid, they end up walking on sand that flow like a river, dragging them back if they stop walking. After fighting their way through many creatures and even avoiding a Shotzo, they find a door that leads them to a room with a door that can only be opened by pressing a switch. However, the door remains open not even one second, which forces one to remind behind at the switch while the others pass the door and get the Energy Sphere behind it.

Back in the previous section with the 'rivers of sand', they now walk on one that drags them forward, almost making them hit a Gordo in the way near the start. Avoiding more spiky obstacles, they pass a door that brings them in a dark room, the dark not remaining a problem for long thanks to Sweetie's magic, quickly helped by a candles that they find on the way. Thanks to them, they can see the enemies, dead ends, and the passages that they wouldn't see, one of them leading to an Energy Sphere not far before they exit this dark room.

They drop the remains of the candle go down a ladder, and enter a section with fire blocks. No one can do anything about them right now accepted Sweetie Belle, so she uses water with her magic to destroy the blocks in the way, before they find themselves in front of a Water Galboros, which is, like King Doo, a bigger version of a Water Galbo, with the same colors, but also with some yellow around the eyes, and yellow streaks on the back.

The Water Galboros spits a stream of water at them, but they have seen it coming and they jump out of the way. Sweetie remains close to the water, and fire lightning bolts at it. The electricity spreads in the water stream until it reaches the Galboros, electrifying it. While it is spasming, the others gang bang it, not leaving it any chance to ripost before it's knocked out, and Kirby eats it to gain Water, to help dealing with the fire blocks if there are more of them.

Thanks to him and Sweetie, they don't get burned once before they reach the next door, and they enter a section with Gigatzos on separate platforms raining fireballs on their path. After dodging a good number of them, they find a crystal that causes not only the one the hold it to turn invisible, but also intangible to most things, like other creatures, or some crystal walls. Kirby uses it to reach a door behind one of those walls, and quickly comes back with the confirmation that he has found an Energy Sphere. But just as they reach the next door, the crystal explodes, and Kirby returns to normal.

They are now back outside the pyramid, in a section where Meta Knight's sword is very useful to cut some ropes that causes platforms with Shotzos on them to fall into holes. That is, until they find a Super Blade Knight, much to Meta Knight's frustration. And seeing the giant rope that is just beside the Blade Knight, he knows that it's time for Kirby to glow, both literally and figuratively.

So Kirby eats the Super Blade Knight.

And before he can do anything, Sweetie Belle goes beside him with a big smile. "You know what I'm thinking? Let's try it!"

"Poyo!" he shouts back happily before jumping on her back.

Sweetie belle then starts to glow like Kirby. A star appears on her forehead below her horn. Her mane and tail take a yellow color, and start to flow in an invisible breeze, while wings appears at her sides, looking like they are made of metal. When she opens them, the feathers extend into sword-like beams. The feathers themselves look really sharp. She then focus her energy into her horn, and it extends into a giant sword beam that reaches the ceiling, and could even continue beyond it if she hadn't stopped it from growing. And with just one swing of her head, the sword beam cuts the giant rope as if it's made of butter, causing a part of the floor to drop. She then flies at the next giant rope, and cuts it as easily with her right wing.

It's as if she has three giant swords! No, scratch that. Make it four. let's not forget Kirby and his own giant sword on her back.

And with all those giant swords, they absolutely destroy the following path, cutting everything, even the walls, floor, and ceiling. Nothing can stop them, and not much actually dare to stop them.

With this, not even half one minute passes before they find a portal by cutting two ropes that have been holding a big piece of the structure. Sadly, like the previous times, entering it causes Kirby, and by extension Sweetie Belle to lose the Super Ability.

So Kirby quickly jumps down from Sweetie's back, and they start their escape from the purple space-wall while moving up and down inside a pyramid with many Shotzos and even a Gigatzo. At the end, the path does a 180 before the door, forcing the group to run to reach it before it disappears inside the space-wall.

The arena for their battle against the Doomer, a red one again, has star blocks in the floor, which means that they have to watch out to not end up falling in an endless pit. like the previous time, Kirby eats one of the fireballs that the Doomer spits at them to gain the Fire ability, and already knowing what are its capacities, the fight is quickly finished with Bandana Dee impaling it through its mouth.

They grab the two Energy Spheres that has been taken by the Doomer, and pass the portal to return to Popstar, where they pass a door to a part of the pyramid that seems to be underground. They climb some ladders, pass another door, then finally enter a room beside some obelisks made of crystals with glowing symbols inscribed on them.

In this room, they find a turban on the floor, and they have nowhere to go. Suddenly, light as if coming from a projector but actually coming from nowhere appear around the turban, and they hear rapid drums. Two floating gloved hands come down toward the turban and rise it in the air. They release the turban, letting it float in the air, and the right hand knocks it while the left one readies a 'tadaa' gesture, only for a puff of smoke to be released from the turban as the drums stop, and the two hands fly back a little in surprise, clearly not expecting the puff of smoke.

"Oh come on!" they hear from the turban, which the hands start bashing, causing a black cloud to appear under it, the cloud clearly taking form. "You work one thousand year on a magic trick, and when it's time for the show, it fails in a puff of smoke!" The being finally takes form at this moment, clearly exasperated at his fail.

The being has a blue bowling pin-shaped body that is balanced on some kind of flat-ended ghost-like tail instead of legs, with a green pants, a purple bet, and a red vest with yellow designs, without forgetting the turban on his head. His head has only two small black eyes, but nothing else.

Sweetie Belle gasps. "Are you a genie? Can you-" She's stopped by one of the genie's fingers putting itself on her mouth.

"Hepepep! I must stop you there little furry ball. Yes, I'm a genie, but I'm not one of those poor slaves that are forced to serve greedy fools. I'm a free genie! And I'm my own master!"

Sweetie Belle looks down in disappointment. "Aww..."

The genie bows. "You can call me Mr Dooter." He then puts his hands in front of his head and starts to drum his fingers against each other like a businessman would do. "So, my dear guests, what are you doing here in my home sweet home? Are you simple explorers that are curious to see the wonders of past civilizations, or..." He puts his hands beside his head in a threatening way, as if he's about to catch them, his skin turns red, and he doubled his size. "are you looters that want to empty those ruins of their treasures?"

"We are none of those," says Meta Knight. He turns to Kirby. "Can you give me an Energy Sphere?"

Kirby nods with a "Poyo" before spitting an Energy Sphere that Meta Knight catches and show to the genie. "We are in search of those things, and also of parts of a ship. We know that one of the wings has fallen somewhere in those ruins."

"Mmh... I can't help you for those sphere things," He takes his turban, revealing that he possesses darker blue airs at the top. "But I think that I possess one wing or two in it. Wait a minute." He puts his hand in the turban and they hear things being moved inside it. The hand gets out holding a chicken, which the genie throws away after a shake of the head. "Nope." After more searches, the hand gets out holding a pair of wings without a body. He shakes his head again and releases the wings, which start to fly around. More searching, and the hand gets out holding a familiar wing in a sphere similar to the ones of the Energy Spheres.

"Yes! That's it!" shouts Sweetie Belle with a bounce.

Mr Dooter rubs his head. "So this wing is part of a ship? A winged ship? That's new for me."

"It's an alien ship from another dimension," informs Bandana Dee.

"Wohohohoho! An alien ship? Interesting! But I must ask you: what will I get in return?"

"What/Poyo?" they all ask.

"Like I said earlier, I'm a free genie. This is not because you are asking nicely that I will give such a treasure to perfect strangers without asking anything in return."

"But we don't have anything to give," says Dedede.

Bandana Dee turns to Dedede. "What about the castle's tre-"

Dedede puts a hand on his mouth. "Shhhh!"

Mr Dooter lies down in the air, his head supported by a hand. "If you have nothing to propose, then let me propose this: try to get it by force. This should be fun."

"Fighting a genie?" asks Sweetie Belle before she turns to the others. "Can we do that? Genies are really powerful."

Dedede dismiss her worries with a wave of his hand. "Pfff. Of course we can win. Genies are not that powerful."

"But the furry ball is right," says Mr Dooter before he starts to grow in size, his head reaching the ceiling, and takes a flexing pose despite not having arms. "I possess phenomenal cosmic powers! And contrary to some, I'm not trapped in an itty bitty living space!" He returns to his normal size. "So, what do you think?"

Kirby advances, taking a fighting position. "Poyo!"

The others look at him before looking back at the genie and nodding and taking fighting positions too.

Mr Dooter chuckles. "Well then..." He spins on himself, and his clothes changes to a firefighter uniform, holding a hose pointed at Kirby. "Fire in the hole!" he then shouts before water gets out of the hose, striking Kirby and propelling him into a wall before he can do anything.

Ugh! This will be like fighting Discord!

Sweetie Belle fires a magical beam at the genie, only for him to disappear. She quickly looks with the others at all directions to see where he will reappear, only to suddenly feel something on her back, and to have something around her muzzle. She looks at her muzzle to see some contraption made of leather that forces her mouth to remain close, and she looks at her back to see Mr Dooter looking like one of those cowboys, and smaller.

"Yeehaw! Let's go, Jollyjumper!"

She deadpans at him before her horn starts to glow. The next instant, a shield rams Mr Dooter and propels him away from her back, right into the swing of Dedede's hammer, which crushes him on the floor. When Dedede moves his hammer away to look at the genie's state, he is surprised to see that there is now a round hole in the floor. Eight similar holes appear, forming a grid of nine holes. Mr Dooter then pops out of a hole beside the first one, looking like a mole.

"Yo!"

Dedede swings his hammer down at him, only for the genie to return in the hole at the last moment and pop out of another.

"I'm here!"

Dedede attacks him again, only for Mr Dooter to return in the hole to pop out of another again.

"Too slow!" BAM! "Come on!" BAM! "You can do better!" BAM! "Almost!"

Dedede yells in rage before slamming his hammer, only for Mr Dooter to dodge again. When Dedede sees him starting to go out of another hole, he jumps toward him immediately in the hope to hit him before he returns in the hole. Only to have a bad surprise: the Mr Dooter coming out of the hole is made of dynamite about to explode.

Too late...

BOOM!!!

The real Mr Dooter has appeared away from the holes just before that with sunglasses and eating a banana, admiring the explosion. He then throw the banana skin behind him, right before Bandana Dee, who has been charging at him with his spear from behind. The Waddle Dee walks on it as a result, causing him to slip all the way to the other side of the room into a wall.

Meta Knight suddenly zooms in front of Mr Dooter, slashing him violently. Following the momentum of the slash, Mr Dooter spin on himself again, getting himself inside an armor like a real knight, and he takes a sword before starting an exchange with Meta Knight, only for this last to prove being much more skilled with a sword and slash the genie many more times, helped by Sweetie and Kirby ramming him from behind like two fiery comets. Mr Dooter, still in armor, falls on the floor, and before he goes back up, Sweetie Belle fires lightning bolts at him, and Dedede, who has recovered from the explosion despite still being blackened, jumps on him before hitting him on the head with his hammer.

Mr Dooter teleports away, now appearing as a buffed soldier two times his original size, cigar where his mouth should be, two fingers of each hand pointed at them. "Enough playing around. Here I come!" Suddenly, he starts firing bullets from his fingers with a maniacal laugh as Sweetie and the others are forced to run to not be turned into cheese. "Run, run, I'm coming for you!"

When he sees them separating, he stops firing and raises his hands, making many skulls appear and float above him before he sends them. The skulls are however all dodged or destroyed, and Meta Knight is the first to counterattack by sending a tornado, only for Mr Dooter to spin on himself like one and charging toward it, annihilating it before continuing his course toward Meta Knight. A shield slamming him from above stops him, and he lands beside Bandana Dee who impales him from the side. Bandana Dee is slapped away by one of Mr Dooter's hands, but he quickly comes back, only to stop when he sees his spear becoming wobbly, before being crushed by an obese Mr Dooter landing on him.

Mr Dooter then takes his turban, and out of it come many snakes that start attacking the group, and he follows this immediately by raising his arms again, making bombs appear before sending them. While Meta Knight and Sweetie Belle fly and air-jump away, Kirby gives up Fire to eat the bombs (and snakes) coming at him, and obtains Bomb, and Dedede swings his hammer to send a bomb coming at him back at the genie.

Meta Knight zooms at Mr Dooter to attack him directly, forcing him to return to his normal form and releasing Bandana Dee from under him. Meanwhile, Sweetie spots the chicken that Mr Dooter has taken from his hat earlier, and she gets an idea. So she takes the chicken, and throws it at the genie's face, totally surprising him and opening him to Meta Knight's slashes.

As the panicked chicken flaps its wings and scratches Mr dooter's face with its claws, the genie loses his bearings, until he slaps away the chicken before trying to crush Meta Knight between his hands, forcing him to fly back, while Kirby throws a bomb successfully at him, and Sweetie mega-punches him from above.

And then...

COCORICOOOO!!!

"What?"

They all turn toward the chicken who is loudly crowing. The next instant, dozens of chickens come from the openings in the room and starts to fly toward Mr Dooter before pecking him, to everyone's surprise. Sweetie Belle certainly hasn't expected this. The chicken was only intended to be a distraction to help Meta Knight! Now Mr Dooter is struggling against a whole flock of them coming from nowhere, and he's clearly being hurt!

Until he claps his hands in front of him, causing a fiery shockwave to spread all around, which turns all the chickens into fried chickens, their cooked remains raining all around. Sweetie Belle has saved herself and her friends from the same fate by creating a big shield in front of her, the others sheltering themselves behind her. Mr Dooter's size then starts to increase again, until his head reaches the ceiling, and one of his giant hands comes down toward them to crush them.

They all avoid it with just one jump in all directions, but the other hand starts to walk toward them on two fingers as if they are legs, and upon reaching Sweetie Belle, flicks her toward Kirby. The first hand starts to do the same thing and flicks Dedede at Meta Knight. Kirby then looks around and spots near the ceiling the bodiless wings. Quickly thinking, he grabs Sweetie Belle by one of the legs to her surprise, spins, and throws her toward the wings. Sweetie Belle sees the wings and understand what Kirby hopes will happen, and when she reaches the wings, they fix themselves at her sides. She immediately uses them to avoid hitting the ceiling, and she flies back to Kirby to let him go on her back, giving her the Bomb ability.

With Kirby on her back, she looks around to see her friends busy fighting the hands, so her and Kirby are the only ones that can attack Mr Dooter himself. So she flies toward him, only for the genie to fire lasers from his eyes at her. She flies up to dodge them, and Kirby starts throwing bombs at his face, stopping him from firing his lasers. The hands stop fighting the others and go to stop Sweetie Belle, but this free the others to go fight the main body, which forces one of the hands to return fighting them, only to finish with Dedede crushing it against the floor with his hammer on its back. Meta Knight grabs Bandana Dee and flies above the other hand that is attacking sweetie Belle and Kirby, and throws him at it. Bandana Dee impale the hand from above, and with the force of Meta Knight's throw, rams the hand and causes it to crash beside the other hand, not being able to move anymore because of the spear keeping it pinned.

Kirby then takes a bomb and throws it at Mr Dooter's face, but this doesn't stop here. Sweetie Belle shoots a beam at it, and the bomb suddenly increases in size just before exploding on the genie's face. The force of the explosion causes Mr Dooter to be propelled against the wall behind him, and to destroy it, leaving him with only the lower side of his body still inside the room.

Mr Dooter then shrinks back to his normal size, the hands too. Dedede being on the back of one of the hands, this causes him to fall, freeing the hand who flies back to Mr Dooter's body, only for a white flag to appear in it. The hand waves the flag for a few seconds, before dropping, and stopping moving, Mr Dooter seemingly losing consciousness.

Sweetie sighs in relief, when the wings suddenly disappear, dropping her. After a painful crash, Kirby helps her get up, when Dedede suddenly shows a cooked chicken leg in front of her.

"Want some chicken to heal?" he says while eating another chicken.

She looks at him, then at the chicken legs, then sighs before taking. "It's only because there is no other food to heal right now. This doesn't mean that I will start to eat meat all the time."

---

"Wait. She's gonna do it?" asks Apple Bloom.

"Oh my gosh! She is!" shouts Scootaloo.

"And she doesn't like it. It must taste horrible."

"Because we aren't made to eat meat, even if we can," says Twilight.

"Yeah, back when I was with Gilda, she bet once that I wouldn't dare eat meat," says Rainbow Dash. "I won, but it was disgusting. I never touched meat since then."

"I... I..." They turn toward Fluttershy who hesitates saying something.

Rainbow's eyes become wide. "Wait, don't tell me..."

"I wanted to better understand the carnivorous animals that I'm taking care... It... wasn't so bad, so whenever I'm having a picnic with them, I eat some meat with them." Seeing everypony's surprised expression, she quickly hide her eyes behind her mane, only to feel somepony to put a forehoof above her neck.

"I certainly couldn't do this!" says Rainbow Dash. "Fluttershy, sometimes, you can be even more awesome than me."

"It takes guts that I don't have, I admit," says Applejack.

"So, does this means that I can add meat in the menu of our next tea party?" asks Discord.

"No need..."

"Don't worry dear," says Rarity. "Nopony will judge you."

Pinkie hugs Fluttershy. "She's right! This is like when Maud eats rocks! She is like the only pony that I know who eats rocks, and I still think that she's the best sister ever! So you eat meat, what's the difference?"

"Rocks weren't living creatures..."

"Don't say that in front of Maud, or you will make Boulder cry."

"Sorry."

Applejack turns to Discord. "There is something I don't understand. If that genie had 'phenomenal cosmic powers', why didn't he use them to just finish all of them like you could with one snap of your fingers?"

"Because he was wrong. Yes, genies have phenomenal cosmic powers, but only when they are trapped in an itty bitty living space like he said. Free genies lose a big chunk of that power. Add to that that he did the same error than most of the bad guys you fought, me included: he underestimated them. By the time he really started to become serious, he was already too weakened. If he had gone 100% from the start, he would have probably won, or he would have forced Sweetie Belle to use her Soul Song at least."

"Or they would have still won without Sweetie Belle needing to use the Soul Song," says Celestia. "I am sure that they would have been able to pull through this. They weren't serious too."

"Yes. Sweetie Belle didn't even use what she calls 'Soul Energy', like to fire her energy balls," says Luna. "That genie was a joke."

"At least, he had a good sense of humor. The two of us would be good friends," says Discord.

---

Having taken the wing from Mr Dooter's turban, Sweetie Belle, and the others leave behind the Raisin Ruins to return to the Lor Starcutter. Magolor seems to have seen them coming, because he's already outside the ship, bouncing in joy while looking in their direction.

When they land, Kirby doesn't lose time and throws the wing at the Lor, and in the same manner than the last time, the wing fixes itself at its right place. Once done, they enter the Lor to rest a little while Kirby gives the Energy Spheres to Magolor. Inside, they can see that the repairs have started, but there are still some holes in the walls. Magolor leads them to one of the rooms that Magolor has arranged into a living room. He is already planning to arrange some of the other rooms into a chamber, a kitchen, a bathroom, a restroom, a stockroom, and even a training room. In short, he will adapt the Lor so he can live inside it full time, like a mobile house. He doesn't know yet what he will do with the remaining rooms however. This ship is a real manor.

The reason why Magolor leads them here is so they can better talk about whatever they will ask now, like he has proposed the last time.

"So, what do you want to ask me about this time?"

As arranged while they have been returning, Sweetie Belle is the one asking. "The other dimension. Each time that we pass a portal and enter it, we find ourselves in a black and white version of the place we were before taking the portal, but with more crazy physics, and we have to escape some purple space-wall that erase everything in its path. Then, when we defeat the Doomer, the colors appear. Just, what the heck?"

Magolor laughs at her question. "Yes. I conceive that the other dimension seems even more crazy than this one. And to put it simply, that's the case. The physics of the other dimension is totally messed up. You can thank the Dark God for that. You see, when the Dark God did his rampage in the other dimension, exterminating the totality of all civilizations, and blowing 99% of all the planets, the dimension lost its consistency, not helped with the barrier between the two dimensions being weakened to the extreme. By the way, this is why the Lor will be able to open a portal to the other dimension despite not being at full power. Helped by Halcandra now pretty much at the frontier between the two dimensions.

With all of this, this dimension's physics started pouring into the other dimension, creating a real physical mess. So this means that despite Halcandra being in this other dimension, prepare yourself to encounter the same craziness such as breathing underwater, the black doors, or the healing food. It's best to say at this point that Halcandra is a part of this dimension in the other. Give it a few centuries, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Halcandra pop in this dimension. The Master Crown probably helped a lot in this.

As for those black and white areas that you speak about whenever you enter a portal, this is because the portals created by the Doomers aren't safe portals like the one created by the Lor. I said earlier that with the weakened dimensional barrier, the physics of this dimension pours into the others, so what happens when this barrier is destroyed, even temporarily, by those spherical monsters? The other dimension becomes a crazy mirror version of this one. But! Because the portals don't remain open long, this doesn't allow time for this to fully settle. The other dimension returns to 'normal', meaning the erasing of whatever came from this dimension."

"Then why is there a place that always seems to remain stable, especially after we defeat the Doomer?"

"Probably thanks to the power of the Energy Spheres giving the energy necessary to stabilise those places so they don't get erased. So I suppose that when we will use the Lor to go to the other dimension, we will see those stabilised areas floating a little everywhere as if they are phantoms of this dimension.

And just in case you ask. Yes, the Doomers are a result of the Dark God's actions. He didn't create them directly, but they are the result of all the negativity that spread. And bad news, but the Master Crown -which possess the power of the God, remember- can control, and even create them."

"So this means that those Doomers we fought may actually be Landia's minions trying to stop us?" wonders Meta Knight.

"Maybe, maybe not. Like I already said, the Doomers hunt positivity, so they may simply be wild Doomers attracted by the spheres.

Oh! I almost forgot. As I told you, the other dimension can become a crazy mirror version of this one if the barrier is damaged. This means that if this goes really bad, you may encounter copy versions of beings of this dimension without all their mind."

"This explains those weird Waddle Dees and others we encountered," says Dedede.

"I'm not just talking about Waddle Dees, but even copies of all of you. And with the heavy negativity of the other dimension, they may not be friendly at all. Even outright evil. So watch out just in case you see one day a big hole in space."

"Noted..."

Chapter 66: Onion Ocean

The party has left Magolor and the Lor to go find the other wing of the ship in its next destination: Onion Ocean. But as they fly on the Warp Stars, Sweetie Belle is lost in thoughts, until she decides to talk.

"You know, the more I hear about the Dark God, the more I understand how much I was foolish when I first said that I would fight him if, or rather when the seal keeping him imprisoned will break. I understood that he would be powerful, but I didn't understand how powerful he would be as an incarnation of both Creation and Destruction. Hearing from Magolor that he almost led a whole dimension to the breaking point before he was stopped, I'm now scared. I'm not only scared of fighting this Dark God and his unimaginably great powers, but I'm also scared knowing that if we lose, or if we don't do anything, then he will destroy everything."

Dedede looks at Sweetie Belle before frowning. "I'm scared too. Like you said, if we don't win, this is the End." He smirks. "And that's why we. Will. Win!"

Meta Knight nods. "The Dark God is powerful beyond everything we can think of. It can even be said that he possesses infinite power. But remember this, he's not invincible. Heroes in the past managed to seal him. If they won, then we can win."

"And we've made many friends that will help us," says Bandana Dee. "With our number, we'll not lose. I'm sure of it."

"Poyo!"

"Oh yes! And of course, we have Kirby!" says Dedede with a laugh.

Bandana Dee laughs. "Yes. If one day, a whole army invades Dreamland, they would be like 'You've no chance against us! We have an army!' and we would be 'Ah yeah? We've a Kirby!'"

"Wrong!" shouts back Dedede. "We would be 'Ah yeah? We have a Kirby, a Sweetie Belle, a Dedede, and a Meta Knight!'"

"And a Marx!"

"Yeah, 'And a Marx!' Each of us is worth a whole army!* So a God? Pwah! He'll have no chance!"

"I agree with you guys," says Sweetie Belle. "But even so, knowing how big are the stakes is still scary."

"And it's perfectly normal," says Meta Knight. "Nobody should have to bear the fate of the universe on their shoulders, never mind the fate of more than one."

More than one universe... That's right. If the Dark God destroys this universe, what will stop him from going to another universe and destroy it too? And the next one? And the next? And the next? Dozens, maybe even hundreds of universe could be destroyed before someone is able to stop the Dark God's rampage. Sweetie Belle gets chills thinking about this.

"Onion Ocean is in sight," says then Meta Knight.

Sweetie Belle looks ahead and see the ocean as they approach it. It's filled with many, many, many islands, some of them just rocks, and there are palm trees everywhere on the beaches, meaning that it's a tropical area.

And it has nothing to do with onions. Unless there are onion-shaped rocks hidden under the water?

They land on the beach at the start of the ocean, and Kirby already starts running toward the water.

"Aah. It'll be good to swim after this desert!" says Dedede as they start following the puffball.

"What is less good is that we now have to deal with those," says Bandana Dee as he points at trees with familiar coconuts further.

"Oh yeah, the explosive coconuts," says Sweetie Belle. "Wow, last time I had to deal with those things was back in that water planet when me and Kirby wanted to invoke Nova. I didn't miss them." At this, she targets the coconuts and explodes them with her beams. "Whoever among the Ancients dreamed of explosive coconuts when they created this universe was crazy."

Passing the trees now devoid of their coconuts, Kirby decides to eat a Parasol Waddle Dee they encounter on the way just in case. After the Parasol Waddle Dee, they come under a floating island with a rope attached to one end to another, passing above another small island with spikes and a Shotzo. Taking the challenge, Dedede hangs on to the rope to pass above the spikes and the Shotzo, and Bandana Dee follows him. The others simply decide to fly.

They find another rope further, after a tree with a ladder-shaped trunk, which Sweetie doesn't even pay attention to. By now, she has seen much weirder in this world. However, the rope passing above fire blocks surprise her. Fire blocks in this area? Seems like they will have to use ice or water in the close future.

Sweetie doesn't lose time to destroy the giant explosive coconuts that are just after this second rope, not wanting to see how powerful is their explosion. They then get around a mountain to enter a black door under the water. They come to a new island where they climb a slope full of trees with coconuts before entering a cave with some Glunks, and a green fish with jagged teeth named Barracu, and come out at the other end. They go down another slope with some giant coconuts, then climb a ledge with the help of floating platforms made of leaves (with giant coconuts under them) before passing another door.

They beat some kind of bee with a spear named Pierce that has tried to impale Bandana Dee as soon as they have appeared and continue their way using wooden platforms that start moving when they press a switch, fighting more of those bees and other creatures.

Sweetie Belle uses her whip to destroy a bomb block protected by a Gordo, which destroys a bunch of iron blocks, revealing a door. The door leads them in some cavern underwater where they have to use a key to open a door to get an Energy Sphere, then they return to the previous area, walking on blocks that disappear under their feet while Sweetie destroys more giant Coconuts. After a moving platform, they enter another door, reaching an area with weird wooden totems in fire and big sand castles.

And they encounter a glowing Chilly with a star on the forehead.

"Hehehe. Time for Kirby to have some cool moves," says Dedede.

Sweetie Belle, along with Bandana Dee, groans before giggling. "Ice pun."

Dedede laughs before proudly posing. "Thanks!"

Kirby just shakes his head with a sigh before running toward the Super Chilly and eating him, gaining a hat that looks like a bowl of ice cream with a snowflake and a star at the front. Looking at the totems and sand castles that follow, Kirby starts spinning on himself, and snow appears and conglomerate around him, transforming him into a giant snowball with his face. The snowball Kirby then starts charging, going down a slope to gain momentum before bowling through the obstacles and absorbing every creatures that come in contact, becoming bigger until the ball explodes. From there, it's pretty much a bowling game, with the totems and the sand castles as pins. Like the previous ones, this Super Ability proves to be an unstoppable overpowered thing that can literally roll over any obstacle in the way except walls. And it's not long before they find a portal after destroying a giant sand castle.

Too bad, those sand castles were really good! This one could have easily won a sand sculpture contest.

In the other dimension, for once, they don't have to escape a purple space-wall, but a purple space-ceiling, forcing them to go down. This happens mostly by pressing a switch to move a part of the floor down, pass an obstacle in the level below (destroy some blocks, knock down some creatures, avoid Gordos, etc...), then press the next switch to move further down. Not surprisingly, knowing the area they come from, there are some water sections among those obstacles.

The battle against the Doomer, a red one again, takes place on a very small island in a seemingly infinite ocean, leaving very small space to dodge its attacks, but Sweetie and the others don't mind jumping in the water if it means not being rammed, and the ones that haven't jumped in the water distract the Doomer long enough so the ones in the water can go back on the island without being attacked. In the end, despite that little problem, the Doomer is as easily beaten as the others, and they exit the dimension with two new Energy Spheres.

---

"They make this adventure look so easy," says Starlight. "Even monsters from another dimension are just a nuisance for them. How powerful are they?"

"That's the question," says Discord. He points at Kirby and Sweetie Belle as they pass a door. "Those two were able to beat a guy named Marx, who had enough power to rival with an alicorn, and that was many months ago. There where many serious threats since then, but either Sweetie and Kirby were forced to use an artefact to beat them, or the threats were facing overwhelming forces, like Dark Mind who ended up facing Sweetie and five Kirbys, or Necrodeus who faced Sweetie Belle possessing Kirby's powers, so it's hard to say by now how powerful they are. But Sweetie said earlier that she must be now strong enough to face an alicorn, so let's take her word. Dedede and Meta Knight are at least as strong as her, and Kirby... Hard to say, he never lost a fight, even against Sweetie Belle, Dedede, or Meta Knight. And I don't know about Bandana Dee. He's weaker, but at least strong enough to put up a good fight. This means that this team could face both Celestia and Luna together in a fight, and win. Those Doomers have no chance against them. They would have to be powerful enough to destroy all Equestria with just one of them to win against Sweetie and her friend. And monsters that powerful aren't common, even in other dimensions."

"Could they even face you?"

"Me? Ah! No. Just one snap of my fingers, and the fight would end before they could even attack me. The only way for them to hope to win would be for Sweetie to develop a way to counter my magic with hers, and she's not close to be powerful enough for that. Even Celestia and Luna can't do it, so how could she?"

A smile forms on Celestia's muzzle at hearing him. "Maybe one day..."

---

By now, the party has reached the extremity of the archipelago, and they are now on an island only made of stone. Following Kirby, they dive in water leading to an underwater cave under the island, full of the habitual Blippers, Glunks, and Squishys (the squids-like creatures), with some other ones, like some blue blobs with red claws on the shoulders that can extend to hurt anyone getting too close which are named Crabys. In a small passage blocked by blocks leading to a dead end out of the water with a hotdog, they even find a living sword with an eye on the handle and blue wings at the sides, named Swordory.

After the walking axes, that's not a big surprise.

After doing some swimming, they reach the end of the cave, and they have to leave the water, using a ladder to reach a door, while quickly dealing with the Leafans in the way, Kirby eating one to gain Leaf.

They appear at the start of a bridge badly made of wooden planks, and as they walk on it, they have to watch out for the Blippers jumping out of the water below to hit them. After passing a stone pillar, they are then attacked by a Kibble Blade, a huge Sir Kibble with a better armor metal colored with red gloves. The Kibble Blade charges at them head down, his blade facing them, and on this bridge, the only way to avoid being cut in half is either by jumping in the water, or jump above the passing Kibble Blade. Rather than jumping in the water and having to deal with the many Blippers that are in it, they choose the second option, and just as the Kibble Blade passes under her, Sweetie Belle turns into metal and falls on him, crushing him badly. She jumps from her back as Dedede swings his hammer, propelling the Kibble Blade toward Kirby who then sends him in the air with a tornado of leaves. Meta Knight then raises his sword before swinging it down, sending a sharp shockwave toward him. This doesn't cut the Kibble Knight much, but the power is enough to send him flying far in the ocean, disappearing in the water. Just after this fight, they reach a small rock island, and Kirby jumps in the water before coming back with an Energy Sphere.

At the end of the bridge, they pass a door, and they enter a cave half submerged. Traversing it either on land or underwater, Kirby decides to eat a Pierce to gain the Spear ability, gaining a red headband with a frontal crest made of gold, and a spear similar to Bandana Dee's. After passing through an underwater passage, Kirby uses the spear to reach a hidden switch that has for effect to raise a part of the ground, revealing a door that they pass, entering a different section of the cave where they find an Energy Sphere after destroying some bomb blocks.

Back in the previous section, they pass another door just after this one, out of the water, and they are back outside, where they find a big blue boot with spikes under the sole, and shooting stars at the sides. It's big enough for one of them to go inside. Sweetie Belle raises an eyebrow at spotting it, and the other eyebrow when Kirby jumps in it and starts bouncing with it, even bouncing on the creatures on the way, hurting them badly with the spikes.

"That's... an interesting item."

At least, it's effective. Every creature that Kirby bounces on is immediately knocked out, and he can easily destroy any obstacles with it. He can't swim in the water with it, but thankfully, there are always creatures that Kirby uses as steps to bounce until reaching more land. The boot can even destroy a giant seemingly indestructible yellow block. But like the other items they have encountered until now, it seems to overheat with time, and Kirby is forced to give it up before it explodes, only to enter into another boot not far.

Too bad, Sweetie would have loved trying it.

After bouncing on Bronto Burts, they come to another giant yellow block that Kirby destroys, revealing a hidden door. They enter an underwater room with the only exit being above them, with an Energy Sphere, forcing Kirby to give up the boot to swim up.

Pulling a lever above the water, they destroy a bunch of iron blocks blocking the way, and they now swim down, entering another underwater cave, this one possessing some giant eels, named Barbar, coming out of hole to try to eat them.

Too bad they weren't the first one pulling that trick on them. They don't even hide in the hole contrary to those lizard/frog-like things. A good slap from Sweetie Belle is enough to make them understand that they should try to eat something else.

While exploring the cave, they eventually find an Energy Sphere in a small room full of stone blocks, before passing a door that leads them to a new section of the cave, where they have to destroy a bomb block to continue, causing the water it has been blocking to fall, the current carrying them. This happens a few more times, having to watch out for some bats and falling stalactites on the way, before they pass a door and enter a room without any seemingly way out.

Bandana Dee spots a switch that he presses, causing a wall to open, creating a strong current that pushes them for a small moment before they slow down just before a part of the cave where there are parts of the ceiling and the floor moving up and down, threatening to crush them. Thankfully, the movements are really slow, so they easily avoid being flattened before reaching the end of this section.

In the next one, they are in a long passage going up with some small current, and when they enter a small room out of the water, they have to choose between two ways back in the water, each one starting with a switch to destroy the iron blocks blocking the entrances. So they split into two groups, and enter the two ways, only to discover that they cross every now and then, one of them eventually ending in a room full of food for Kirby and Dedede's pleasure.

Another cave full of currents later, they emerge in a section where they end up fighting a bunch of weird slug-like creatures named Clayn, before encountering a Moundo, a large living blown rock with what looks like snow on peaks at the top of the head, a jagged mouth, and wearing sandals. He also wears a headband looking like the one that Kirby wears when he possesses the Hammer ability, but it's white and red rather than white and blue.

Like expected of that kind of being, he's rather slow, and mainly attack them by trying to crush them under him with a jump, or by charging at them. There's still a moment where the Moundo is able to surprise them by spinning on himself before sliding around like a curling stone, managing to ram Bandana Dee with this move. Despite this, a stone-breaking punch from Sweetie Belle ends up knocking him out, and Kirby inhales him to gain Stone. They then find an Energy Sphere in the water just after, before passing a door.

They enter a section similar to the one before the previous one, but this time, they have to choose between three ways, so they divide into three groups. Meta Knight is the unlucky one, because he ends up choosing the one leading right toward a Gordo, while Dedede and Bandana Dee manage to find another Energy Sphere.

The next section is a half emerged cave with strong currents, both water and air, and Sweetie takes the lead to ram into any enemy getting in the way with a spiked shield. This continues goes on for three level, the last one with some pits with Gordos, forcing them to jump.

After the door, in a cave without water, they find a Super Hot Head. Kirby doesn't lose time to eat him, and at Sweetie's request, he goes on her back, the filly wanting to see what will happen. And the result is beyond everything she has expected.

With the normal Fire ability, her mane and tail simply turns into fire, and she can shoot fire in a way that she can now do with her magic, fireballs, fire streams, and so on, with some advantages like not having to worry about the hot temperatures of deserts or volcanoes.

With this boosted version, she gains not only a mane and tail of fire, but also wings of fire, and her eyes now glow in a fiery color. She now can summon fire and bend it at a level that would make Celestia awe in wonder, serpents of fire flying around her, perfectly following the movements of her hooves.

"Hey! Stop playing with fire! You will burn us!" yells Yarn from her belt.

"Don't worry. I'll keep it away from you. By the stars, I feel like I could control the sun!"

With this boosted version of Fire, she can give it the form she wants, dragon like Kirby, but also phoenix, alicorn, and much more! She can create fire tornadoes, rain pillars of fire, swing her hooves in a cross-like manner to send a cross-shaped fiery projectile, and much, much, MUCH more. The most impressive move being the possibility to create a sun-like giant fireball that can turn everything into ashes.

Sweetie Belle learn all those moves while destroying the weird moving statues that follow, leaving only molten stones behind, and toward the end, to Dedede and Kirby's joy, she cooks a giant octopus that has been hidden in ambush under a shipwreck, leaving the two gluttons, helped a little by Bandana Dee, to eat the cooked cephalopod until nothing is left while they reveal a portal to the other dimension.

In the other dimension, they have to escape the wall by swimming and fighting their way through many Barracus, and destroy many stone blocks before reaching the door and fighting the red Doomer on a patch of land between two sections of water. With two new Energy Spheres in their possession, and Kirby now possessing the Fire ability again, they return to Popstar before taking a door to a new section, leaving behind the burning carnage.

---

"Each of those boosted abilities make her superior to an alicorn, and they will fight a dragon that will be able to use all those abilities at the same time?" asks Luna. "How will they win?"

"The dragon will probably not use some of those abilities like the sword one, but in terms of power, it sure shows that this crown is no joke," says Discord with a frown. "Whoever wears it could become godlike. This dragon will certainly put everything they fought until now to shame."

"But can they win?" repeats Rarity for Luna, and everypony else.

"Of course. Sweetie Belle and Kirby were able to beat Marx despite his superior power, so now that they are five, and that they are all more or less as strong as Marx, a being wearing an artefact giving godlike powers isn't impossible for them to beat, dragon or not. But... It will be really hard. It would be as if you six-" He waves at Twilight and her friends."-have been forced to fight Nightmare Moon for the first time."

Twilight gulps. "Yeah... I see..."

---

Following Kirby, the party jumps in the water, swimming toward the deeper parts of the ocean, not surprised to learn that some Energy Spheres have somehow fallen all the way down here, like that has been the case with the crystal pieces in Aqua Star. Sweetie doesn't mind, the depths of the oceans are always wonderful to explore, but they are also full of mysteries, so who knows what dangers they will encounter down there? But no matter the dangers, they will continue.

At the bottom, they press a switch, which causes a part of the floor to raise, revealing a hidden structure.

Submerged ruins? Nice!

They enter them, and they have to swim their way in a succession of hallways full of spinning spiked walls in the way. After destroying a bomb block, they discover a not so hidden door leading to a room out of the water with a few of those cardboard Waddle Dees, a locked door, a lever above them, and a red switch. Sweetie Belle fires a beam at the switch, causing a trapdoor to open under the Waddle Dees, dropping them in the water below before closing. Bandana Dee then pulls the level, oening another trapdoor above the first one, dropping a key that they use to open the locked door and find an Energy Sphere.

They return in the hallways with the spinning spiked walls, and after passing a couple of rooms full of those walls, they reach the next door. After pressing a few switches to open a few walls, they find an Invincibility Candy in a small room. Using it, they are able to swim their way through some groups of fishes ang Glunks without having to fight, finding an Energy Sphere after Kirby has found a door hidden behind algaes. They have to open two more walls before finding the next door, Meta Knight cuting the three Barracus ambushing them in front of it.

They appear in more hallways, those ones with giant spiked shells moving back and forth. Nothing to worry about for them with how slow the shells are, even if the party itself is slowed by the water. Things get a little more worrying when they have to escape a giant spiked shell chasing them, many obstacles, mainly blocks, slowing them down. The same thing happens with a second shell, but thanks to a hole in the floor, sadly only big enough for one of them, Bandana Dee is able to hide in it and let the shell pass while the others continue swimming until reaching a wall of metal blocks that they can't destroy in time, so they are forced to enter the passage just above, which has strong currents that forcefully carry them up toward the next door. They are quickly joined by Bandana Dee holding an Energy Sphere.

"The shell broke the rocks and revealed this sphere," he says before giving the Energy Sphere to Kirby.

"Good job Bandana Dee," congratulates Dedede.

At this, they pass the door, and they appear at the top of a place that seems to be a palace, and they can see through a hole in the wall that they are in an immense caverne with a breathtaking underwater city.

"Woah..." say Sweetie Belle and Bandana Dee in awe.

"That's Popstar, always full of wonders to discover," says Meta Knight.

After a few more seconds of admiring the city with its shell-shaped houses, they start swimming down, and they discover a very special bomb with stars patterning it and with a skull symbol, called a Balloon Bomb. When Kirby takes it, it slowly starts to inflate, and once it reaches its limit, it explodes. Knowing about this item that can be found sometimes like all those other items until now, they start running, trying to find if there is something that needs to be blown by the bomb. They soon find a bunch of metal blocks as well as a big yellow block, and they use the bomb to destroy them, only to find some food. They find a second bomb after a ladder made of coral, and after a small course where they have to use red switches to activate trap doors so they can jump above holes full of spikes, they throw the bomb at a wall of yellow blocks, revealing an Energy Sphere, and a Maxim Tomato.

After a ladder, they pass a door, and they are now in another succession of hallways, closer to the city, and this one is full of those giant eels, including some really HUGE ones. When Sweetie almost finds herself eaten by one of those huge eels, she fire a big explosive ball inside its mouth, knocking it out with some smoke coming out of its mouth. That's before they enter a big room with dozens of eels, the smaller size.

"Screw it. We smash them all," says an annoyed Dedede.

"Agreed," says Sweetie Belle.

"I'll help," says Meta Knight.

Kirby then points up. "Poyo! Poyo poyo!"

"There's an Energy Sphere?" asks Sweetie Belle.

He nods.

"Ok. While we clean the room of those eels, you go find the sphere."

"I'm coming with him," says Bandana Dee.

"Very well," says Dedede before smirking at Sweetie Belle and Meta Knight. "I bet that I can eliminate more eels than you two."

"You shouldn't make a bet that you know you'll lose," says Sweetie Belle. "Me and Meta Knight can use projectiles to deal with those eels from a distance, while all you can do is throwing your hammer."

"And I'm not interested in such a competition," says Meta Knight.

"Spoilsport!" huffs Dedede.

With this, they go in the room first and start beating up the eels, starting with the top of the room to open the way to Kirby and Bandana Dee. After two minutes, all the eels in the room are knocked out, and Kirby has taken the Energy Sphere.

As they leave the room after destroying a bomb block, Sweetie says "I win."

"What?" asks Dedede.

"I've knocked out more eels than you."

"Hey! I thought that we wouldn't do this bet!"

"I said that you shouldn't make bets that you know you will lose, I never said that I didn't accept it," she said smugly.

Dedede gapes at Sweetie Belle. "You... You..."

"So, when we are finished with this journey, the next day, you will only eat fruits and vegetables. No cake, meat, chocolate, or whatever else you can think of. Like you said, you need a diet. Bandana Dee is my witness, so you can't make it look like the bet never happened. I will make sure to pass the word to Cape Knight, and the cooks too."

"You... You're heartless!"

"No..." She smirks. "I just do what you would do."

Dedede continues gaping at her as she starts swimming. After a few seconds, he closes his mouth and his eyes, and starts sniffing.

"Hey. No need to cry my king. It'll not be so bad," says Bandana Dee.

"I'm so proud of her," says then Dedede, shocking Bandana Dee, Kirby, and Meta Knight. "Is it what a father feels?"

---

They are now inside the city, and they soon enter a building where there is, surprisingly, not any water inside. After looking around a little, they are eventually stopped by the floor shaking, and out of it comes an obese purple fish even bigger than Dedede, with a white belly, yellow designs on its back, big droopy lips, and rocks, barnacles, and corals around its eyes.

"Oh? This fatty wants to try his chance against us?" asks Dedede.

Kirby points at the fish. "Poyo poyo!"

"The fish possesses the wing?" asks Meta Knight.

"Poyo!"

"Okay then," says Sweetie Belle. "Hello Mr Fish. Can we have the-"

The fish suddenly roars at them before inflating like a balloon until it's all round. It then rolls toward the party who all easily dodge the attack, Bandana Dee and Meta Knight slashing it as it passes. Still round, the fish then bounces toward Bandana Dee who is about to run, only for Sweetie Belle to get in the fish's way before punching it violently in the belly, her hoof sinking a little in it before the fish is finally propelled backward toward the ceiling. The fish rapidly bounces between the ceiling, floor and walls like a flipper ball, gaining momentum, and almost crushing someone two times before he bounces one last time from a wall to body slam Sweetie Belle and crush her against the opposite wall.

The fish bounces away, freeing her, and he deflates. Dedede then jumps and drops on it, getting on its back, before attacking it with its hammer has much as he can until the fish decides to jump on its back to crush Dedede, only to have Met Knight slashing its belly repeatedly while Kirby spits fire. The fish rolls back on its belly, bounces away, and spits blobs of water toward everyone. Kirby then gives up Fire and inhale one of the blobs to get Water, while Meta Knight and Bandana Dee destroy the others. Sweetie Belle uses some ice to freeze one of the blobs and kicks it at the fish's face, stunning it. Kirby surfs his way toward it, tilts his head so that his hat of water faces it, and a stream of water is propelled from it at the fish, seemingly hurting it a lot before it recovers.

Irritated, the fish grows until reaching twice its size, then inflates until it before a giant ball over half the size of the room before it starts rolling. Thankfully, when the fish has recovered, Kirby has thought to run away, so he's able to jump out of the way of the giant ball. The others have also seen the attack and they all either fly or jump out of the way, and the fish ends up slamming against a wall, shaking the whole building and causing stalactites to fall from the ceiling. Sweetie shields them all, and once the stalactites stop falling, they all charge at the fish as it slowly turns around to face them, deflated again, but still its giant size.

After some attacks, the fish inflates again, and everyone immediately run away, only for the fish to surprise them as it turns toward Meta Knight and Sweetie Belle, which have both flown toward the ceiling (Sweetie on her shield), before spitting a huge geyser that propels them against the ceiling. After a couple of seconds, the fish stops and deflates, only to immediately inflate again before rolling in the center of the room. He then starts spinning on himself, and at the same time, spits more water. Kirby and Bandana are able to avoid the attack by ducking, but Dedede is hit and propelled backward a few meters. A lightning bolt from Sweetie Belle suddenly strikes the water and electrifies the fish, stopping it as it yells in pain. Once the electricity stops, they all rush at the fish, excepted Sweetie Belle who prefers firing beams, until the fish inflates again and everyone run away before it starts rolling around erratically, then stops, and spits another geyser.

Dedede gets an idea and opens wide his mouth before starting inhaling the water from the geyser and growing into huge proportions, becoming as big as the fish. When the fish stops spitting its geyser, deflated, Dedede then spits back all the water he has inhaled into his own geyser right back at the fish and propelling it into a wall. Once Dedede has spitten all the water, returning back to normal, Sweetie Belle fires a stream of ice that she has been charging, and with the fish absolutely drenched, she's able to trap it in ice. Meta Knight then charges at the frozen fish and starts spinning like a drill with his sword in front of him, drilling the ice and breaking it, and the fish, in pieces, releasing the wing of the Lor Starcutter that has been inside its belly.

"Mmh... Fish flavored ice cream? I wouldn't mind trying," says Dedede.

"Too bad it ended this way. If only this fish listened..." says Sweetie Belle.

---

After taking the wing, they swim back to the surface and use the Warp Star to return to the Lor Starcutter. Once back, they fix the wing, to Magolor's joy.

"We are halfway done! All that remain are the Emblem and the Mast, and the Lor will be able to fly again!"

They then return to the living room.

"So, what do you want to ask this time?"

"The Dark Matter, what is it? We already know about Dream, Heart, and Soul, but nothing about Dark beside Zero and the Dark Matters than we fought," says Sweetie Belle.

"Oh? You fought Zero? And you survived? That's incredible! Zero is known as the most terrible creation of the Dark God."

"Ah! Yes! Those two not only fought Zero twice, but they also killed him twice! The second time for good!" shouts proudly Dedede while pressing Kirby and Sweetie Belle against him.

Magolor's body goes stiff at hearing this. After a few seconds, he starts laughing before turning toward Dedede, eyes closed, rubbing his hands against each others, and sweating. "Excuse me. I may have heard it badly. Did you just say that Kirby and Sweetie Belle were able to kill Zero?"

"That's what I said."

"We had to use artefacts using love, but yes, we were able to definitively end Zero's threat," says Sweetie Belle.

"Sweetie Belle is even the one who gave the finishing blow!" shouts proudly Dedede while hugging the filly. "She's my pride."

"S-stop it, Dedede!" shouts Sweetie Belle embarrassed.

"I... see..." says Magolor slowly, sweating even more. He then shakes his head and clears his throat. "So, to answer your question, I'll have to start with the three other Matters. You may know some things about them, but probably not everything. By the way, forget everything that you may have learned about the Dark Matter from the Dark Matters and Zero. Despite what their name suggests, and even if their bodies were made from Dark Matter, they also could feel negative emotions, which real Dark Matters wouldn't be able to do, meaning that they also possessed some of the other Matters, but only negative versions of those Matters. Real Dark Matters would be more like newly created robots, without any dreams, feelings, or will. Now, let's start speaking about the three first Matters. But first, let's return to the bridge. It'll be easier to speak about them while using the screen."

So they leave the living room and return in front of the screen. Magolor then starts pushing buttons as he starts talking. "So, as you know already, those three Matters are Dream Matter," A star appear on the screen before shrinking and going to the left side. "Heart Matter," A pink heart appear on the screen, then shrinks like the star before going to the right side. "and Soul Matter." A light appears on the screen, then shrinks before going in the center.

"Dream Matter is the energy of creation. Using our dreams, it can create anything, and give great powers to the ones that can use it, like the possibility to grant wishes, or to shift abilities. Each time that you encounter someone that can use more than one ability without using magic, then there's a strong possibility that they use Dream Matter."

"Dark Nebula... Logic, he was a being of nightmares, so he was certainly made of Dream Matter, and used it to shift between fire, ice, and spark," says Sweetie Belle. She looks at Yin and Yarn. "You two probably use it too, as well as Drawcia, to create and give life to your creations. And of course, there's Kirby."

Magolor's hands drop at his sides as he slowly turns toward Sweetie Belle, seemingly deflated. "You killed Dark Nebula too, right?"

"Uh, yes. Why do you look so gloomy?"

"Nothing nothing. Let's continue." He turns back to the keyboard. "Then comes the Heart Matter, the energy of feelings. The strongest your feelings, the more powerful it is. Someone using this energy can boost their power to unimaginable proportions, and accomplish miracles. Finally, the Soul Matter, the energy of the will."

"Like that?" asks Sweetie Belle as she envelops her right hoof into energy before unleashing it in a small shockwave with a punch.

"Yes. Like that. With this energy, you can turn your own soul, and by extension your body, into a weapon, and even survive beyond death. If you encounter someday someone with a strong will, you may end up having to fight their soul to definitively kill them. The soul can either be unleashed by killing the being a first time, or the being can choose to unleash it. Just watch out if this happens, because souls are pure will, so if the being unleashing it wants you dead, then the soul will do everything to kill you without a care for what happens to it or around it. A battle against a soul may also be triggered if the being totally loses their mind."

Sweetie turns to Kirby. "Do you think that this is what happened with Drawcia?"

Kirby shrugs. "Poyo."

"What do you mean?" asks Magolor.

"There was that witch named Drawcia that we fought. We seemingly killed her the first time, but then, her body transformed into that... thing."

"Then it's probably that, yes." Magolor then turns back to the screen. "So, as you discovered by then, each of those Matters can be used in a positive way, and a negative way." All the symbols on the screen form a second symbol under them: a black star, a black heart, and a black light. "Because those are all Matters that come from inside us, and thus, are defined by us. Our dreams and nightmares, our love and hate, our will to do good and evil..." He then pushes a button, and the symbols on the screen disappear, and a black ball with a red eye appear in their place. "That's the difference with the Dark Matter. Dark Matter is the energy of the void. It doesn't come from inside us, but from outside. It isn't defined by anything. We just use it. In clear, the Dark Matter is perfectly neutral no matter what. And so, you can use it to do some magic without needing to draw from inside you." Magolor raises a hand, and a purple ball with a black hole in the center appears above it. "The exceptions are the Dark Matters. Because they had bodies made of Dark Matter, they could use it everywhere, even in places that doesn't possess much of it, like this world. And because the Dark God is its creator, the same thing applies to him. Of course, a mage powerful enough would be able to draw Dark Matter from very far for their magic." The ball disappears. "To put it simply, contrary to what you may think, Dark Matter isn't evil, but it isn't good. Like I said, it's simply neutral. So don't fear it. Who knows, maybe one day, it'll become your best weapon."

Author's Notes:

*Concept: Dynasty Warriors of the Stars. This would be epic.

Chapter 67: White Wafers

"That's weird. Because of how it's named, I thought that this Dark Matter thingy was like dark magic, but he said that it's okay to use it," says Applejack. "Then why is it named Dark Matter?"

"Because the idea of darkness equals evil is a misconception," says Luna. "You can use powers linked to darkness without being evil. I can turn into shadows, and yet I'm not trying to conquer Equestria. It's just that the darkness is full of mysteries, and ponies tend to fear what they don't know, and if it's scary, then it's evil. And there's the sad fact that most evil beings tend to use darkness or to hide in it. But the truth is that darkness is no more evil than Light. It's the beings that use darkness that are evil, like there can be evil beings using light. The difference with dark magic is that dark here refers to black which itself refers to evil. Dark magic is evil, and Dark Matter is darkness. You understand?"

"I think so. But this means that anypony here could use this Dark Matter?"

"It seems like," answers Twilight. "However, there aren't any Dark Matter here, so this wouldn't work. From what I understood, unless our body produces Dark Matter, or is made of it, we have to draw the Dark Matter in the environment to use it. Maybe if we could find a way to produce or stock it..."

"But if Dark Matter is the energy of the void, then doesn't this mean it's everywhere where there's void?" asks Fluttershy.

"But the Dark God created it, so I don't think this works that way," replies Twilight.

"Unless this isn't the God who created the Dark Matter, but the Dark Matter that created the God," says Pinkie Pie. Seeing everypony looking at her weirdly, she adds "I mean the God has to come from somewhere, right?"

---

Sweetie Belle and her friends land in the icy mountainous region of White Wafers. Again, nothing to do with wafers. Instead, there are something that Sweetie Belle would have never thought to see one day: ice volcanoes! Volcanoes that are expelling ice! Some of the ice is even floating! But best of all, ICE CREAM TREES!!!

Too bad it's too cold to eat them. But if she craves ice cream one day, she now knows where to go!

Forgetting about the ice cream trees, she raises her right forehoof and looks at it, focusing. If she could do like Magolor and use Dark Matter, then their chances to beat that dragon and the Dark God would rise a little, without forgetting that she would have a new weapon to one day defeat Kirby. She could do the same dark lightning as the Dark Matters and Gooey, she could throw those weird black balls like Magolor has shown them... Maybe she could even create black holes! She could probably create one with her normal magic, but it would take so much power, and she has absolutely no idea how to use it this way. But with Dark Matter...

Sadly, she has no idea how to draw Dark Matter to use it, and no matter how much she tries, no black ball appear above her hoof. She will have to ask Magolor when she has the occasion. He could train her.

She looks at Kirby. Will he be able to use it too? Maybe he's already using it without knowing, when he inhales others. By the stars, if he ever masters those four Matters, he would become almost invincible.

Then she needs to master those four Matters too. She already controls Soul Matter rather well thanks to the training she has started with the help of Knuckle Joe. Dream Matter is harder to think about. Has she been unknowingly using it with her magic to fire all those magical attacks, like the fireballs or lightning bolts? Or is her magic just an imitation? The Matters don't exist in her dimension, and yet, thanks to magic, ponies can do things really similar to what Magolor described. If that's the case, then what if she adds Dream Matter to her magic? What about both Dream Matter AND Dark Matter? No, ALL four Matters with her magic?

It would be her advantage. Kirby doesn't know how to use magic like Meta Knight (unless Meta Knight uses Dream Matter), yet. If they both end up mastering the four Matters by the time they fight each others, then her magic could make the difference.

Or he could dodge everything she throws at him and counterattack, like he does so well. No need to be powerful when you know how to dodge.

Wait, are the shockwaves that he can send with the Sword ability a result of Dream Matter, or are they magic? And the mirrors from the Mirror ability? Dream Matter and magic are so similar, it's hard to say. Maybe those are magic resulting from Dream Matter?

While Sweetie has been thinking all this, the party has started its journey through the snowy landscape, quickly destroying a mechanical version of those cardboard Waddle Dees before Kirby inhales a Knuckle Joe to gain the Fighter ability. They walk on a few parts of the floor covered in ice, pass through igloos, destroy many blocks including fire blocks and ice blocks (finding an Energy Sphere thanks to this), and defeat many creatures wanting to try their chance.

After passing a door, they find a Cracker and use its bullets to eliminate many Nruffs and other enemies before destroying a bunch of metal blocks, finding many ice creams. They pass another door, and they find themselves in a small cave with a cannon in the exit. From there, it's a succession of cannons, with another Energy Sphere in a small passage out of the way as they pass under a mountain. Toward the end, when they have to choose between two ways, Kirby makes them choose the one passing again under the mountain, where they reach a door hidden in a small cave. In the cave that follows the door, they have to watch out for many falling spikes of ice as they walk on icy floor and jump above more icy spikes. They are also surprised by a living blob of water falling from the ceiling named Pluid, looking like those water blobs they have encountered in their journey to Ripple Star, excepted that this one has two red eyes. They easily find a third Energy Sphere on the way, above spikes, before they reach a level that open a door to the next black door.

They encounter a Gigant Edge that they easily beat after Sweetie breaks his sword with a well placed soul energized punch, leaving him with only his shield to defend himself. The Gigant Edge defeated, they pass the next door, and they reach an area mainly made of icy floor, with some ice geysers expelling Mopoos, ice owls, and even trees turned into giant snowmen falling on them as they pass. After passing the first series of tree snowmen, Kirby inhales a ninja creature named Moonja, purple round body, yellow around the eyes, with the usual ninja hat with the silver headband, obviously gaining the Ninja ability. Then they pass a second series of tree snowmen before entering a cave.

Inside, they encounter some blue creatures with a pink underbelly without hands and wearing metal helmets with a horn on the front, like a rhinoceros, named Sheld. When the party is able to knock away the helmet, then the Shelds run away, letting them pass.

A little later, after destroying some ice blocks, they find a fuse that Sweetie lights, and they immediately run to reach the cannon before the fire. Thanks to the cannon, they are propelled through a big yellow block, and they reach a place near the top of the mountain where one of them, Dedede is the chosen one, has to remain behind to press a red switch that opens a door for only two seconds, while the others pass said door and take the Energy Sphere, Bandana Dee almost impaling himself on a spiked wall because of the slippery icy floor, saved just in time by Meta Knight. They then pull a level, destroying a wall of iron blocks, and join Dedede before passing the door that lead back to the cave, beside the cannon.
As they continue their way, Sweetie Belle starts to talk to Meta Knight.

"Meta Knight, when you send your tornadoes and your shockwaves, do you use magic, or Dream Matter?"

"Magic."

"What about Kirby when he uses the Sword ability?"

"Magic too, the same kind that I use. But the Sword itself is a result of the Dream Matter, so I wouldn't be surprised if this magic is a result too, or else, he would also use it with the other weapons."

"So Kirby can use magic, but only magic gained thanks to his Copy ability." I don't know if it's good or bad... "Do you know how to use Dream Matter?"

"No. I never thought about training myself to use it."

She sighs before they pass a door, exiting the cave.

"If you search for someone to train you to use Dream Matter, you could ask Marx," says then Meta Knight.

"Uhh... I don't know if he would be a good trainer... But I will think about this. Thank you."

They have to jump from icy platform to icy platform before they reach a Stomper Boot, Dedede being the one entering it this time, wanting to have some fun. Stomping on Snowls and Mopoos, he's able to reach, and destroy, two yellow blocks, freeing two bottles of milk, before the boot explodes, Dedede taking the milk and giving a bottle to Sweetie Belle who jumps in the next Stomper Boot, and uses it to destroy a yellow block that has been blocking a black door. Taking it with the boot, Sweetie ends up in a place where she has to use it to stomp on Mopoos and reach a high ledge where there are yellow blocks (and two carrots). With the boot, she destroys them, and finds an Energy Sphere in a small room, before giving up the overheating boot, destroying a bomb block to exit the small room and form a bridge of blocks above the Mopoos, and returning to the door where the others are waiting and congratulating her.

Back where they have found the boot, they reach a succession of icy slopes with Rockys sliding on them, and Kirby gives up the Ninja ability to eat one of them and gain Stone. After passing a door, they enter another cave with more slopes full of dangers that are nothing for the stone ability. They then enter another section of the cave where they encounter a Bonkers.

A Bonkers with a glowing aura, and a star on his forehead. And his clothes have fire motifs.

And his hammer becomes huge.

Dedede huffs. "He thinks he looks great with his giant hammer?"

They all quickly jumped back to avoid the Super Bonkers' giant hammer slamming on the floor, shaking the whole cave and causing a shockwave to spread on the surface, forcing them to jump above it. Once Kirby lands, he runs toward the Super Bonkers, and to everyone's amazement, force a fist made of stone around his right arm and gives an uppercut, sending the Super Bonker on his back.

"Whaaat?! He can do that now?!" yells Dedede.

"Hehe. I can do the same by turning my hooves into metal, but I don't need it thanks to those gauntlets," says Sweetie Belle before she quickly walks on the Bonkers' chest and punches him on the chin just before he can go up until he loses consciousness. Once done, Kirby gives up Stone to inhale the Super Bonkers, and obtain the boosted version of the Hammer ability, the puffball now wearing a bigger version of the rope, now blue and red colored, with a star on the forehead and a hammer almost two times bigger than him.

"So, this will be like the Sword?" asks Bandana Dee.

"Seems like it," replies Sweetie Belle.

They quickly reach a giant stake that Kirby has no problems pounding with his actual hammer, creating by the same occasion a shockwave that knock out every creatures around it, and dropping a big part of the floor with it and revealing a great quantity of food. They then reach two weird boxes, decorated with cracks and a star. From one of those boxes comes out a pillar looking like an owl, and its two slats resembling wings open, revealing a hole from which it shoots ice, that they have no problems to avoid. The pillar then enters its box, and another similar pillar comes out of the second box, but before it can open its wings, Kirby jumps above it and raises his hammer, and slams it on the pillar, pounding it back in its box with so much force than it destroys the box, and somehow, it destroys the other box too.

Kirby pounds another stake, which has for effect to bring platforms to form a passage for them to pass without having to fly, and they reach three more of those boxes that are easily destroyed. More stakes and more boxes are pounded, before they reach giant version of those boxes. Kirby rapidly jumps above the actual raised pillar as it charges its cannon, and raises his hammer, which grows two times its size and changes appearance, gaining festive colors with flowers and stars. But then, the hammer grows even more, becoming gold, with diamonds inlaid in it, and giant stars on the sides. Kirby then slams it on the giant pillar, and destroys the boxes in one it, shaking the whole mountain.

They all look in awe at this monstrosity of a hammer, and at such destructive power.

"It... It could crush the head of a full grown dragon..." says Sweetie Belle with a small voice.

"And a dragon wears a crown that can use the same power," says Bandana Dee. He starts taking big breath. "Breath Bandana... Breath... Kirby is here, everything will be alright."

"Hey, don't worry. I don't think that Landia will use a hammer," says Sweetie Belle.

Meta Knight nods. "As a dragon, he should mainly use fire."

"This isn't reassuring when we know what Kirby and Sweetie Belle can do with the Fire ability boosted by the power of the crown..."

"Let's just stop thinking about this," says Dedede as he points at a portal that has appeared after Kirby has destroyed the giant boxes. "We should go." Before I run away in fear.

They nod, and they jump in the portal, Kirby losing the ability again. In the other dimension, they have to use keys to open doors to be able to continue, and toward the end, they find a Cracker that they use to rapidly destroy dozens of blocks and reach the door.

They encounter a new kind of Doomer, a green one with four tail feathers, attacking using electricity, meaning that when Kirby inhales one of the balls that it drops, he gains the Spark ability. With its ability to fire lightning bolts, this kind of Doomer is a little more dangerous than the red ones -it's hard to dodge lightning bolts after all-, but it's as resistant as the others, so despite a few shocks, the fight doesn't last long, and the Doomer is killed with a giant slash from Meta Knight, cutting it into two pieces that disappear, leaving the two Energy Spheres.

They leave the other dimension, and pass the door not far from the portal, entering a small room without any exit, and with only a lever. Pulling it, the floor of the room opens, and they jump, discovering that they are now in a different cavern with an underground lake, pillars of ice going from the lake to the ceiling, and many colored rocks on the surface. They have to pass a few Coldtzos, big blue and white cannons firing big projectiles of ice, before destroying a bomb block to reach a door that is in the cold water.

They appear in a cave underwater, and as they swim, they have to avoid giant spiked shells bouncing from the floor and the ceiling. Thanks to his spear, Bandana Dee is able to reach a switch that causes a part of the floor to move up, releasing a spiked shell that they avoid, before moving down, revealing an Energy Sphere, before passing a door.

They come out of the water at the bottom of a succession of slopes, where many boulders of ice roll down, threatening to crush them. On the way, they find an Invisibility Stone that Bandana Dee takes so he doesn't have to go on Dedede's back anymore to dodge the boulders, and he uses it to pass a crystal wall, destroy a bomb block, and take an Energy Sphere, before they all pass the next door.

They enter a section of the cavern full of waterfalls that they have to swim through. At that moment, they spot a black door above a metal platform attached to the ceiling by a rope, beside a waterfall. Because of the platform, they can't reach the door from below, but because of the waterfall, which the current is too fast, and a wall at the other side, they can't reach the door from there. So Sweetie throws a cutter blade from her tail through the waterfall, charging it. The blade moves up, then starts coming back, only to bounce on a wall beside the waterfall, above Sweetie Belle and facing the rope, and it successfully cuts the rope, dropping the platform.

The door leads to a room where there's a switch, iron blocks above it, and stone blocks below it. They press it, which destroys the iron blocks, and a giant ice boulder falls on them. Quickly, Meta Knight cuts it into pieces, and Sweetie Belle melts some of the piece with streams of fire while Dedede and Bandana Dee deal with the other pieces. The boulder destroyed, they can reach the Energy Sphere that has been hidden behind it.

Back in the section with the waterfalls, they continue their way, having to swim through more of them, some of them going from the floor to the ceiling rather than the ceiling toward the floor, and others with the giant eels. They then enter another section of the cavern, with a Balloon Bomb that they use to destroy some yellow blocks, making it easier for the one holding the key that they find just before said block to reach the door that it opens, which lets them get their hands to a second Balloon Bomb. They use it on a Water Galboros that they encounter just after, hurting it very badly to the point that just one thrust of Bandana Dee's spear is enough to end the battle, and Kirby eats it to gain Water.

After the Water Galboros, they find another key, and thanks to it, they find an Energy Sphere, before exiting the cavern, entering a small passage where they simply have to press a switch to open the way and exit the mountain. But now, they find themselves pushed by a strong air currents coming from behind, and like every time this happens, they have to watch out for the many obstacles in the way, especially for the Gordos, always present to play their role as the worst pests of Popstar.

Timing their jumps, they reach a cannon that propels them to an Energy Sphere, before they enter another cavern similar to the one they have just left, with many Coldtzo raining projectiles. Thankfully, they find a Prism Shield, and thanks to it, they can easily walk through that rain of ice, and Pluids too, with a few other creatures. Before it overheats, they pull a lever, finding another among a few Waddle Dees, and they use it to protect themselves from more Coldtzos while they use currents to float and pass a large pit.

After a door, they have to go down through a narrow passage, then move forward until reaching two doors. Wondering where the keys are, they then see a Key Dee coming, charging toward the door above. Thinking quickly, Kirby stops him, takes the key, and opens instead the door below, finding an Energy Sphere.

The next door leads them inside an ice palace, beside a city of ice with many bridges, where they find a Super Chilly, followed by giant frozen bowling pins, the ice on them forming spikes.

Seems like the giant snowball form of Kirby will be needed, so Sweetie Belle decides to wait before asking him if she can try the boosted ice. Besides, she already guesses that it will be similar to the Fire ability.

So Kirby eats the Super Chilly, and using the snowball, literally plays bowling, with him as the ball. Each group of pins that he knocks down causes some ball at the end of said group to grow before opening, releasing food. The better Kirby plays, the better the reward. When Kirby is able to knock down a whole group of pin in one try, the reward is the best, in the form of Maxi Tomatoes. At the end, they come to a giant snowman without its head, and so, Kirby, as a snowball, places himself where the head should be, which somehow destroys the snowman and reveals the portal to the other dimension.
Before they enter it.

"Wait Kirby! Before we go in, can I try this ability?" asks Sweetie Belle.

Kirby accepts, and goes on her back. This gives her an appearance similar to the Fire one, but with ice instead of fire. If an Alicorn of ice were to exist one day, they would probably have this appearance, with normal wings instead of ice ones like Sweetie currently possesses.

And so, with this ability, she can: create blizzards, freeze a large area around her, create giant ice punches or ice objects, cover herself in an ice armor, and like Kirby, turn into a giant snowball, but to add effects, she can cover it in ice spikes. Among other things. Kirby can probably do some of that, but he seems to like simply being a ball. While trying the ability, she tries to focus on the power that she feels inside her, which certainly comes from Dream Matter, in the hope that in the future, it'll help her learn how to use Dream Matter without needing Kirby.

Once she's done with testing the ability, they enter the portal, and for the second time, they have to escape the purple space-wall coming from above, meaning that they have to go down, walking down slopes and stairs, and pressing switches to move platforms down, while fighting enemies -mainly Broom Hatters, which Kirby eats to at least have an ability, even if it's just the Cleaning ability- and avoiding spikes. On the way, Kirby learns that he can fly on the broom, and that he can now send a gust of wind when he sweeps, even creating a small tornado with he twirls it.

Maybe this ability is not useful just to clean. Well, now.

At the bottom, they reach the door, fight another green Doomer, take the two Energy Spheres that it drops, and leave the dimension. Back in the palace, they take a door to another section, where they just have to go down a ladder before taking another door. In the next room, they find out that one of the ways is blocked by a locked door, so they go in the opposite direction, where they find a jar from which comes what seems to be the ghost of a Waddle Dee that slowly floats up. When the ghost reaches the ceiling, he disappears, and another (or is he the same?) comes out of the jar. So they destroy the jar, and pass the door just after it, leading to a small room where they find the key. So they open the locked door (after destroying more of those jars), and pass yet another black door, entering another small room with yet again another black door.

In the next room, giant blocks of ice are moving back and forth, threatening to crush the party between them, so they have to jump from block to block without falling. On the way, they find a Cracker, and not long after, between two blocks, a door that they quickly pass before being crushed. In the new room, with the help of the Cracker, they easily destroy a good number of metal blocks blocking the way, finding an Energy Sphere at the end. Leaving the overheated Cracker behind, they return in the room with the moving blocks, and quickly jump to avoid being crushed, before passing another door a little further.

They discover another door after breaking some ice blocks, and in the room that it leads to, they have to destroy a bomb block to continue, only for the chain reaction to create a wall of indestructible blocks in the way, making it impossible to pass. Thankfully, leaving, and returning in the room makes the bomb block reappear, and the blocking wall disappear, so they try again, and this time, they are able to pass. They also pass the next sections, and reach the Energy Sphere at the end. Some cannon brings them back at the entrance of the room.

Back in the previous room, they pass another door leading to a room where a locked door blocking one of the ways, so they take the other, pass a door, and find the key. Excepted that the local Scarfies don't seem to like that they touch the key, because they all turn into their monstrous form and start to chase them. So while the key bearer (Meta Knight) go to the locked door, the others eliminate the Scarfies, and soon, they are able to continue.

Two doors later, they enter a dark room, so Sweetie lights her horn to guide them until they find a candle. Eventually, they find ice blocks that they destroy, finding a door leading to a room with a Chilly, Mopoos, a very small passage full of spikes, and iron blocks in the floor. Easily understanding what to do, Sweetie freezes one of the Mopoos, and kicks the formed ice cube into the passage, the cube reaching a switch that destroys the iron blocks and frees an Energy Sphere. Back in the dark room, they have to walk on a few moving platforms before reaching the next door.

Leaving the melted candle behind, they take a key that is just in front of where they appear, again making the locar Scarfies angry, and they use it to open a locked door further, getting another Energy Sphere along with another key to open a second locked door blocking the way, and they exit the palace.

They climb a small mountain, and reach a bridge, only to be suddenly stopped by a creature falling in front of them. The creature looks like a white ape with a round body, red markings on his face and wrists. The ape sports a grey goatee as well as a long lock of grey hair. Particularly, he possesses long arms, normal for an ape, but no legs, only feet directly attached to his body. The ape pounds his... cheeks (?) the same way as a normal ape pound their chest before roaring. He then smashes the ground, destroying the bridge, which makes all of them drop to another bridge below, this one trapped between two walls.

No way to escape except by jumping or flying.

"I didn't think that we would end up fighting an ape in this snowy land," says Bandana Dee.

"And I suppose there's no way to convince him to stop," says Sweetie Belle.

Meta Knight shakes his head. "He seems determined to fight us."

Confirming him, the ape jumps on the wall behind him and scales it a little before throwing big snowballs at them. The snowballs are easily stopped by a shield from the filly who counterattacks by firing a magical beam from her horn, only for the ape to jump from the wall all the way to the other behind them. The ape then jumps again, fists raised ready to smash them, but they are all able to move out of the way just before, but the narrowed space of the bridge makes it harder than usual, so Meta Knight decides to fly while Sweetie Belle air-jumps.

After the ape's fail, Kirby suddenly sweeps his broom on the ape's eyes, the water full of cleaning products of the broom entering his eyes which he closes in pain with a scream. Dedede takes it to jump toward the ape and pounds him on the head with his hammer while Sweetie Belle, on a shield, attacks with her magical projectiles. But just as Meta Knight comes to slash him, the ape recovers and grabs the knight before slamming him on Dedede again and again and again until Bandana Dee stops him by throwing his spear. As the ape yells in pain again at having a spear in him, Bandana Dee runs toward him and takes it back before twirling it, hurting the ape even more, only for the ape to finally punch him, making him fly out of the bridge. He's saved by Sweetie Belle getting him on her back, only for the ape to punch them all the way from where he's, his arm extending! Sweetie Belle quickly air-jumps again, recovering the falling Bandana Dee, before coming back on the bridge.

Again, Kirby is able to sweep the ape's eyes, only for the ape to punch him away despite being blinded and the pain, knocking out the ability that Kirby quickly recovers before it falls off the bridge. Meanwhile, everyone else attack the ape while he's blind, until the ape just has enough and spins on himself with his arms stretched, punching everyone away. Once rid of his attackers, the ape pounds his cheeks in anger before roaring, and in a flash of light, his hair and goatee turn blond, and his eyes are now red.

"Not good..." says Bandana Dee.

The ape then smashes the bridge and destroys it, dropping everyone on another, smaller bridge below, the middle of the bridge made of ice. The ape then places his hands beside him and starts to charge energy.

"Oh oh... Leave it to me!" shouts Sweetie Belle before she places her forehooves beside her and starts charging energy too while the others move out of the way.

The two of them fire big energy balls almost at the same time, and the two balls hit each others above the middle of the bridge in a big explosion that push everyone back, including the ape. But the ape recovers and jumps toward Sweetie Belle and roars at her before attacking her. She counters his right hook with her own right forehoof, then attacks with her left hoof only for the ape to counter with his left fist. She suddenly flashes her horn, blinding the ape, and uppercut him, but the ape quickly counters by spinning around and back-kicking her, only for Sweetie to punch the foot to stop it.

The ape is then bonked on the head by Kirby, the puffball having jumped above him before attacking with the wooden part of the broom. He follows it by sweeping the eyes, again, before jumping away to avoid being punched. Blinded again, the ape decides to smash the bridge again, dropping everyone on another bridge, bigger than the previous one with elevated parts, and no ice.

The ape, his eyes open again, scales one of the walls and starts to bounce from wall to wall before charging at Kirby, about to crush him, only to be intercepted by Dedede jumping and violently hitting him with his hammer, propelling him against a wall, where he's hit by an energy ball from Sweetie Belle. Not giving up, the ape recovers, only to be struck by Meta Knight who quickly flies away to avoid being countered. Losing it, the ape starts throwing punches toward everyone, being able to reach everyone thanks to his extensible arms. After a moment of avoiding or blocking his punches, Dedede is able to catch one of his arms, use it to lift him, before slamming him on the bridge, destroying it and making all of them fall on yet another bridge, this one being smaller, having elevated parts and having a good part of it covered in ice.

The ape recovers and, seemingly at his end, go on one of the elevated parts near the walls and places his hands at his sides again, charging energy, even more than before. So Sweetie goes on the opposite elevated part and does the same. With a mighty roar, the ape unleashes a powerful energy beam that is immediately countered by the filly's own energy beam, and the two are now stuck in a stalemate while the others are all flying (or on Dedede's back in Bandana Dee's case). Then, the ape smirks, and places one of his feet with his hands, and his energy beam becomes more powerful, enough to start pushing Sweetie's beam.

Kirby then falls on the ape's head and sweeps his eyes before being taken away by Meta Knight, totally ruining the ape's focus, and he ends up hit by Sweetie's beam, burning him very badly. When the beam disappears, destroying a small part of the wall behind the ape before that, the ape falls almost unconscious, but still resisting. Kirby then lands beside him, grabs his hair, and starts spinning on himself, spinning the ape with him, before throwing him out of the bridge. The ape starts panicking, moving his arms and feet around in the hope of somehow flying, before falling in the dark pit below.

They all take a big breath, before Kirby jumps from the bridge, only to land on the floor directly under it, where the emblem of the Lor is waiting for them.

---

"Welcome to Popstar, a world of dreams, where apes can kick your butt with energy beams," says Discord.

"And don't forget the fish that spit geysers out of their mouth," says Rainbow Dash.

"And flying trees," adds Pinkie Pie.

"And angry storm clouds," continues Applejack.

"The perfect world," finishes Discord.

"How can anypony survive in this world?" asks Starlight.

"Just by living their peaceful life without going on adventures," answers Discord.

"If Sweetie Belle could survive here, then anypony can survive here," says Scootaloo. "But can she hurry up to come back? I want to learn how to fire energy beams!"

---

The party returns to the Lor Starcutter, and places the emblem back where it belongs. Now, all that remains is the mast. Back in the living room of the ship, Magolor congratulates them.

"I can feel that we'll be able to go to Halcandra in just an hour! It's wonderful how fast you are working to repair the Lor Starcutter."

"We have a rampaging dragon to stop, it's normal that we work fast," says Dedede.

"That, and also because when helping a friend, we do our best!" says Sweetie Belle.

"Thank you. So, what will be the question this time?"

Sweetie Belle looks at Kirby. "Since you are an Ancient, or rather, one of their descendants, do you know anything about the origin of Kirby? I have been waiting to ask this for a while."

"Poyo?"

Magolor looks at Kirby as he speaks. "I don't know anything about the origin of Kirby, but I've suppositions. From what I understood, he's not a Child of the God like the others, so I understand that he was born in a special way. As for this special way..." He looks at all of them. "So, you know about everything that led to the God becoming a Dark God before being sealed. Well, first, a little precision. When the mages and the God were exiled, they were exiled in this dimension. This will be important for what follows.

As you probably know, the God could be influenced by the positive and negative energy that he constantly absorbed, but never to the point of changing into a Holy God, or a Dark God. While being worshipped by the Ancients, the God was mainly absorbing positive energy, but then, all those events happened. From what I know, during his exile, something happened with the God. A snap. Something like that. And suddenly, all the positive energy that was still in him was expelled out of his body into the universe. My supposition is that with time, this positive energy slowly merged, and formed a new being."

"Kirby."

"Again, this is just a supposition. It's the only conclusion that I could find to explain Kirby's existence. But this means that, in a way, Kirby is a part of the God himself, and since he's still growing, then he may be fated to become a new God."

"Poyo?!"

"You know, I actually heard about Kirby before coming here."

"Really?"

He nods. "I encountered someone who knew about you, and he wanted something, so I told him about the clockwork stars having the power to grant his wishes. This is not a hazard if I opened a portal to Popstar, of all places. It's because I knew that there would someone here to help me. To think that this someone would be the potential successor of the God..."

Sweetie and her friends look at each other in wonder, before Dedede asks "Was that guy a little jester a little coocoo in the mind?"

"Yup, he was flying around in space, in search of something, and we encountered each other as I was myself exploring a planet in search of... something. So you know about him?"

"Yeah. He made the Sun and the Moon fight each others, and convinced us that to stop them, we had to invoke Nova. But he stole the wish and tried to conquer Popstar," says Sweetie Belle. "Me and Kirby defeated him."

"Oh, of course he failHUMHUMHUM! I'm sorry that I caused problems. I didn't know that he would use the knowledge that I gave him this way."

Sweetie Belle giggles. "It's in the past." She then looks up, thinking. "It's weird that he didn't say anything about you."

Magolor shrugs. "Probably because you didn't ask."

Chapter 68: Nutty Noon

On their Warp Stars, Sweetie Belle and her friend approach the area called Nutty Noon. In wonder, the filly looks at the tower that they can see, and then, she looks up, up, up. Up. Up! UP! And no matter how much she looks up, all she can see is that the tower disappears beyond the clouds after piercing layers upon layers of them. From the few that she can see, the tower is weirdly built. At many places, it divides into many small structures, some of them stopping there while others regroup to continue the tower. She can also spot a few floating islands around among the clouds.

But beyond the wonder, she's worried, knowing what is waiting for them at the top, but that she can't see.

---

As the party is about to walk out of the Lor Starcutter, the alarm is suddenly blaring, and a big red star with an exclamation mark appears on the screen.

"What's going on?!" shouts Bandana Dee.

Magolor goes to the keyboard and hurryingly starts pushing buttons.

"The Lor is detecting something bad!" At this, a view of all Popstar appears on the screen, and a small window pointing at an area of the planet appear with some info in it that Sweetie can't read. "Oh no. It says that a giant rift has appeared somewhere high in the sky."

"The place it indics... It's Nutty Noon," says Meta Knight.

Magolor groans. "It's what I feared. The last part of the Lor must have attracted a powerful Doomer."

Dedede waves dismissively at this. "Pchah! The Doomers are jokes! Powerful you say? Yeah, right."

"There are many kinds of Doomers in the other dimension!" rebuts Magolor. "What you fought until now were just small fry! Some Doomers can be powerful enough to almost rival Zero!"

"That powerful?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"Yes. That powerful. They aren't called Doomers for nothing."

Meta Knight looks at the screen. "You said that the rift has appeared high in the sky of the Nutty Noon, right?"

"Yes."

"Then I suspect that the rift has appeared at the top of the Sky Tower." He turns to the others. "In Nutty Noon is a very old tower so high that it goes beyond the atmosphere of Popstar. If the rift has appeared at the top, then this means that the mast of the Lor is here, and that we will have to climb it."

"You should quickly go," says Magolor. "If you don't hurry, then the Doomer could return to the other dimension, and the mast would be lost. Or it could attack Popstar, spread destruction, and kill countless people. Or worst. It could return to the other dimension, and call thousands of its kind to invade Popstar and devour all its positive energy!"

---

They have treated the Doomers like a joke until now, but Magolor reminded them that they are NO joke. They are monsters that could destroy everything in their craving for positive energies. It would be like the Parasprite Incident, but far worse, because nothing would remain of Popstar and its inhabitants. Everything would be devoured. And contrary to the Dark Matters, she doubts that just killing the leader (if there's one) would be enough to stop all the others. If Popstar is invaded by an army of Doomers, then they would have to fight all of them, and she doubts that they would be able to do it if what Magolor said is right and if some of them are THAT powerful.

So they must avoid it.

They could go directly at the top of the tower with the Warp Star, but Magolor said that if the Doomer got its wings on the mast, then it would remain immobile the time to... digest a little, giving them enough time to climb the tower the normal way to get all the Energy Spheres.

But seeing the size of the tower... Hopefully, the Doomer has a slow stomach.

Kirby starts to fly up toward the clouds, and Sweetie follows him until they reach a small group of platforms suspended on beanstalks, and they land on the big one that is actually a small island.

Yeah, giant beanstalks. Hopefully, no giant lives somewhere in those clouds. The giant wouldn't stand a chance against them, but they could lose time fighting him.

They start jumping from island to clouds to more islands to more clouds, passing by bridges of blocks, both the star ones and the ones that disappear when they walk on them, Kirby eating a Blade Knight on the way to replace the Cleaning ability by Sword. As surprisingly useful as Cleaning has been, he much prefers Sword. That is, until they encounter some red round bird named Owgulf that Kirby quickly eats to gain the much more useful in this place Wing ability.

A black door leads them to an island between two clouds with a beanstalk creating more platforms with its leaves, where a strong current going up, helping them in the climbing but forcing them to watch out for the many Parasol Waddle Dees that are slowly floating down. Toward the end of the beanstalk, they also have to watch out for falling Foleys and some Gordos.

Bandana Dee starts to wonder if he shouldn't remain on Dedede's back until they enter the tower. he internally curses not having anything to fly. Maybe he should asks the one that created Dedede's mecha hammer and Sweetie Belle's new whip to create wings for him.

On the way, they find an Energy Sphere simply by passing a door behind some blocks. All they have to do after it is to pass a bridge of those disappearing blocks with some Comos to get it.

They then continue flying up in the section with the current until reaching the next door, where they appear on another island followed by cloud platforms suspended to bigger clouds by small lianas, cutting the lianas dropping the platforms despite them being made of cloud. At the same time, they have to start watching out for those cursed Mopoos flying out of the clouds.

Those guys are quickly becoming number two in the list of annoying pests behind the Gordos.

In a small passage in the clouds, after cutting a liana to drop a cloud platform, they discover a door behind which they find another Energy Sphere. For this one, they have to be quick, because they appear on disappearing blocks, barely letting them time to understand anything.

After that, it's more Mopoos to dodge while jumping between platforms made of clouds or leaves until reaching the next door. More platform jumping follow, and this time they have to avoid the bullets from Shotzos while the Mopoos are more numerous. More annoying, it takes them a few minutes to find the passage leading to the next Energy Sphere, hidden behind some clouds. If that wasn't for Kirby, they would have missed it.

In the next section, they are now in a succession of tunnels of clouds where they have to avoid giant spiky metal balls, of all things. Those balls forces them to run to get the next Energy Sphere before one of them destroys a bomb block creating a wall that would have blocked the way.

At this point, they are starting to get really high in the sky, and yet, they still have a long way to go before reaching the top of the tower, which they are approaching. After passing a door, they actually appear on a cloud at the start of a long bridge leading to the tower.

They still can't see the top.

"You said that it goes all the way to space?" asks Sweetie Belle to Meta Knight.

He nods. "Don't worry. Thanks to the black doors, those miles will quickly pass. Just don't look below."

"Too late..." says Bandana Dee, gulping.

They start traversing the bridge, having to pull levers to open doors. On the way, many Scarfies and Mumbies are waiting to harass them along with a few Shells and some others creatures. Despite this, it isn't long before they finally enter the tower itself, only to enter a section with some parts of the tower moving up and down.

This tower will be a pain to climb...

On the way, they find a Balloon Bomb that they use to destroy a giant yellow block and reveal a hidden door that leads them to an Energy Sphere. Here, Kirby press a red switch that opens a door, only for it to close as soon as Kirby stops pressing it. So while Kirby remains pressing it, Meta Knight, the best at flying, passes the door, avoiding the moving Gordo on the way, and takes the Energy Sphere before they all return to the previous section with the moving platforms. A few levers later and they pass another door, escaping the many Mumbies chasing them.

But now, after climbing a ladder, they have to choose between two levers. Pulling one frees a bunch of Scarfies while the other lets them climb the next ladder. This continues a few more times, except that some of the levers free foods, before they reach a door that leads them back outside the tower, at the start of another bridge between two sections of the tower. In this second section, they end up fighting a Moundo.

The Moundo is quickly finished with a hammer tornado from Dedede, and they leave this section of the tower to start traversing another smaller bridge leading to a third section. Here, they find three stakes, and when Dedede pounds the first one, they hear that it causes something under them. Kirby then warns them that an Energy Sphere is just under them. Seeing a hole just in front, Sweetie goes in it to see what is under them, and sees a wall of iron blocks disappearing as Dedede pounds the second stake, and she can see the Energy Sphere.

Sweetie then shouts "Stop! Don't pound the third stake!"

"Uh? Why?"

"The way to the Energy Sphere is open, so I feel that if you pound that third stake, it will block it."

"Oh. A stupid trap."

Rapidly, Sweetie jumps out of the hole holding the Energy Sphere that she gives to Kirby.

"Now pound it just to see."

Dedede gladly does, and Sweetie looks in the hole to see that it causes a wall to appear, exactly like she has thought.

"Yup. If you had pound that stake earlier, we would have been forced to say goodbye to this sphere."

Dedede huffs. "I hate that kind of trap."

"And of course, an Energy Sphere had to fall in it," says Bandana Dee.

"Yeah... What is this with collectibles falling coincidentally in traps? First the crystal pieces, now those," asks Dedede.

"Because this universe is crazy enough for that kind of thing to happen," answers Sweetie Belle. "With this universe being made from dreams, I wouldn't be surprised if collectibles fall in traps to make the following quest more adventurous. You know, because some guys dream to be adventurers."

"Screw those guys! There's already enough adventure just climbing this tower!" screams Dedede, making Sweetie giggle.

"I don't mind. It makes things less monotonous. And it makes us work our brain. Of course, for you, this must be hard. You prefer smashing without thinking."

"Hey! I like playing chess!"

"And you lose every time. You just can't think beyond two moves. No, really. You like playing it, or you just continue in the hope of winning one day?"

"I know that I will win one day! Just you wait!"

"Yeah. The only way for you to win would be by playing against yourself."

Dedede glares at Sweetie Belle. "I will take pleasure clobbering you in our fight."

She jumps beyond the hole, giggling. "And I will take pleasure to stand on the belly of your unconscious body like a podium to celebrate my victory. Now let's go, we are losing time, and the others have continued without us."

"What?" Dedede looks around, seeing that he's now alone. "Hey! Wait for me!"

They join the others just after a black door just as Kirby eats a Super Waddle Doo in the middle of four cube prisms with a star in their center. Using the boosted version of the Beam ability, Kirby then lights the four prisms, opening a trapdoor under him to reward him with some food.

Sweetie approaches Kirby. "I think that I have an idea on how to make it easier. Go on my back. And like this, we will see how this goes."

"It's easy to guess. You'll be able to fire bigger lasers from your horn," says Bandana Dee. "Which is a bad idea. You could destroy the tower."

She sighs. "Alright. I will not test how much powerful I will be like this. I will just use the ability to light those prisms in record time. Come on Kirby."

"Poyo."

Kirby goes on Sweetie's back, and the effects on her body are similar to Fire and Ice, only this time, it's with light. Thankfully, a light that doesn't blind too much.

She quickly runs to the next room with the prisms, this one possessing five, and she fires simultaneously eight lasers, the lasers changing direction in the air to home toward all the prisms, even the ones behind her, and toward the three Scarfies that have been slowly floating toward her. Again, this opens a door with more food that Dedede collects.

In the next room, it's no less than ten prisms that she has to lights to open the door, this one not only leading to food, but also to a ladder. Taking it, they reach a room where Sweetie can see sixteen prism forming a face. Sixteen lasers are fired, and in less than two seconds, the face is lit up, and the part with the nose moves up, letting the portal to the other dimension to appear.

Kirby jumps from Sweetie's back before giving her a fistbump while the others join them.

"See? The tower is still here," says Sweetie Belle. "Still, too bad that I couldn't see how big my lasers would be with this ability. Maybe next time."

"If there's another occasion," says Dedede.

In the other dimension, to escape the purple space-wall, they have to destroy many walls of iron blocks blocking the way by destroying bomb blocks, some of them hidden behind moving walls or Gordos. Kirby could inhales some of the star blocks that are just beside to spit them on the bombs, but Sweetie makes it easier by firing her beams, and Kirby inhaling is needed only once because of stone star blocks in the way, and before long, they reach the door, fight the green Doomer (Kirby getting the Spark ability), and exit the dimension.

Back in the tower, they immediately continue the climbing. After a ladder, they have to use cannons to enter another section of it before passing a door that gets them inside a room where they can only go up to continue. For this, there are many ropes that the group can use to hang on and move despite the strong currents that are present at some moments.

The next door leads them outside the tower, and they have to jump on clouds and floating platforms while avoiding Shotzos and fighting strong currents to continue their climbing, admiring by the way the great view, and how high they are now.

"We must be halfway," says Meta Knight.

"I can't believe that we have already climbed so much. It would've taken hours back home," says Sweetie Belle.

On the way, they find a Cracker thanks to which they easily destroy some star blocks to drop some Shotzos, and despite their seemingly invincibility, Sweetie doubts that they can survive such a fall.

A door leads them back inside the tower, where they have to press a switch to continue... by going down. Well, if it's the way...

As they go down, they reach a big room with many star blocks, and Sweetie simply turns into metal to destroy them and make it faster to reach the bottom. After some slopes, they finally reach a hallway with a locked door, and seeing the iron blocks, and hearing the sound of blocks being destroyed, the Key Dee will soon appear. And indeed, the iron blocks soon disappear, and the Key Dee falls. Sweetie quickly grabs him in her magic before the iron blocks under him are destroyed too, and she takes the key before letting him go, the Key Dee deciding to lie down beside a wall. Using the key, Sweetie opens the door and takes the Energy Sphere behind it, before they pass the black door.

Back outside the tower, the climbing resumes, this time having to avoid the electric projectiles of Volttzos while trying not to get eaten alive by cloudy versions of Pactos. On the way, the destruction of a bomb block leads to the discovery of a black door leading back in the clouds, where they have to fight their way through more Pactos to reach an Energy Sphere.

Once back inside the tower, the party can see that what follows involves some flying. For Kirby, this gets easier when a couple of Starmen come from a level below. Now with the Hi-Jump, he easily cleans the way of all enemies. Further up, he presses a red switch opening a trapdoor just above him, and using the Hi-Jump, he's able to pass it before it closes, and he pulls a lever opening another trapdoor in another passage, which Meta Knight passes to take the Energy Sphere here.

In the next section, they just have to destroy bomb blocks to free the way while avoiding the creatures that they drop, until reaching what seems to be the top of the tower. Excepted than no, this is just the top of the section of the tower they are in. Kirby continues using the Hi-Jump to continue climbing, this time toward the clouds, and the others follow him before they all pass a door. Still in the clouds, they find an Energy Sphere hidden in them before passing another door.

They find a Stomper Boot, and Bandana Dee is the one trying it this time, quickly learning how to use it. When a second one is found before the first one overheats, he enters it, and he's able to use it to walk on a bridge of Gordos and reach an Energy Sphere, which couldn't have been reached by flying because of strong currents.

the next door leads them back beside the tower, and they climb a ladder beside a wall full of Shotzos firing at them before reaching a rope that they can use to better avoid more Shotzos. More ladders and rope follow, the third rope passing above an Energy Sphere between two Gigatzo. Kirby waits for the right moment before jumping to take the sphere, and rapidly jumps to avoid the projectiles of the cannons. A lever destroys a wall of iron blocks, letting them pass the next door.

They appear in a different part of the tower, the walls now purple-white instead of the brown stone. And judging by what they can see through the windows, they have reached the upper atmosphere of Popstar.

Almost there!

They climb a couple of ladders, and end up fighting a Super Bonkers. He tries to crush all of them under his giant hammer, and they separate with a jump before Bandana Dee thrusts his spear at him, followed by a few strikes from Meta Knight. The Super Bonkers starts spinning on himself with the hammer, sweeping a great part of what is used as the arena, and they are forced to fly to avoid it, Meta Knight taking Bandana Dee to save him. As the Super Bonkers continues spinning, Dedede falls on him, hammer bonking the head, which stops him, and Sweetie Belle wraps her whip around his neck as she lands before forcefully pulling it down, making the Super Bonkers hit his head on the floor. The Super Bonkers slowly gets back up, only for Kirby, who has expelled the Hi-Jump ability before inhaling it back, to spit it as a star at him, which finally knocks him out. Kirby then inhales him, gaining the boosted Hammer.

Not really sure what she would be able to do with it inside the tower beside using the hammer the same way as Kirby, Sweetie decides to let him do the work as he uses the giant hammer to destroy every obstacle in the way, including those owl boxes slash cannons, and to pound giant stakes to create stairs. A giant stakes causes a part of the floor to become an elevator where they have to avoid the projectiles of Volttzos, and it leads them to a giant spring that Kirby immediately pounds. Sweetie Belle, Dedede, Bandana Dee, and Meta Knight quickly join Kirby before the spring propels all of them up through a destructible part of the ceiling. They pass through more similar parts before hitting a giant bell, breaking it and making the portal to the other dimension appear.

Sweetie Belle puts her hooves on her ears in pain. "Oow... I think that I've become deaf..."

"What did you say?" asks Dedede.

"What? I can't hear you Dedede."

Meta Knight pokes the both of them to gain their attention, and does some hand signs easy to understand to tell them to wait a little before speaking. They both nod, and they all enter the portal. The trip on the other side was the most dangerous one until now. Not only do they have to escape the wall, like always, but they also have to watch out the moving platforms that could crush them, forcing them to be quick, but also to be careful, and being quick and careful is not easy. But despite it, they are able to reach the door, their hearing having returned by then, and they fight the Doomer. Here again, the arena of the fight is composed of moving platforms that could crush them if they ever fall between them and don't fly back quickly.

Funny, when the arena is more dangerous than the enemy.

The Doomer is still easy to kill, and they return to the tower with two more Energy Sphere. Back where they have destroyed the bell, they pass a black door, climb a ladder, and pull a lever to open a door and exit the tower to walk on clouds. Here, thinking about the portal they have taken, it reminds Sweetie about the rift, and she looks up.

And she now can definitely see it. They still have a little way to go, but the top of the tower is now visible, and above it, the portal is here, a big hole in space through which she can see the other dimension. It's not even star-shaped like the other portals they have passed until now.

They hurry up, and pass the door not far before them, appearing not far from the main section of the tower (they were in an offshoot that served as a belfry), and after climbing a ladder, they enter it. They quickly defeat the Giant Edge that welcomes them with his sword, and Kirby eats him to gain Sword before they pass a door. In the next room, they cut a rope to drop a platform and reach an Energy Sphere trapped under it before passing another door, and after climbing a slope, yet another door.

A Moundo get in their way, but doesn't last long, as they can easily destroy the metal blocks in the next room to get the Energy Sphere trapped among them. Two doors later, and it's a Water Galboros that attack them, and in return, they make it eat some lightning bolts.

Lightning sure has a shocking taste.

The next room has some fire blocks easily destroyed with some water, and two rooms later, they encounter a new enemy looking like a big UFO that Meta Knight reveals is called a Dubior. The Dubior surrounds itself in electricity and charges at them, only to be stopped by a magical wall, stunning it. They then all quickly finish it before moving on. The destruction of a bomb block lets them have the last Energy Sphere of the tower and they continue climbing it, and finally reach the top after some ladders.

And yet, they can see another offshoot going a little higher, going almost inside the rift.

Using the Warp Stars, they fly to it, and they find the mast floating on a passageway.

Bandana Dee looks around. "Where's the Doomer?"

"If it's like the others..." says Meta Knight before looking at the mast. "It's right there." At this, Meta Knight raises his sword, and swings it down, sending a sharp shockwave at the mast.

When the shockwave hits the mast, it seems to wake the Doomer, because it appears just after, its fiery body enveloping the mast the same way as the others enveloped the Energy Spheres before looking at them with its glowing red eyes, clearly pissed at being awakened like that.

While fighting the Doomers, Sweetie Belle has understood something about them: the more they have tail feathers, the more they are powerful, and judging by the number of tail feathers that this one possesses too much to be counted, added to its size making others look like babies, it's easy to guess than this Doomer must be one of those Doomers that can almost rival Zero'.

Hopefully, its phoenix-like appearance doesn't mean that it can come back from death.

But Sweetie Belle smirks as she takes her metal whip, because...

One: this Doomer almost rivals Zero.

Two: they don't need an artefact to beat it.

Three: Kirby and Sweetie Belle have gotten much stronger since the fight against Zero.

And four: Dedede, Meta Knight, and Bandana Dee are with them.

To put it simply, this Doomer... is DOOMED!

The Doomer roars, then swoops at them. They all lower themselves to avoid its attack, and Sweetie starts firing her beams while the others all jump at the Doomer to attack it with their weapons. The Doomer teleports at the other side of the bridge and fires a few fireballs, bigger than the ones fired by the smaller Doomers, but as easy to avoid or destroy, but as they are busy with the fireballs, the Doomer flies above them and drops even bigger fireballs, and Sweetie destroys the one about to fall on Meta Knight with her whip before jumping and punching the Doomer who teleports away.

A shadow appears under Dedede, and before he can understand what's going on, a big jaw made of darkness comes out of the shadow and closes on him before going back in the shadow.

"Dedede!"

After a couple of seconds, Dedede is able to escape the shadow slightly hurt, and the Doomer reappears to fire more fireballs, only to get Dedede's hammer in the face. The Doomer does a succession of teleportations, firing a fireball after each one, until it does reappear, instead, four black holes appear in the air beside the bridge. One by one, the black holes disappear until one remains, and the Doomer rapidly flies out of it right toward Sweetie Belle. Dedede inhales her to save her being slammed, and he spits her back at the Doomer once it reappears, Sweetie unleashing a storm of attacks with her whip while she air-jumps.

The Doomer slaps her with a wing before roaring, and it fires four fireballs homing at Bandana Dee, only for him to destroy all of them by twirling his spear. So the Doomer starts teleporting around erratically while firing dozens of those homing fireballs at the whole party. Seeing that it still does work, the Doomer flies down to the middle of the bridge, taking a few it on the way, and starts spinning on itself while firing even more fireballs, those ones not homing. Then, like Kirby with the Tornado ability, while spinning and firing its fireballs, the Doomer starts moving around, plunging the bridge into chaos.

they run and fly around to avoid the Doomer while doing all they can to destroy the fireballs, protecting each others when they can until the Doomer finally stops, dizzy, and they all take the occasion to attack it. Once it recovers, the Doomer disappears, and the same shadow as the one that has almost eaten Dedede appears under Kirby who quickly flies away just in time to avoid the same fate. The shadow then starts moving in the bridge in search of prey, and they make sure to remain away from it, until the Doomer decides to fly out of it, almost ramming Meta Knight who strikes it in return a couple dozen times in just a few seconds with lightning speed before avoiding being slapped by its wing like Sweetie Belle.

The Doomers disappears again, and a dozen black holes open on both sides of the bridge. After two seconds, they all disappear immediately except one, the Doomer flying out of it almost as soon toward Bandana Dee who jumps at the last second before pointing his spear down and impaling the Doomer as it passes under him, stopping it right there and leaving it open for the others. After being attacked from all sides and being badly hurt, the Doomer suddenly encase itself in stone, its wings, tail, and other features disappearing to only leave its round body and its eyes.

With its body now in stone, the attacks, while still damaging, have less effects, just enough to make the stone crack. The Doomer then disappears and teleports a few times above them, invoking creatures of Popstar that seem to be under its control to attack the party while it starts bouncing in the air in a way that reminds Sweetie of Drawcia's soul. They fight the Doomer's minions while avoiding being crushed or body slammed, and each time they have the occasion, they attack the stone, cracking it a little more each time.

Then, the Doomer does the biggest error of its life: it invokes a Super Blade Knight.

Kirby immediately releases his current Sword ability before eating the boosted knight, and now armed with the giant sword, he strikes the Doomer, greatly damaging the stone encasing it. The Doomer, becoming panicked, now attacks exclusively the puffball, and unleashes dozens of minions at him while teleporting, bouncing, and flying around. The others deal with the minions, leaving Kirby to attack the Doomer again when it tries to slam him, destroying a part of the stone, the Doomer's body now visible again in some parts.

The Doomer becomes more erratic, and rolls on the bridge like a boulder to crush everyone, only for Kirby to stop it with another strike, almost destroying the stone. Black holes appear everywhere, and the Doomer flies from black hole to black hole, disappearing in one, reappearing from another, and so on, becoming totally unpredictable. But Kirby doesn't lose his calm, and when the Doomer comes out of a black hole directly from his left and charges directly at him, he strikes it again, finally totally destroying the stone and leaving the Doomer vulnerable.

The Doomer quickly disappears before being struck again, and reappears further above the bridge, starting to charge what seems to be an ultimate attack, wings pressed against its body. Sweetie Belle immediately wraps her whip around Kirby and after spinning to gain momentum, throws him toward the Doomer. while flying toward it, Kirby raises his giant sword, and brings it down on the Doomer, cutting it vertically from the middle. But he doesn't stop here and strikes it more times, each time the sword taking a different form, and by the time Kirby passes the Doomer, all that remains of it are bits that slowly disappear until nothing remains, leaving the mast.

Above the bridge, the rift also disappears.

They have done it. Popstar is saved.

Gosh, those small Doomers were really nothing compared to this one. Magolor wasn't kidding. But now, they can take the mast, and return to the Lor Starcutter to finally finish repairing it (without counting the Energy Spheres that are still missing and that are in the other dimension). And then, it will be an interdimensional trip to Halcandra to defeat the rampaging dragon named Landia.

While Kirby brings the mast with him, Sweetie decides to wait by sitting at the edge of the bridge to admire the view. From where they are, Popstar is halfway turning yellow, the surface still partially visible. It's a really breathtaking view, so why not enjoy it before they fly back to the surface?

---

Back at the Lor, Kirby throws the mast at it, and it goes back where it belongs, completing the majestic spaceship. When they enter it, Magolor is jumping in joy.

"Oh, yeah! Yeah! YEAH! You did it! The Lor is back in business!"

Sweetie giggles. "That wasn't easy. The Doomer was like you said. It was really powerful."

"As I thought. It was probably a Grand Doomer. Those guys are like the worst nightmare of anyone still living in the other dimension. And yet you were able to kill one. I wasn't expecting less of you, after all you have done."

At this, Kirby spits the Energy Spheres they have collected.

Magolor quickly counts them. "And you got all the Energy Spheres that have fallen in Popstar! The Lor will have no problems opening a portal toward Halcandra. Just wait that I place them back in the engine, and we'll be able to go. While you wait, you should rest. I don't doubt that you probably need it after battling that Grand Doomer. There's also some food in the kitchen. Make yourselves home."

Dedede rubs his belly while licking his lips. "With pleasure."

"This doesn't mean that you should empty the fridge!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

"Oh, but he can," says Magolor. "I don't mind."

"Ah! Take that!" shouts Dedede in victory before he runs toward the kitchen, followed by Kirby who wants his part. Bandana Dee eventually decides to follow them, a little hungry too. As for Meta Knight, he just goes to the living room, wanting to continue his book. Sweetie follows Magolor, wanting to see the engine.

---

"Ooooh! We're about to see another world in another dimension! We're about to see another world in another dimension!" shouts Pinkie Pie excitedly.

"We're already seeing another world in another dimension," says Applejack.

"I know! I meant another another world in another another dimension!"

"But now, we have to wait," says Discord, his head resting on his claw. "I hate waiting. So boring."

"After the excitement we got in that tower, I don't mind waiting," says Rarity. "While they were fighting that thing at the top of a tower that goes all the way to space, my heart was racing! One wrong move, and Sweetie could have fallen to her death!"

"Remember that I'm here to assure that it doesn't happen. Besides, she can air-jump, so she wouldn't fall too far before she recovers. Unless she's unconscious, but her friends would be there to save her. See? No need to worry."

"I will worry as much as I want! Especially knowing that their next target is a dragon possessing an artefact making him more powerful than everything we know!"

"Have faith. I'm sure they will win. Somehow."

"Hey, they are reuniting in the bridge," says Scootaloo.

Hearing her, they look at the portal. "Already?" asks Rarity.

In the portal, everyone is now in front of the screen, Magolor pushing buttons while the screen shows the path of the Lor, letting them see a little of Halcandra. From what they can see, the area of Halcandra where they go is composed of plateaus with a big volcanic activity. Magolor then pushes one last button, and the ship takes off before opening a star-shaped portal by shooting some beam from the star at the front of the emblem.

The Lor emerges from the portal in the other dimension, and they already can see Halcandra just in front.

At seeing it, everyone gasps in horror.

Halcandra is nothing more than an archipelago of islands floating in space that seems almost entirely desert, only a few plants visible here and there. On one of the plateaus, they can see a futuristic city... totally in ruin. It must have been beautiful in the past, but now, all that remain are skeletons of skyscrapers and factories and piles of scraps. And then there are the volcanoes. So many volcanoes...

"Welcome to Halcandra," says Magolor. "Or... What remains of it after the Dark God's rampage. Yeah... It's not pretty, but you get used to the volcanoes after a time."

The alarm suddenly starts blaring, and the screen zooms to show a four-headed dragon, the top head wearing a crown, firing big fireballs at the ship. A helm materializes in front of Magolor, and he quickly takes it to pilot the ship and try to avoid the fireballs in panic. But despite this, the Lor is hit, and it starts to lose height too fast.

"Brace yourself!" he shouts.

"They're gonna crash!" shouts Rainbow Dash.

"Oh please oh please oh please..." starts repeating Rarity.

Sweetie Belle, Dedede, Kirby, and Bandana Dee cling to each other while Meta Knight opened his wings to better balance himself. Magolor does everything he can with the helm to try to avoid the worst as the alarm continues blaring and the ground gets closer and closer.

And in a deafening racket, the Lor Starcutter crashes on Halcandra.

Chapter 69: Egg Engines

Sweetie Belle slowly opens her eyes, regaining consciousness. Looking around, she sees that everyone is alright, and that they are also waking up, and that Magolor is already up and looking at the screen. Thankfully, the Lor Starcutter, at least the inside doesn't seem to have gotten damaged by the crash. Outside, however... Hopefully, they will not have to explore all Halcandra in search of the pieces of the ship.

Seeing that she's not injured, she gets up and joins Magolor with the others, looking at the screen showing the orange four-headed crowned dragon, many small windows with skull symboles opened to explain how dangerous this dragon is, even if she can't understand what is written.

"Is that Landia?" asks Meta Knight.

"Yes. That's him," answers Magolor.

Landia. The dragon they must stop. To think that he's a four-headed one! It's hard to say what is his size with the screen, but no matter it, Sweetie can already say that this dragon will put to shame all the dragons of Equestria, especially with this crown that the head at the top is wearing.

And yep, that's the crown alright. She recognizes it from the picture that queen Ripple has shown her back then.

"Poyo!" shouts Kirby in determination.

"He's right! I didn't think that Landia would have four heads, but this will not change the fact that we will beat him!" shouts Bandana Dee.

"Exactly!" says Dedede, arms crossed to show how determined he's. "This dragon doesn't scare me with those four heads!"

"You are shaking," says Sweetie Belle.

"It's cold."

"So close to a volcanic area?" asks Meta Knight.

"..."

"Thank you everyone," says Magolor, shaking their hands/hooves. "I'm glad that you still want to fight Landia despite all this." He turns back to the screen and starts to press buttons on the keyboard. "Thankfully, the attack and the crash haven't damaged the Lor too much. Nothing that I can't quickly repair."

At this, they all sigh in relief.

"But we are still missing a few Energy Spheres, which are dispersed here in Halcandra. It would be nice to get all of them back before you fight Landia. If worst comes to worst, I could come help you fight him with the Lor Starcutter. And with all the Energy Spheres, it will be at its full power."

The screen now shows a global map of Halcandra, and two arrows start from where they are, at the base of the plateaus, and go to the volcanoes at the top. One of the arrows takes a straight path in the air while the other goes on land, passing by the abandoned city.

"So you can choose to take your Warp Stars to go directly fight him, but he would see you coming and you would have to dodge his fireballs, or you can take this path, where you would find all the Energy Spheres before fighting him, but you would have to go through Egg Engines and Dangerous Dinner, which are full of dangers.

"Wait. Egg Engines? Dangerous Dinner? Are those the names of the city and the volcano area?" asks Sweetie Belle with a deadpan look.

"Uh... Yes?"

She facehoofs. "I can kinda understand why the Ancients would name their city Egg Engines..." She waves at Magolor. "with their egg-shaped body, but why name a volcanic area Dangerous Dinner?!"

Dedede rubs his chin in thought. "Beeeecause you could have some dangerous barbecue over there?"

Hearing him, Kirby imagines himself cooking meat using a volcano as a giant grill. Before long, he starts drooling. This would be dangerous, yes, but so worth it!

"Forget about the name!" says Meta Knight before turning back to Magolor. "How will we bring back the Energy Spheres once we have found all of them?"

"Mmh... Kirby could use his Warp Star to come back here with the spheres, but it would be risky because Landia could attack him."

"Don't worry. Kirby is really fast with his Warp Star. He will easily be able to escape Landia's fireballs," says Sweetie Belle.

"So we take the journey by land through the creepy abandoned city and the dangerous volcanoes," says Dedede. "Mpf. Nothing problematic. We're already used to abandoned futuristic cities and volcanoes. However, am I the only one feeling that we're gonna fight some robot in the city?"

"It's almost certain. Everytime that me and Kirby pass by a futuristic city, we end up fighting a robot. First, there was that Heavy Lobster, then the HR-H," says Sweetie Belle. "The exception was the cities created by Drawcia, but she probably just didn't think about it."

"Well, there are indeed some things in the city that are still activated," says Magolor. "Including some great weapons from the time of the civil war. The worst for you would be to encounter the Metal General. This robot is a programmed killing machine really smart that was made to lead the armies of robots of the techno-clan against the magic-clan. And now, it's protecting what remains of the city. Anyone that it encounters and that isn't an Ancient of the techno-clan is considered an enemy to be exterminated."

"Yeah, we're gonna end up fighting it," says Dedede matter of factly.

"Yup."

"Definitively."

"Poyo."

Meta Knight looks at the others. "You are getting too used to adventuring..."

"Wait, you really think that you will encounter the Metal General?" asks Magolor. "The city is big! The chances to encounter it are low!"

"It's just our thing," says Sweetie Belle. "Each time we go adventuring and that we enter a new area, we end up encountering a powerful enemy. It's like video games. Each area is a level ending with a boss." At this, she raises an eyebrow. "Were there gamers among the Ancients?"

"I... don't know. Maybe? Well, if you end up encountering it, I don't doubt that you will be able to destroy it. This robot is strong, but it's nothing compared to Landia. And whatever dangers you will encounter in the city will be nothing to what awaits you in the volcanoes. I know because it's in the volcanoes that I excavated the Lor Starcutter, and I almost died, like, one thousand times. And that was before Landia awakened."

"Really? You found the Lor in the volcanoes? Not in the city?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"It was probably hidden there by the Ancients to avoid that it falls between wrong hands. This ship can go anywhere in the universe, and even in others, in a matter of a few seconds after all. Or it crashed here after being damaged in the civil war or the Dark God's rampage, because it was in a really bad shape when I found it. Thankfully, I found out about the Lor in some documents, so I searched it, repaired it, and upgraded it in the hope to be able to explore the universe with it. It's also said that the Lor has a mind of its own, but it hasn't said or done anything until now, so I don't know. But it would be nice to have a companion to explore the universe with." He looked down in sadness, his ears lowering. "Too bad Landia awakened before I could go."

They all look at Magolor in wonder before looking at the screen.

"A living ship? It would be so wonderful!" shouts Bandana Dee.

"I hope that it will talk to us then. Maybe it is just shy and doesn't dare talk," says Sweetie Belle with a giggle. "Hello Lor Starcutter! It would be nice to become your friend! Will you talk to us, please?"

"Poyo! Poyo!"

...

...

Nothing.

Dedede huffs. "It could at least say 'thank you' after everything we've gone through to repair it."

"We will give it time," says Sweetie Belle. She then starts to walk toward the exit. "Let's go, we have a dragon to beat up."

"Right."

"Poyo."

At this, they all start to leave the Lor, Magolor saying "Good luck," to them. Before she leaves the Lor, Sweetie looks one last time toward the screen.

It would be great to have a ship like that to explore the universe. Or rather, the universes. All the adventures that I would have! All the friends that I would make! I wonder if Magolor will let me use it sometimes.

---

"They are seriously going to fight that thing that seems to be a fusion between a dragon and a hydra?" asks Starlight.

"Don't forget the crown that is giving him unlimited power," says Pinkie.

"Right. With a crown that gives him unlimited power."

"Yes. They are seriously going to fight that thing that seems to be a fusion between a dragon and a hydra with a crown that gives him unlimited power," says Discord. "And like I already said, I'm sure they will somehow be able to beat him." He then materializes a cheerleader's uniform on him and starts to do a dance. "Go! Go! Sweetie Company! Give us a sweet victory!"

"They will not fight Landia right now. They still have to pass this city before traversing the volcanoes," says Applejack.

"Yes. Yes. A city with killer robots, and volcanoes with lava everywhere," says Rarity. "Why are there always volcanoes?"

"Because this wouldn't be a real heroic adventure if they didn't pass through dangerous areas," says Discord. "They are the best way to test their courage. And what better area to fight an ultimate dragon of doom than among volcanoes?"

"Anywhere where you don't risk dying each second!"

"This would be too anticlimatic."

Despite what Discord says, many of the ponies are clearly worried about the filly. This adventure is by far the most dangerous, even more than the one to save Ripple Star. Yes, Sweetie has already traversed futuristic cities and volcanic areas in the past, but here, this is a city made by the Ancients almost destroyed by the Dark God after a civil war, and the volcanoes are home to a four-headed dragon that must be even more powerful than Tirek powered by the magic of all of Equestria.

At least, she's with strong friends.

---

It isn't long before the party enters the city, only having to climb some plateaux on the way, nothing too problematic. They have however encountered in their journey what seems to be Halcandran version of some of the creatures from Popstar, like Waddle Dees, Bouncys, and Bronto Burts. Either they look more like Magolor, black body almost hidden under grey clothes excepted the eyes, or they have no clothes, possessing just a black body with a white face (the Bouncys' face being even heart-shaped) with some other unique features, like white wings for the Bouncys, or the face being orange around the eyes for the Bronto Burts. Their bodies mainly being white, black, and grey don't help decrease the griming feeling of this world.

And now that they have entered the city, this is even worth. A place where magic and technologic worked together to create all those great things like Nova, the Lor Starcutter, a whole universe... A center of knowledge that would make Twilight drool. A civilization with a history even older than Luna, Celestia, or even Discord. Beings that had reached the point that they could be called gods.

Nothing remains of all this, but cold carcasses of buildings.

And on one of the roads, they see something that makes them pale.

Footprints. Giant footprints. So big that they can all enter just one of the holes that have been left. Round, with three extensions that seem to have been left by three sharp claws for toes. And wherever those footprints go, the buildings around are in the worst shape, many being left as just piles of rubble.

Something really big passed here and destroyed everything around it. And unless the mage-clan had some warbeast, it's easy to guess who those footprints belong.

Stopping thinking about the footprints and their owner, they continue traversing the city, following Kirby. After crossing more of those footprints, they eventually take a path going up in the air among the buildings, passing by walls of iron blocks that they have to destroy by pressing switches, and by giant hammers swinging down on them when they come just in front, forcing them to run without stopping. Volttzos and spikes quickly join the list of obstacles, and by the time they pass the first black door, they have already passed more dangers than they are used to, giving the color.

This city will be Tartarus to pass.

The next section has many, many blocks disappearing when they walk on them, so again, they haven't much place to stop, not helped by the many Volttzos and other enemies going in the way, including literal walls of Gordos leaving just a small opening to jump through.

It's followed by a section where they have to be propelled by cannons. The dangers? There are moving structures acting like giant crushers on the way, and they have to propel themselves at the right time, unless to be turned into pancakes. At a time, they spot a black door, and have to wait for the next crusher to be closed so it stops them just above the door. In the room than the door leads to, they have to propel themselves from a cannon toward a small wall moving rapidly up and down to reach their first Energy Sphere of Halcandra, which takes them a few annoying tries.

After that, they pass a few more crushers before reaching the next door, appearing at the start of a succession of narrow metal bridges with many Volttzos firing at it, or on it, which leads to an Invincibility Candy that they use to rush through the many obstacles that follow and easily reach the next door, entering a factory that still works very well, the sound of pistons and gears deafening them.

They pass a couple of mechanical bombs on wheels using scissor lifts to elevate themselves just as the party jumps to pass above them before shooting missiles, before finding a Super Hot Head that Kirby eats, the puffball using the boosted Fire to light the fuse of the bombs on the way and destroy them. He also destroys some weird black boxes revealing to possess a piston that moves and spins one of the sides from which comes out a bunch of spikes.

The Ancients have really well trapped this city. The civil war must have been very nasty.

The destruction of a giant bomb just before a door reveals a portal, which surprises the party.

"A portal? But we already are in the other dimension!" says Sweetie Belle.

"Not quite," says Meta Knight. "Remember what Magolor said? Halcandra is at the frontier between the two dimensions. This place is in its own pocket dimension at the limit of the other dimension, between the two, which would explain why we aren't swarmed by hundreds of Doomers."

"So... we are in the other dimension, but not really?" asks Bandana Dee, tilting his head.

"Too complicated for me!" shouts Dedede. "Let's just jump in the portal and clobber the Doomer at the other side!"

"Yeah, right," says Sweetie Belle.

So they all jump in the portal, and they already find themselves in a problematic situation: they are in a dead end, and the only way to get out is for Kirby to inhale two big stone blocks in the floor... right in front of the purple space-wall. So Kirby quickly inhales them, and spat them back at the wall... causing it to move back a little.

"He... can do that..." says Bandana Dee. "He can push back the dimensional erasing wall..."

He's slapped by Meta Knight. "Come back to your senses! The wall is coming back! We must go!"

"Y-y-yes!"

They jump in the hole and start running, reaching conveyor belts where they have to destroy bomb blocks to free the way, then Kirby has to inhale more stone blocks before they destroy star blocks in the way. After more stone blocks, they reach the door, entering an arena with a conveyor belt where they encounter a white Doomer with five tail-feathers. While it is not really a problem, it is a little more powerful than the others, using ice to attack them and abusing of ice balls, even cloaking himself in a freezing aura similar to the Ice ability. The most annoying must be when it creates a group of ice balls that it levitates around itself, using those balls as a shield that can hurt them. It can also use the ice balls in many dangerous ways, very rapidly, and they all home in. Add in that the Doomer teleports, and this makes it less of a joke than the others.

But it's not the Grand Doomer, so the party is quickly able to eliminate it, Kirby taking the occasion to inhale one of the ice balls to gain Ice. Taking the two Energy Spheres that it leaves, they return to the factory and pass the door that has been behind the bomb.

From there, dangerous obstacles after dangerous obstacles. They first pass giant moving cubes with spikes on all four sides, then traverse a room full of Flamers and their electric counterpart named Elec, before running in a hallway with spinning saws, then avoid being drilled by drills falling continuously from the ceiling like stalactites. The next room contains fire blocks and crushers, the blocks forming some of the floor under said crushers, and they find an Energy Sphere by destroying some of them in the ceiling above another crusher.

Then comes a small room with two gigatzos under them, and they have to reach the exit at the top of said room before the cannons fire, having nowhere in the room to dodge the projectiles. They then have to pass a similar room, this one possessing Volttzos, before reaching the next door leading to a section of the factory with water. Having to swim in it to continue, they must avoid being turned into flattened cheese by giant spiked rollers, finding another Energy Sphere in a small space under metal blocks in the middle of three of those rollers.

They exit the water, only to enter a section full of floating mine-like beings named Search, exploding when they come too close, before entering a vast room where the room is entirely covered in spikes, so they have to fly from platforms to platforms while avoiding the flying enemies in the way until reaching the end, where they go down a ladder toward a similar room... with no floor at all, having a pit instead.

Kirby eats the Leafan at the start of the next room, gaining Leaf, before they end up fighting a Dubior that is quickly eliminated, the Leaf ability working very well against it. In the next room, they press a switch, causing the room to move, revealing that it is actually some horizontal elevator. In the ceiling, as it passes, they spot bomb blocks that Sweetie quickly destroys with her magic, destroying some iron blocks after they leave the elevator and letting them take an Energy Sphere.

After the next door, they pull a level, causing a platform with a key to rise from the pit just in front. Bandana Dee takes the key, and run through the crushers that follow and jumps from platforms to platforms to reach the locked door that it opens to take the Energy Sphere behind it while the others deal with the weird cyclops metallic ball-things that chase them, and once done, they pass the next black door just above, entering an elevator that gets them in front of a door that opens with a lever, getting them out of the factory.

Sweetie Belle sighs in relief. "Boy. This place was more trapped than any other places that me and Kirby have gone through. Not even Drawcia's last few painted worlds were that trapped. The Ancients of the techno-clan sure weren't kidding."

"And we still have some way to go before traversing the city," says Bandana Dee. He then looks around. "Does anybody see the Metal General?"

Sweetie Belle, Dedede, and Kirby look around, searching for the robot.

"Nope."

"Poyo."

"No robot in sight."

Meta Knight sighs. "You don't even know how it looks, how would you recognize it?"

"Easy," answers Dedede. "If we spot a robot charging at us ready to attack, then we will assume that it's the Metal General."

Meta Knight chuckles. "It works."

With this, they jump from the door on a conveyor belt just in front, and it leads them through a series of up and down, their advance helped by strong air currents pushing them from behind while they must avoid jumping too much to avoid the spikes on the low ceilings.

At the end of the conveyor belt, two cannons propel them toward the next one at the start of a series of conveyor belts with more air current. On the way, jumping at the right time lets them pull a handle that causes a bunch of iron blocks in the ceiling to be destroyed, revealing n Energy Sphere, while creating a wall on the way, stopping them from being pushed and giving them the occasion to jump and take the sphere before landing at the other side.

At the end of the conveyor belts, they enter another factory with more conveyor belts as well as those giant hammers, and after some of those, they have to fight a King Doo and a Moundo at the same time, making it a little less easy. The party answers by dividing into two groups, Kirby and Meta Knight facing the King Doo while Sweetie Belle, Dedede, and Bandana Dee take care of the Moundo, and soon, the two of them are knocked out, letting them continue toward the next door.

They press a red switch in front of a pit, causing a long platform to rise before it starts to slowly lower itself, forcing them to run toward the other end, finding an Energy Sphere in a small hole on the way, before they exit the factory.

They climb a ladder, and are almost turned into cheese by one of those black boxes, which is quickly followed by another one, before they find a Super Waddle Doo. Like in the Sky Tower, Kirby then has to light prisms to open doors while destroying more of those black boxes, and like in the tower, he goes on Sweetie's back so she can make the job easier with her multi-homing beams technique, while she uses stronger beams and energy balls to destroy the boxes. The task is a little harder than in the tower, because some of the prisms move, but despite this, they are able to find the portal by making an elevator work and moving a wall.

In the other dimension, they escape the wall by... swimming in water floating and zigzagging in the air, with Shotzos shooting along the way. Sometimes, the water just forms into a small floating block while other times, it forms small intersections, with Gordos moving in them. Many spiked walls, floors, and ceilings to make sure that they are forced to swim in it without going out. after the door, they fight another white Doomer, and now that they better know how it fights, they have less problems dealing with it, the main problem being that the middle of the floor of the arena is actually floating in the water.

Back in Halcandra with two more Energy Spheres, they take a cannon that propels them toward the next door, entering... what seems to be the sewers. After dropping in the water, much to their disgust, and swimming in it pushed by strong currents for a small moment, they enter a door and enter a dark area. Thanks to Sweetie's light, they can easily see where they go, and soon find a candle to help them, and thanks to both it and the filly, they find an Energy Sphere by destroying some metal blocks.

They find a door, but Kirby doesn't enters it, and instead, destroys some stone blocks, revealing a passage with more water leading to another door. Entering it leads to an underwater hallway with many stone blocks, spinning saws and another Energy Sphere in the middle of a group of Glunks. After the sphere, they have to watch out for walls moving up and down, spikes at their bottom, before they pass the next door where they fight a Kibble Blade on a bridge. Once he's defeated, Sweetie fires a beam at a switch at the other side of a waterfall, destroying iron blocks on the floor and revealing an Energy Sphere.

They pass a succession of small rooms connected to each other by small passages with strong currents in what reveals to be a small maze that is, thankfully, not too big, and thanks to Kirby, they find another Energy Sphere before they swim toward the door, appearing in another underwater section with strong currents, but also with the giant eels, with a door just in front of one of the huge ones.

This place wants their death, seriously. But again, a strong energy boosted punch from Sweetie Belle is enough to convince the eel to not eat them.

the door leads back in a dark room, where they have to destroy some bomb blocks until they find the key that opens the locked door at the start, an Energy Sphere at the other side. Back in the section with the eels, they continue swimming and passing the eels until they reach the door, finally exiting this awful place.

They will need a good bath when this is over.

The door leads inside a factory, and... Ooh! More crushers! Why aren't they surprised?

Anyway, they have no problems passing those crushers until reaching the next door, where they enter a room... Or rather, a crusher room, because this is nothing more than a room without any exit where crushers of different shapes drop from above before going back up to let their place to the next one, and the party has to go where the crushers don't meet the floor to avoid being flattened or tuned into cheese in the case where there are spikes until the black door just appears. At one moment, one of the crushers drops with an Energy Sphere, and they easily get it.

After the door, they enter a section with many small conveyor belts above a huge pit, before they reach a succession of very fast conveyor belts where they can't walk on them unless they want to find themselves above the pit in less time than it takes to say it, so they have to jump on platforms above it. After some platform, they pass a door behind a Halcandran version of the Armored Waddle Dee, leading to a room where one of them has to take a key and drop it on a conveyor belt where it passes under Gordos until another one takes the key at the other side and uses it to open a locked door and take the Energy Sphere behind it.

After that, they come to a second crusher room where they get another Energy Sphere before exiting it. In the next section, they destroy a bomb block that lets them use a ladder to go down. They then pull a handle to destroy a wall of iron blocks blocking the way, only to free a bunch of Gordos, forcing them to hide in a hole while they pass. This happens a second time, only this time, there are no hole to hide. An Invisibility Stone drops, but this just lets one of them pass the Gordos, while the others can't do anything. What they do is that when the one holding the crystal passes, they throw the crystal at the others so the next one can pass, and before long, they have all passed the Gordos. Thanks to the crystal, one of them, Dedede, is able to pass a crystal wall to pull a lever, destroying a wall of iron blocks and getting an Energy Sphere.

They then enter a third crusher room, except that this time more than one crusher drop from above at the same time. A first crusher drop, and they have to go on it to avoid being crushed by the one that follows, having to go back on the floor when the crushers rise back up -one by one, thankfully-. Just before the door appears, they catch the last Energy Sphere of the city.

They appear in an elevator that leads them on a conveyor belt before they reach a second elevator that leads them toward the exit of the factory.

Only to appear on a narrow path just in front of a deactivated blue and white robot strangely looking like a Capsule J2, excepted that it possesses three rocket engines, including a big one, rather than a jetpack. The robot then activates, its yellow eyes lighting up, before it expulses steam and takes from behind some cyber-katana.

"I take it that this is the Metal General..." says Dedede. "I thought that it would be bigger." Cling! "Wah?!"

To his surprise, he sees the robot in front of him, its cyber-katana just parried by Meta Knight before it could behead him.

"Don't... underestimate it... because of its size," says Meta Knight.

Putting some force in his sword, he's able to push back the katana, and he immediately attacks, only to be parried by the robot. A sword fight between the knight and the robot then starts, and Sweetie Belle starts to encourage her friend.

"Come on Meta Knight! You are much better than this pile of scraps! You can win!"

"Poyo! Poyo! Poyopoyo! Poyo!" starts Kirby.

"Uh... Shouldn't we go help him?" asks Bandana Dee.

"Let the knight have his fun," says Dedede. "The enemy is using a sword, so this fight is perfect for him."

The fight continues for a few more seconds, the two adversaries attacking savagely. Meta Knight is faster, but the robot is always able to calculate the trajectory of its enemy's attacks before calculating the better trajectory to counterattack, and since it's a robot, there's no way to understand what it prepares next, like Meta Knight with its mask. The swords clash almost ten times per second, and none of them are ready to give up, but the robot is advantaged by its infinite endurance, which could change the balance of the fight in the long term. But eventually, Meta Knight is able to deceive the robot, attacking in the less likely trajectory rather than the most likely trajectory, passing the robot's defense. But the robot doesn't let out any shock at this, and immediately moves to dodge the attack, but not before getting a little slashed under the left eye.

Feeling the small damage, the Metal General's eyes flash before it's cannon-like right arm opens to reveal a machine gun, and it fires countless lasers at Meta Knight who flies away, only for the lasers to continue their way toward Sweetie and the others, which are only saved by the filly's quick reaction, a shield forming in front of them.

"Okay. The fun is over. Time to get serious," says Dedede.

Meta Knight forces the robot to stop using its machine gun by sending a shockwave that it parries, and Sweetie takes the occasion to fire a lightning bolt at it while the others jump into action, quite literally for Dedede who drops on the robot with all his weight, before he runs away to avoid being cut in half by the cyber-katana. The Metal General then parries Bandana Dee's spear and targets Sweetie Belle with his machine gun, the filly jumping on a shield to fly away to avoid the storm of lasers, which is quickly stopped by Kirby sending sharp leaves from above after jumping.

The General's arm cannon closes, and it uses it to send away Bandana Dee with a swing before it jumps, avoiding another shockwave from Meta Knight, and sends from the air dozens of electric darts everywhere, successfully hitting Dedede with one of them because he has been too close, about to attack again. Meta Knight is able to slalom between the darts and slash at the robot, making it crash back on the floor where Bandana Dee, Kirby, and Sweetie Belle pummel it. The Metal General jumps back on its feet, swinging its katana to force Bandana Dee to run away, before its arm cannon opens, this time revealing a rocket launcher from which it fired nine missiles, three homing at Kirby, three others at Sweetie Belle, and the last three at Meta Knight.

While Sweetie, Kirby, and Meta Knight are busy either escaping or destroying the missiles, the Metal General jumps at one end of the narrow path and starts spinning its katana in front of it, and the engines in its back start propelling it forward, ready to slice everyone in its path, which are Bandana, Dedede, and Kirby, Sweetie and Meta Knight still flying. Seeing the robot coming, Dedede prepares himself and starts spinning, successfully stopping its advance as the hammer and the katana clash, and Bandana jumps above them before attacking from the robot's back. Its arm cannon opens again, and it fire a missile at Dedede at close range, the resulting explosion propelling the both of them in opposite directions, which causes the robot to ram Bandana Dee and to crush him against the wall behind, while the same thing happens with Dedede and Kirby, which expelled the Leaf ability out of him.

Under the Metal General's watchful eyes, Kirby inhales back his ability, and the robot immediately charges at him all the way from the other side of the path, firing on the way some lasers from his machine gun at the approaching Meta Knight and Sweetie Belle above him to force them to move back, before slashing repeatedly at the puffball until his ability is knocked out. Seeing the green star out, the robot then quickly cuts it in half, destroying the ability, before attacking Kirby again, only for him to put his right arm on the trajectory of the robot's left hand, catching it and stopping its katana attack, before he lifts the robot above his shoulder by the arm and slams it on the floor. Kirby then jumps away before a lightning bolt from Sweetie Belle strikes the Metal General, the robot starting to short circuit as it spasms.

It gets back up, and opens its arm cannon, launching a blue rocket two times bigger than the robot from it! The Metal General and clings to the rocket before it flies up. With the robot riding on the rocket, it's able to guide it, and tries to ram Sweetie Belle, but the filly is easily able to dodge. The Metal General, however, comes back, and this time, moves left and right to become more unpredictable, and almost rams Meta Knight. Third time's the charm, and the robot flies around erratically with the rocket. Seeing that the rocket eventually charges toward him, Kirby prepares himself and starts inhaling, successfully eating the big rocket while the General jumps away to avoid the same fate. Eating the rocket gives Kirby a white glowing crown, recognizable as being Kirby's hat for the Crash ability.

"Oh oh. Quick! Everyone around me!" shouts Sweetie Belle as she lands beside one of the walls. Everyone excepted Kirby joins her and she rapidly forms five layers of shields around all of them just before Kirby activates the ability and causes a huge explosion, destroying three of the five shields. However, the robot is barely damaged by it, to everyone's surprise.

"Poyo?!"

Seeing Kirby's shock, the Metal General immediately attacks him with its katana, only to be stopped by Meta Knight again, and they clash for a moment before Dedede smashes it away with his hammer. Getting back up, the Metal General then raises its right arm and fires up dozens of missiles, raining them on all the arena before launching another giant rocket, then another, then another, and the last one that it rides, so while the party is busy avoiding the three rockets falling back, the robot tries to ram them with the fourth, and successfully hits Meta Knight with it before it starts flying in circle all the long of the path, only for Kirby to inhale the rocket and to spit it back at the robot.

The Metal general fires yet another rocket that it rides, only this time, it flies above the path while launching mines all the way, then it comes back this time to launch weird drones looking like the ones that were inside Nova and that start to attack the party with spark shots while the General passes a third time to rain missiles. Having enough, kirby inhales one of the missiles, gaining Bomb, and like against Mr Dooter, throws a bomb at the passing rocket, Sweetie Belle growing it with her magic, which is enough to explode the rocket and damage the robot on it. As the robot recovers, they all attack it while destroying the remaining drones until the robot starts spasming again, electricity appearing everywhere on its metallic body.

But instead of exploding, the robot flies up, and the walls at both sides of the path lower, extending the arena.

That's when a huge red and black robot flies down from the sky beside the path, strangely looking like Dedede, and the penguin's jaw drop, along with Sweetie's, and if he had a mouth, Bandana Dee's too.

"W-w-w-w... What the heck is the HR-D3 doing here?!" shouts Dedede.

"Poyo?"

"Wait, don't tell me that this place is where it has been transported to!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

"What are you talking about?" asks Meta Knight.

At this moment, the head opens, revealing it to be some helmet that has been hiding the penguin-like head under it, with a cockpit at the top, which the Metal General flies into before the helmet closes.

Dedede then starts talking. "After our adventure to save Ripple Star, I thought back to the robot that we fought on the frozen Earth, which the local robots called HR-H, and I thought about the Heavy Lobster that you have... or had... and I told myself that I wanted a robot too! SoWAHH!" He barely dodges the giant left fist of the robot pounding the floor where he has been.

"So he sent me back to the frozen Earth to ask the robots here if they could build a robot for us, which they accepted!" continues Sweetie Belle while she starts firing lighting bolts at the giant robot.

"I named it HR-D3, in reference to the robot we fought, and I wanted it to be my ultimate weapon against Kirby!"

"Poyo?!"

Sweetie Belle then dodges the drill that the robot possesses instead of a right hand, the drill leaving a huge hole in the floor where she has been. She then continues talking. "But just before it was finished, we got unlucky. A rift opened, and the HR-D3 disappeared in it."

Meta Knight visibly frowns. "So this place is close enough to our dimension that it can randomly open rifts... And the Metal General got its hand on the HR-D3 and made it into its own war mecha."

"Which is unforgivable!!! This is MY mecha! That piece of scrap even put its emblem on the torso where my emblem has been!" The helmet opens and the Metal General starts firing missiles. Dedede points his finger at it while Sweetie destroys the missiles. "You've done the worst error of your artificial life! Nobody touch my mecha but ME! I will destroy you, and recycle you into my personal dummy!"

"But now, we have to destroy our robot..." says Bandana Dee.

Dedede clenches his teeth, growling. "Yeah..."

The HR-D3 then fires lasers from its eyes, sweeping the whole path with them and forcing everyone to jump to avoid them, before it starts pounding the floor again with its fist and drill, the party attacking them. It then sweeps its drill on the path, forcing everyone to jump again, before doing the same thing with its hand in the air just above, hoping to slap the ones that have jumped too late in the middle of their jump. Too bad for it that Meta Knight can fly. Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle fires an energy beam toward the robot's body, hugely damaging it and causing the helmet to be destroyed.

The robot starts falling, seemingly defeated, only to fly back before bouncing on the floor three times, trying to crush the party, or at least hurt them with spikes at the bottom of the body. Once it stops, they immediately start attacking it, making it lose a part of the outer body and starting to reveal its skeleton. But then a huge cannon appears from under the head and they immediately move away before it fires a giant laser half as big as the robot itself, the robot moving so the laser follows the runaways, almost getting them when the laser finally stops.

By the stars, this laser could rival with the one of the Main Cannon 2 from the Halberd! Everywhere it has passed, it has destroyed or melted everything, destroying a huge part of the path and some of the buildings around!

The robot flies and joins them at the other side of the hole left by the laser, and tries to body slam them, which is easily avoided and leaving it open to attacks for a small moment, destroying more of its body, revealing the metal parts under the torso while electricity appears. The HR-D3 gets up and starts spinning after them, hand and drill heating up above them, and as they run to escape, Sweetie and Kirby continue attacking it with lightning bolts and bombs, destroying the spiked bottom part, so now, it's forced to keep its balance on a small black part.

The HR-D3 stops spinning and starts advancing while continuously pounding the floor with its fist and its drill, while also firing its eye lasers. At the same time, the Metal General fires more missiles on their path, forcing them to destroy them while avoiding the attacks of the bigger robot. Meta Knight flies backward and charges his sword, and once everyone passes under him, he sends tornadoes after tornadoes, only leaving the metal-framed skeleton of the HR-D3, before the robot sends a punch through one of the tornadoes and hits Meta Knight, propelling him for hundreds of meters, before firing a laser from its huge cannon just in front of the others, cutting their path and trapping them. It then jumps to crush them, but they run under it before it falls back, and Dedede immediately jumps before pounding it on the back with his hammer that has been electrified by Sweetie Belle, seriously damaging what seems to be the core of the robot.

Dedede quickly jumps back as the robot starts spasming, before exploding, destroying the Metal General with it.

The robots destroyed, they all lie down, taking back their breath.

Sweetie then giggles. "We would have won if we had this robot back then."

Dedede chuckles. "Maybe I should build another."

At this moment, Meta Knight comes back, planting his sword in the ground to remain up. "If you do, make sure to build a mean to destroy it if it ends like this one."

"Oh hey. What are the chances that this happens again?" asks Dedede. "Even if another rift opens, we destroyed the Metal General."

"But it could fall in other hands."

"Pffff. I'm not THAT unlucky."

---

"Ahahah. That's what he says, but sometimes, life just hates you," says Discord.

"I'm glad that they are getting out of this city of death," says Rarity.

"But now, they are going toward the volcanoes," says Applejack. "And this will be worse."

Rarity puts her hooves on her eyes. "Don't remind me..."

"The worst has yet to come," says Celestia. "But I am certain that they will survive. Have faith."

Chapter 70: Dangerous Dinner

Leaving behind the ruined city of the Ancients, after a quick rest and a quick snack with some food found around to heal, the party starts climbing the plateaus separating Egg Engines from Dangerous Dinner, and already, they approach their first rivers of lava.

Sweetie Belle can already say that those volcanoes will put all the ones she has traversed until now to shame.

And by the time they reach the volcano area itself, one word describes it: apocalyptic. Dozens of volcanoes and mountains possessing very threatening shapes, with countless rivers and lakes of lava everywhere, with columns of lava coming from the sky. Speaking of the sky, it is obscured not only by clouds of ashes, but also by floating chunk of land shaped like hollow hexagons, some of the holes filled with more lava from which come the columns! Heck, even the clouds are shaped threateningly. Remains of buildings of the Ancients, certainly dating from the time before this place became a volcanic area, also litter the land. Everything in this place screams 'end of the world'. All it misses is fire raining from the sky, which is surprising it doesn't happen, with the columns of lava propelling tons of it in the air like geysers.

"Perfect setting for a summit fight against a dragon using an all powerful artefact," says Bandana Dee.

"I prefer when the setting is in space," says Sweetie Belle. "Not as much dangers up there, and the view is always beautiful."

"I wonder where's Landia," says Dedede.

"We will find out soon enough," says Meta Knight.

Their trek as they follow Kirby leads them to jump above lava, having to dodge smaller columns sometimes propelled from them. One dangerous moment is when they have to jump on disappearing blocks above the lava, only to have to wait for a column of lava to disappear to be able to jump on the next platform, and more than once, they jump just as the blocks finish disappearing under them. Because of this, Sweetie Belle and Meta Knight decided to fly.

Sometimes, they have to jump on very small spaces, on columns of stone blocks, or on very narrow pillars of ground, before reaching a first black door. In the section of the volcanoes where they appear, they have to escape giant boulders made of solidifying lava still hot, not made easy by all the obstacles in the way, like wall of blocks, enemies, or simply more lava. After escaping the boulders, they run to avoid more boulders falling from the sky, then fall slowed by stone blocks, letting them enough time to pick up a key before it's destroyed by one of the boulders. The key quickly opens a locked door, and they get an Energy Sphere, before they pass the next black door.

They find themselves fighting, of all things in this place, a Water Galboros. The most annoying with this fight is that it happens on a bridge above a lake of lava under a Shotzo constantly shooting at them, so Sweetie quickly finishes the Water Galboros with a big energy beam, and Kirby eats it to gain what they feel will be the very useful Water ability, which reveals its usefulness very quickly as Kirby finds a key and starts surfing on the lava while holding it. The key opens a door just after the lava, and they enter a place with a staircase made of fire blocks, a key at the bottom, and a locked door at the top. Kirby and Sweetie Belle use water to solidify the fire blocks into stone blocks, and they use them to reach the door and unlock it, getting the Energy Sphere behind it.

Back in the previous area, they pass the next black door not far, and they walk on a series of platforms to traverse another lake of lava, only to barely dodge an iron eel coming out of the lava to eat them.

"There are eels even there?!" shouts Dedede. In anger, he starts to swing his hammer around. "Those stupid fishes I will order my army to hunt them down and serve them for dinner!"

More of those eels follow this one, one of them almost eating them as they pass a black door. In the area it leads to, there are two different paths, one of them with switches while there are a Key Dee and many obstacles on the other, the Key Dee trapped behind a door. Pressing the first switch opens the door, freeing the Key Dee, and pressing the second Switch closes a trap door, letting the Key Dee pass above spikes. They don't press the third switch, understanding that it would destroy iron blocks and cause the Key Dee to fall on more spikes. More switches follow, and pressing the good ones help the Key Dee jump above spikes, before he's stopped by a wall of iron blocks before a moving platform. Waiting for the right moment, they press the switch destroying the wall, and the Key Dee walks on the platform before it moves and lets the Key Dee reach the other side. One last switch destroys a last wall, letting the Key Dee join them not far of the locked door, so they take the key and open it, obtaining a new Energy Sphere. a cannon propels them back at the black door at the start.

They continue their journey, and find a Super Chilly, Kirby eating him. With the boosted ice, Kirby then does some bowling on giant bowling pins made of solidifying lava on small lakes of lava, while also using his ice ball form to easily move on the lava while ramming every creatures, opening the way for the others to fly without risks, and destroy giant fire blocks. After a moment, they reach a volcano, and Kirby finds himself clogging the hole at the top with his ice ball form, freezing the whole volcano and destroying it!

"Eeeeeeh?!" they all yell in shock, even Meta Knight.

"You're telling me that the boosted ability is powerful enough to freeze a freaking volcano?!" shouts Dedede.

"B-b-ho-th-h..." Bandana Dee finds himself babbling before fainting.

"Kirby is amazing..." says Sweetie Belle in wonder.

---

"You can't freeze a whole bucking volcano just by placing a giant ice ball on the chimney!" yells Twilight, eyes twitching.

"Breathe Twilight, breathe," says Fluttershy, patting her friend.

---

The destruction of the volcano leads to the discovery of a portal, and once they recover from their shock, they jump in it. Like in a previous time, they appear in a deadend, and Kirby has to inhale some stone star blocks and spit them back at the purple wall to continue. More stone star blocks serve for Kirby as projectiles to destroy blocks and drop Gigatzos and Volttzos on them. Then they have to walk on disappearing blocks while Kirby inhales big stone star blocks with Coldtzos, before they reach a section with crushers activated when the Gigatzos in them fire. The last main obstacle is dozens of stone star blocks blocking the way with two Gigatzos on them, and Kirby inhales ALL of them, dropping the cannons in the void below before spitting them as a giant star to destroy much more blocks. Kirby has to inhale one last giant stone star block blocking the door and spit it back at the purple wall before they pass it to fight another white Doomer, this one helped by a Gigatzo under a bridge at the center of the arena. Despite it, they are able to defeat the Doomer like the others, and they exit the dimension after taking its two Energy Sphere, and Kirby gaining Ice.

They then pass the door directly next to the remains of the volcano, and they appear in a room where the walls and the ceiling are made of lava. Pressing a switch at the center of the floor causes it to move down like an elevator, revealing that they are now in a giant cave full of floating ball of molten rock and lavafalls, and they have to avoid many dangers on the way, from creatures attacking them to boulders coming out of the walls, or spinning fire streams. But they also find an Energy Sphere on the way.

At the bottom, they pass a door, entering a section with giant blocks of rock or lava moving back and forth, threatening to crush them against the walls, sometimes walls of lava. In a passage, they find a black door leading to a room separated in two by a wall of lava that lowers slightly every one or two seconds before quickly going back up. When it lowers, they are able to spot at the other side a rope, and its easy to guess that they have to cut it, the problem being that the wall moves back up too rapidly for most of the projectiles to pass, and the opening is too small for them. So Sweetie places herself on a shield and floats just in front of the opening, forming an ice knife. When the wall lowers itself, she quickly throws the knife through the opening, and successfully cuts the rope, which they hear, causes something to drop on a switch, destroying some iron blocks and freeing an Energy Sphere.

Back in the previous area, they have to walk between moving blocks of lava to reach another door, and they appear beside a Starman that Kirby quickly eats, seeing that he'll need the Hi-Jump in this new section that is very vertical. As they start climbing, some sections of the walls start to close on them, and they have to hurry. On the way, they find a secondary path where Kirby is the only one that can go thanks to the Hi-Jump because the passage opens only briefly, and if they are too slow to pass it, it closes and they would end up crushed. So while Kirby Hi-Jumps through this path, they take the other, climbing ladders. It turns out that the path that Kirby has taken possessed an Energy Sphere.

Once they meet back, they have to fly to reach some cannons as more sections of the wall close on them, and they are propelled toward the next door, where they enter a dark room full of crusher ceilings, and surprisingly, possessing some water that they have to traverse. Then they pass the next door and enter a long room with the ceiling lowering section by section, forcing them to run to not be crushed. They find on the way a Cracker that is very helpful in destroying the obstacles, and when they reach the door, they are able to use it before it easily overheats the Super Bonkers that follows, letting Kirby inhale him.

Now armed with the giant hammer, Kirby easily destroys the obstacles, and they find an electric circuit where Kirby has to use the hammer to lower one of the sections to complete it, destroying the blocks composing it to find food. Kirby then has to destroy pipes spitting fire, the shock of the attack causing some blocks to fall from the ceiling, and the party can use them to jump above the lava and easily reach the other side. More electric circuits and fire pipes follow, the third circuit revealing a secret passage that leads them to a giant statue of a salamander with a crystal on the head and a total of four fire pipes on the arms. Destroying the fire pipes provokes the destruction of the crystal, freeing a last pipe. Kirby then uses the giant golden hammer on it, dropping the statue into the lava and revealing a portal.

In the other dimension, they have to move down through many levels, some of them in water, with moving segments that slow them or threaten to crush them. At two moments, they have to press a switch to cause the current level to move and open the way to the next one. Toward the end, they have to press more switch to provoke some parts of the walls to move and destroy many star blocks blocking the way, which would be normally too long to destroy. Of course, they have to watch out to not be crushed in those levels. After the door, they fight another white Doomer in an arena where the floor constantly moves back and forth, causing them to be hit by some of the enemy's ice balls. They are still able to quickly destroy the Doomer, Kirby now having Ice again, and taking the Energy Spheres before leaving the dimension.

Two doors later, and after some cannons, they reach a floating giant lava ball moving back and forth in the way, and they have to wait for the right moment to go down one of the ladders and reach the door below, which leads to an entirely different cave, much darker, but with very huge balls of molten rock floating everywhere lighting it like small suns, even expelling lightning bolts between them! Speaking of suns, more of those floating lava balls are here, and when they reach a long bridge entirely made of stone blocks, those balls start raining on them, destroying it, and they have to run.

When they finally jump on stable, but small, floating platforms in front of a big wall of stone blocks that is destroyed by a falling lava ball, Sweetie says "Okay, I put this place number one on my list of most dangerous places ever."

Meta Knight chuckles. "At least, those floating giant ball of molten rock acting like suns are quite a sight."

"Yeah... At least, there's that. And the crystals around here."

They pass what remains of the wall of stone blocks, and continue jumping from platform to platform and passing more walls of stone blocks while avoiding the falling lava balls until reaching a door behind one of those walls, and they now find themselves at the start of a succession of lava balls rapidly moving up and down on a bridge. While the first lava ball is up, the one just after is down, and this continues like that for all the bridge. Below it, they find an Energy Sphere, and Sweetie quickly catches it in her magic as they pass. They then stop after the bridge just before being crushed by a falling pillar of rock and lava, which is followed by another before they reach another bridge with more of those lava balls moving up and down.

In the next part, they have to jump from section to section constantly moving back as if they were on a conveyor belt, and it's while being here that they end up fighting a Dubior that they quickly beat before Kirby eats it. After another door, they appear on more floating platforms with lava balls floating everywhere, some of them moving more or less. One of those moving balls, a really huge one, occasionally hides a floating black door, forcing the group to wait for the ball to move down before passing it. After the door, they find a Stomper Boot, and Meta Knight enters it to destroy the big yellow blocks blocking the way before jumping his way stomping Gordos, pillars of lava, and lava balls to destroy more yellow blocks and reach an Energy Sphere.

They take back the door, thankfully appearing below the giant lava ball, before passing another door, entering a room where they find a Prism Shield before the floor starts to move up, and they use the shield to protect themselves from falling creatures. At the top, they take the key from a falling Key Dee before passing the black door, and then starts the hardest challenge than a key bearer has had to endure: climbing from platform to platform until reaching the door while avoiding countless creature chasing them, many lava balls, and falling on lava, the lava being the most dangerous because it could destroy the key. At least, the others not holding the key easily deal with the creatures, making the task easier. The iron eels on the way are still a pain in the butt. But they eventually reach the top, where the locked door is, and they open it to get the Energy Sphere before passing the black door next to it.

And after pulling a lever to destroy iron blocks and climb a ladder, they find a Super Blade Knight.

Thus the fun begins.

Armed with the giant sword, Kirby, followed by the others, encounters a Gigant Edge, and eliminates him in one swing! As they continue, a Moundo, two Kibble Blades, three King Doos, two Water Galboros, one Bonkers, another Gigant Edge, and two Dubiors get the same fate, purely exterminated by Kirby's overpowered giant sword.

They then reach a volcano, AND KIRBY CUTS IT VERTICALLY IN TWO! WITH A FISH!!!

"EEEEEEEEEEEHHH!?!!"

---

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHH!!?!!!"

"I'M BUCKING DONE WITH THIS CRAZY WORLD!!!" yells Twilight.

---

"Yeah! Go on! Cut the volcano in two with a fish! Why not?! You get a giant fish, and your first thought is 'Hey! Let's go cut a volcano in two! It'll be fun! And it'll freak out everyone!' No, really, it's blahblahblahblahblah..." grumbles Dedede while walking back and forth exasperated.

Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle is patting a depressed Meta Knight who's sitting on the floor, doing circles on it with his finger. "Come on Meta Knight. Don't mind it. Remember that Kirby is cheating with the power of the Master Crown. You are still a strong swordsman."

Bandana Dee has fainted, again.

And Kirby looks at all this, sweating. "Poyo..."

After some time, they all calm down enough to pass the portal that has appeared inside the volcano, Dedede still grumbling a little and Meta Knight seemingly more... determined, while Bandana Dee looks like his soul has left his body. In the other dimension, Kirby has yet again to inhales stone star blocks before spitting them on normal stone blocks to free the way, while avoiding laval balls. After a moment, instead of destroying stone blocks, Kirby has to spit the stone star blocks at Switch to destroy walls of iron blocks, before they reach a section full of floating water. After the water, a switch causing the wall in front to open section by section, letting them reach the door. To their surprise, at the other side of the door, they don't fight a white Doomer, but a purple Doomer and a red Doomer at the same time! With Kirby quickly eating one of the red Doomer' fireballs to gain Fire, they easily eliminate those two Doomers despite them being two, and they take the two Energy Spheres, the very last one, that they drop before they exit the dimension.

Now done with this quest, they use the Warp Stars and exit the cave, reaching the top of the giant volcano they have been in all this time. Well, almost the top, they still have a small way to climb, but they stop here, letting Kirby use a Warp Star to return to the Lor and give the Energy Spheres to Magolor, and surprisingly, Landia doesn't attack him.

While they wait, Sweetie says "You know, even if it was shocking, Kirby cutting the volcano in half was really cool."

"But he did it with a fish!" shouts Bandana Dee. "How can you cut a volcano with a fish?!"

"Uh. Remember where we are? We are in the dimension where logic has been screwed, to the point that the dreamy logic of your dimension invades it. And you know very well than in dreams, everything is possible, even something as impossible as cutting a volcano in half with a fish."

"That's why you don't seem as shocked than us?" asks Dedede.

"Oh, I'm very shocked! My jaw was ready to break with how much my mouth was open! I've already come to terms with what happened. That's funny, I'm in this dimension since a little less than a year, and I'm already more used by its craziness than you who have lived all your life here. Or it's because I've lived too much adventures with Kirby, because the really crazy stuff tend to happen around him. Of course, cutting a volcano in half with a fish is by far the craziest stuff that I've seen until now." And gosh, if they are watching us, everypony back home must be going crazy! Especially Twilight!

"And I'm sure that somehow, something even more crazy will happen someday," says Dedede.

"What would be more crazy than cutting a volcano in half with a fish?" asks Bandana Dee.

"Mmh... Cutting a whole planet in half with a fish?" proposes Sweetie Belle.

They all look at her as if she's crazy... before thinking that this may happen in this crazy universe.

"If this happens..." says Dedede, raising a hand. "I'm giving you my throne."

That's when Kirby comes back, bringing some Maxim Tomatoes from Magolor to make sure that they are all at top form for the future fight, and they all pass the next black door, ready.

---

"Here we go, everypony," says Discord. "Are you all ready?"

"Rarity?" asks Rainbow Dash.

Rarity, who's breathing in a bag, Spike patting her, says "Don't worry about me. I'm ready."

"Twilight?" asks Applejack.

Twilight, with a bag of ice on her head, answers "Ready..."

"Fluttershy, get out of behind the chair, you will miss the fight," says Pinkie.

"I'm good here, thank you."

"Ready!" shouts Starlight at the edge of her chair.

"Ready!" shout both Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, excited.

"I can't wait to see Sweetie beat up a dragon!" adds Scootaloo.

"Me too!" shouts Luna, as excited.

Meanwhile, in the portal, Sweetie Belle and her friends appear on a rock platform in the middle of a giant lake of lava at the top of the tallest volcano of Halcandra. At first, there's no presence of the four-headed dragon, but then, they hear flapping, and everyone looks up to see Landia approaching them from the air.

Some of them raise an eyebrow.

"Uh. I thought that he would be bigger. He's just as big as a young adult dragon," says Spike.

"And he doesn't look as scary," says Rarity. "I would even dare say that he looks adorable."

That's when Landia roars, before flying to face the party. He roars one last time, and the battle starts.

He starts attacking by shooting fireballs from the four heads, each targeting a different party member, so they disperse, and the one that isn't targeted, currently Bandana Dee, charges at the dragon who's hovering above the floor and attacks him with his spear. In return, Landia attacks him with the purple arrowhead that is at the end of his tail, slapping Bandana with enough force to send him flying a little. But while Landia's attention is on Bandana, the others surround Landia and start attacking him from all sides, Sweetie Belle from the front from a distance with her beams, Kirby from behind with Fire which surprisingly works against the dragon, Dedede from the left, and Meta Knight from the right.

Landia spins on himself to slap Dedede, Meta Knight, and Kirby with his tail, but they are all able to dodge, or for Dedede, he uses his hammer to stop the tail. The lack of front legs means that Landia can't counterattack by trying to cut them to shreds with claws, so he finds himself turning around, spitting fireballs at the attackers that he's facing while trying to slap the ones behind with his tail, before he finally decides to fly away out of reach. Sweetie Belle continue to attack him with her projectiles while Meta Knight chases him thanks to his bat wings.

Landia, seemingly having enough of the filly's projectiles, tries to crush her under his weight, only for her to roll away, so Landia takes off again, and tries to bite Meta Knight, only for him to fly away. So Landia starts to fly around the arena while sweeping it with four streams of fire, but the arena is too big for this attack to be effective, even with four heads, and the party members easily dodge the streams. To add injury to insult, Dedede is able to jump and bonk the bottom head with his hammer, while Sweetie Belle doesn't stop attacking.

So Landia goes at the edge of the arena and starts rapidly flapping his wings, blowing a strong wing that starts pushing the heroes toward the lava, forcing them to run against it. Landia frowns, and starts sending energy blades with the wind, making it harder for Sweetie and the others, then starts spitting fireballs to make sure that they have no chance to escape. But then, Kirby jumps and turns into a comet that charges at Landia, passing wind, blades, and fireballs to ram the dragon and stop his attack. Sweetie Belle then makes sure than Landia doesn't restarts his attack by charging magic and energy into her horn before expelling a big ball of magic and energy that explodes on contact and propels Landia back a little. Meta Knight then throws a tornado for good measure.

"What is this?!" shouts Luna. "This dragon barely puts up a fight! I thought that there would be a fight that would have destroyed all the lands around! He doesn't even seem to use the power of the crown!"

"That's the thing, he doesn't use the crown... yet," says Celestia. "Landia probably underestimated them, and fought without the use of the crown thinking that it would be enough against them. But I am certain that this is about to change. Look at the crown."

"Mmh?"

Luna looks back at the portal, and stares at the crown, seeing that it's starting to light up as Landia roars in anger. Then, with a big flash, Landia divides himself into smaller dragons, one for each head, barely bigger than Dedede, one of them still wearing the crown which is still glowing.

They look even more adorable.

The four dragons then fly at different positions and start shooting fireballs, so everyone decided to attack a different dragon, excepted Sweetie Belle who just fires at them in random while running around. So the fight turns into four one versus one fights, with Sweetie Belle in support, and result in violent clashes between the heroes and the dragons.

Kirby jumps and grabs his dragon, the one with the crown, clinging to him as he starts a dangerous rodeo above the lava. While he's clinging, he attacks the dragon with his fire, or simply by punching the back of the head, until the Landia he's on slams his back, and Kirby, against one of the rocks protruding out of the lava. Kirby quickly climbs the rock, as the Landia flies away, and once at the top, they start spitting fireballs at each other until Kirby jumps again and rams the Landia with his comet form, bringing the two of them back in the arena.

Dedede plays baseball with his hammer and the fireballs that the Landia he's facing fires. At that moment, Dedede decides to jump to body slam the dragon who quickly gets out of the way, only to be hit on the back by Dedede's hammer, and crashes on the arena as a result, only to be hit again by the hammer once Dedede lands beside him. The Landia gets up and headbutts Dedede, only to be punched in return, so the Landia rams Dedede who falls on his back, and the dragon immobilises him by pinning him down before trying to bite him, only for Dedede to put the handle of his hammer on the way, the Landia biting it instead. Dedede then kicks the dragon's belly to send him away and gets back up.

Meta Knight is in a sword versus claw clash against his dragon, the two flying around each others, dodging the sword/claw slashes of the other before counterattacking. Every now and then, the Landia shoots a fireball, which Meta Knight either dodge or destroy with one slash of his sword before quickly avoiding the claw of the dragon. Meta Knight eventually charges his sword before unleashing a tornado, and the Landia being too close, the dragon finds himself caught in it and propelled in the air. "Know my power!" shouts then Meta Knight before he strikes the dragon a dozen times at lightning speed before giving a last powerful strike that propels him toward the ground.

Bandana Dee twirls his spear to parry some fireballs then planted it in the ground and uses it as a lever to propel himself toward his Landia. The dragon tries to fly away, but Bandana is able to cling to one of his legs, and despite the dragon shaking it to try to get rid of him, he's able to impale him in the belly a few times before letting go, only to fall on a shield created by Sweetie Belle for him. With Sweetie moving the shield, he returns to his Landia, he restarts attacking him while trying to avoid his many counterattacks.

The four Landias eventually regroup before they each fly at a cardinal direction of the arena, hovering just a few inches above the ground. An electrical beam then shot out from two of the Landias and connect to the two other Landias in the opposite directions, forming an electric cross. The four Landias then start to fly clockwise, causing the electric cross to spin, forcing the heroes to jump to not be shocked, some of them just deciding to fly. Seeing this, two of the Landias fly up, separating the cross into two different electrical beams, one on the ground, and the other in the air following the height of the flying fighters while still spinning.

The Landia eventually stop, and one of them spits a fireball as big as him at one of the other Landias, who then passes it to another, and so, the four Landia start to pass the fireball to each others while trying to hit the party members with it, so they always make sure that there's at least someone between the Landia passing the ball, and the Landia receiving it. After a dozen pass, one of the Landias finally throws the fireball directly at the group. Sweetie Belle then smirks, and places herself between the ball and the others before materializing a mirror shield, which sends the fireball back at the shocked Landia. The three other Landia quickly regroup with him, and they all swing a wing at the same time to send the ball back at Sweetie Belle with more force, but this doesn't work against the mirror shield, and as the fireball starts going back and forth between the mirror shield and the dragons, it gains more and more speed. Kirby then places himself beside Sweetie Belle and starts spitting fire at the fireball, making it bigger and bigger each time that it passes. The Landias visibly start sweating as the ball becomes harder and harder to send back, understanding that they are screwed, and after a few seconds they miss and the fireball explodes on them. Roaring in pain, the four Landia fall on the ground unconscious, the crown dropping.

Luna huffs. "Still disappointed. Where are the dragons of fire?! Where are the giant fire beams? Where are the fireballs so big that they look like small suns?! That can't be all the crown can do! Kirby proved it!"

"Yeah!" shouts Rainbow Dash. "We want a refund!"

"Something is not right..." says Celestia. "This fight was too easy."

---

Sweetie Belle look at the unconscious dragons, then at the others in wonder.

"What happened?"

"We beat Landia," answers Dedede.

"Too easily," continues Meta Knight.

"He barely used the crown!" shouts Bandana Dee.

"Yeah! If he had used the full power of the crown, he could've overpowered my mirror shield! What the heck?"

"Maybe he didn't know how to use the crown at its full power?" proposes Bandana Dee.

"Or he didn't dare use it too much," says Meta Knight.

"We should take the crown and go to Ripple Star. Maybe queen Ripple can give us an explanation," proposes Dedede.

"Mmh... Poyo," agrees Kirby before he starts walking toward the crown, only to stop.

The crown has disappeared!

"Poyo?!"

"Uh? Hey! Where's the crown?" asks Dedede.

That's when they feel a powerful energy coming from above, and looking up, they see Magolor, the Master Crown now on his head, turning into a bigger, more gazeous version of himself looking more like Nightmare, his body turning red surrounded in blue, his belt and hood turning purple, the ears now looking like horns, white at the ends.

Before they can ask what's going on, Magolor then creates a giant version of the sun-shaped runes that are now at the ends of his hands behind him, and disappears. The rune then turns into a star-shaped black hole that starts attracting everyone. Too shocked by what happened, Sweetie and the others start running a little too late, and they are now too close to the black hole, about to get sucked in it. But then, they are saved at the last second by the four Landias who catch them in the air, and the five heroes are now on the four dragons' backs, Kirby and Sweetie Belle on the same one. With the dragons, they easily escape the attraction of the black hole, which disappears.

Sweetie Belle, breathing heavily, says "W-what happened?"

"I will tell you what happened! Magolor took the crown and tried to kill us!" shouts angrily Dedede.

"W-wh..."

"He manipulated us to defeat Landia and take the crown," concludes Meta Knight. "He's probably planning to use its power in a bad way."

"Like, conquering Popstar?" asks Bandana Dee.

"With the power of the crown, who knows," answers Meta Knight. "But he will do something bad, or else, he wouldn't have tried to kill us."

"Poyo! Poyo!" then shouts Kirby, hugging the Landia he's on.

"Oh yeah. The Landias saved us," says Dedede. He then looks at his Landia ad says "So you were the good guys all along? Sorry. And thank you."

"Yeah, sorry," says Bandana Dee.

The Landias nods in return, before they start to fly toward the sky.

"So..." says Sweetie Belle, tears in her eyes. "Magolor used us... Like Marx..." That's when they spot Magolor in the sky, and Sweetie Belle is filled with anger, her mane almost turning into fire.

He. WILL. PAY!

---

Magolor looks at the heroes approaching on the back of the Landias, surprised. He hasn't thought that the dragons would save them. Judging the heroes too dangerous, especially Kirby, to let them live, he has decided to not lose time and to directly try to kill them after they have defeated Landia. He was almost successful!

But now, he has to use plan B.

He opens a star-shaped portal, and passes it.

The other dimension should kill them. And then, he will be able to take over the Dream universe, as is his right as an Ancient.

Chapter 71: Magolor

"Let me go! I will turn that backstabbing rotten egg into an omelette!" yells Rainbow Dash.

To say that the ponies have reacted badly to Magolor's betrayal would be an understatement. Now, Twilight finds herself holding her angry pegasus friend with her magic to stop her from flying into the portal. Not so surprisingly, she has to do the same thing with Rarity.

"Stop it Rainbow! I know that what Magolor did is horrible, but you know that you can't pass this portal! You too, Rarity!"

"But...! But...! He almost killed her!" shouts back Rarity. "He used her friendship to get that crown, and when she wasn't useful anymore, he betrayed it and almost killed her WITHOUT EVEN SAYING ANYTHING AND WITHOUT WARNING! This is THE WORST THING EVER! And this time, I'm not overdramatizing it!"

"I know! I know! But Sweetie Belle and her friends have gone after him, and I'm sure that despite the power of the crown, he'll get the punishment he deserves. So calm down, please." She turns to Rainbow. "Unless you want to miss the five heroes riding dragons in space while chasing an all powerful wizard."

Rainbow blinks, and stops flapping her wings. "Yeah, no way I'm missing something that awesome." At this, Twilight lets her go, and she returns at her place. "But I hope to see a good thrashing."

"I don't remember seeing you react that badly when I betrayed you," says Discord.

"While I wanted to buck you in the face and make you eat your teeth for what you did and for making Fluttershy cry, you didn't try to kill us. And frankly, I wasn't really trusting you so I wasn't that surprised to see you with Tirek. But this guy... Everything about him was screaming at us to trust him! He was just so... friendly! And he didn't look threatening at all!"

"My dear Rainbow, don't judge a book by its cover," replies Discord, showing a book with a rainbow on the cover before opening it, a tentacle coming out of it. He quickly closes the book, and burns it, making Twilight's eye twitch. "Magolor was simply what we call a manipulator. One of the worst kind, that go all buddy buddy with you and use your friendship or your trust to better hurt you or to reach their goal. A specialty of the changelings, but some ponies are also like this."

Hearing this, Rarity clenched her teeth. "Suri Polomare."

"The Flim Flam Brothers," growls Applejack.

"Me..." says Starlight Glimmer.

"Of course, the guy looking all cute helped greatly in his manipulation," adds Discord. "Nobody suspects cute things."

"But if we can't trust our own friends anymore, then who can we trust?" asks a crying Fluttershy who is consoled by a nearly flat-maned Pinkie Pie.

"Don't stop trusting your friends because there was a bad apple in the lot," answers Applejack.

Celestia nods, smiling. "I stopped counting the number of times ponies acted friendly with me only to have bad intentions. And yet, I don't stop giving my trust to everypony, because until they prove the contrary, everypony deserve to be trusted. And even if somepony broke this trust..." She looks at Discord. "They can still earn it back with some good actions, even if some times, it takes time."

"And remember that it already happened in the past for Sweetie Belle," continues Discord. "Remember Marx? And yet, it didn't stop her to make more friends afterwards, and even to befriend Marx for real." At this, he rubs his chin in thought. "Will she try to befriend Magolor after that?"

"After Magolor almost killed her like that?" asks Spike. "I doubt."

"And he would have to survive first, and I doubt that he will survive the violent fight that will probably happen," says Luna.

"True. It's only by miracle that Marx survived the explosion of Nova," says Discord. "He almost died, like all the other bad guys that Sweetie Belle and Kirby fought.

"Not all. Dedede, Meta Knight, Daroach, Yin, and Yarn survived, and now, they are all friends!" says Pinkie.

"Erh... for Yin and Yarn, it's more like they are Sweetie's slaves," says Scootaloo.

"And I don't know if Daroach can be considered as a friend," says Rainbow Dash. "He's still a thief."

"Of course he's a friend. Sweetie helped him, and he was nice to her. Also, you wouldn't be able to turn Magolor into an omelette, he doesn't have the shape of an egg anymore. But since his body is all gazy, you could buck him like you buck a cloud."

"Too bad I can't..."

---

Sweetie Belle, Kirby, Dedede, Meta Knight, and Bandana, now riding the four Landias, come out of the portal opened by Magolor in what seems to be the middle of nowhere in the other dimension, tunnels in the fabric of space everywhere around them, with gaseous lines, floating shapes like stars or triangles, and even the areas formed from Popstar and Halcandra.

This is something to see the other dimension from one of those areas, this is something else to see it from out of those areas. This dimension is really screwed.

They spot Magolor flying away while looking at them, and the Landias start chasing him. But then, Magolor raises his hands, the crown glows, and a couple of seconds later, a dozen of purple Doomers with normal feathery wings comes from everywhere and charge at them, and the Landias attack them in return, eliminating each of those Doomers with just one shot. But more of those Doomers come, and their number is enough to let some of them approach close enough to the dragons to almost ram them, only to be eliminated by the fire, whip, hammer, sword, and spear of the riders. To help the Landias, Sweetie decides to fire her own projectiles to destroy some of the charging Doomers and make it easier for the others. Meanwhile, Magolor flies away, passing between what can only be called solid space while bigger of those Doomers, those ones red, come in the way and start shooting their orbs at the dragons. Those Doomers take a few more hits, but the Landia quickly destroy them before passing between the solid spaces.

Solid space, seriously, this dimension is really screwed.

And walking on those solid spaces are small green Doomers with no wings but possessing feet, walking around while shooting orbs. They are fast, but the dragons and the filly are easily able to target and destroy them while avoiding the projectiles.

"You will be ok, Landia?" asks Sweetie Belle to her dragon. "You're still weakened by our fight."

The Landia looks at her with a smile and nods before quickly looking in front of him, barely avoiding the projectile of one of the red Doomers. At least, despite their number, the Doomers they have encountered since coming out of this portal are weaker than the Doomers they have fought until now. Their lack of tail-feathers show that they are really the weaklings of the species. The purple ones don't even shoot projectiles!

But now, they have to avoid solid spaces moving and threatening to crush them. The Landias accelerate to pass them before they close on them, still firing at the Doomers tirelessly attacking them wave after wave, and after passing a rather long space tunnel, they have to fight pink Doomers almost as big as the Grand Doomer possessing each four large spikes coming out of their sides diagonally. When the Landias destroy one of those Doomers, the spikes are projected forward, threatening to impale them, and avoiding them while dealing with the other ones especially with their number, is Tartarus.

Thankfully, the Landias are professionals, and the riders are really helpful.

Not long after, the Landias have to avoid strange prismatic meteors, some of them absolutely huge, while they have to shoot at switches to move the solid space blocking the way and open it, and all the while still fighting the more and more numerous Doomers, and avoiding the crushing moving spaces.

After avoiding some of the huge meteors, the Doomers stop coming, and the Landias are sweating, breathing heavily.

Meta Knight frowns. "We must catch Magolor quick, the Landias are tiring out."

"Like I thought, they haven't recuperated from our fight," says Sweetie Belle, looking sadly at the Landia she's riding. "I feel so bad."

"Poyo..." says Kirby as he starts patting the Landia on the head.

"Magolor will regret this!" shouts Bandana Dee.

Speaking of Magolor, the wizard appears in front of them, and he seems upset. And is it Sweetie, or is the crown moving disturbingly like a parasite on Magolor's head? She doesn't have much time to stare at it before a huge star-shaped portal opens between them and Magolor, and out of it comes none other than the Lor Starcutter, now dark purple and dark blue colored.

What has this BIIIIIIIIP done to this majestic spaceship?!

"Don't tell me we will be forced to destroy the ship we've passed all day to repair!" shouts Dedede.

When the portal closes once the Lor is fully out, Magolor teleports not far away and starts to do some hand signs, followed by the Lor starting to fly up, down, left, and right while firing dark stars from the emblem at the dragons, and the four Landia quickly separate before firing back at the ship.

"We're given no choice..." says Meta Knight.

Sweetie grit her teeth and stares at Magolor in anger, as the wizard raises his hands, followed by the ship spinning throwing its wings at them, the wings having a boomerang effect, hitting the Landia that Dedede is riding. Sweetie Belle then charges a beam and fires it directly at Magolor, only for him to easily slap it away with his right hand before he makes the Lor fire more dark stars directly at her and Kirby, forcing their Landia to maneuver to avoid the many projectiles.

A well placed shot from Bandana's Landia causes a small explosion at the left wing of the Lor, destabilizing the ship, and Magolor counters by firing the oars like spears at all of them. The oars are then used like swords, targeting and slashing at the dragons again and again, while Magolor does another hand sign, and the sail on the mast starts glowing before it projects a tornado horizontally, the ship flying in all directions to try to catch the dragons in it, forcing them to focus on avoiding it, which leads some of them to be slashed by the oars, the one that Meta Knight is riding saved by him parrying them.

But the Landias resist, and soon, the Lor stops its tornado, and the four Landias charge a projectile before firing them at the same time, the four charged projectiles hitting the Lor with enough force to throw it back a little, which forces the oars to return at their place, causes arcs of electricity to course the ship, and angers Magolor greatly. He throws the oars at the heroes again, and big blue orbs appear from behind the ship before being projected at the party. Sweetie Belle creates a mirror shield and deflects one of the orbs back at the ship, and the Lor counters by enveloping itself in a sphere before trying to ram her Landia while spinning to throw its wings at the others, the left wing going slightly off because of the explosion earlier, which only makes it more unpredictable, and the oars continues to relentlessly slash at them.

Sweetie's Landia quickly flies out of the way of the Lor, and the filly takes one of the oars in her magic and throws it at the ship's engines, damaging one and causing the Lor to go off while losing control of the oars again, which return at their place. More orbs appear and are fired, along with the dark stars that the Lor starts firing without stopping while spinning chaotically in all directions, creating a storm of projectiles. The ship quickly adds the wings, oars, and tornado to it, Magolor pushing the ship to its limits, and pushing the Landias to their limits too.

The four dragons fly back before gathering, Sweetie Belle rapidly creating a shield to protect all of them from the onslaught and gain time. The Landias then start charging four projectiles like earlier, only to fuse them into a single powerful projectile that they fire at the ship. The oars are placed in the way to block it, but the Landias fly alongside it and headbutt some of the oars to move them out of the way, and Sweetie uses her magic to move another, leaving only one to parry the giant projectile, which is not enough. The projectiles passes through the oar, damaging it heavily, before hitting the Lor at the front in a big explosion.

The Lor Starcutter, heavily damaged, black smoke coming out of it, starts to drop, leaving an enraged Magolor by himself. With the defeat of his spaceship, the wizard flies back, and the dragons immediately chase him, the four of them and Sweetie Belle firing many projectiles that Magolor avoids by teleporting.

"Give up, Magolor!" yells the filly.

"No," simply answers back Magolor before he fires a few dozens of his black orbs. Sweetie Belle creates four mirror shields in front of the Landias, deflecting the projectiles, only for Magolor to teleport just in front of her Landia and to punch him, his punch breaking the shield, propelling the dragon back and unseating Sweetie and Kirby. Quickly, Magolor then creates two small portals and throws his hands inside them. Two more portals appear in front of Dedede and Meta Knight's Landias, and out of them come Magolor's hands, punching the dragons, while Magolor himself headbutts the last one.

Now without their dragons, the five heroes fall, and Sweetie rapidly creates a platform for her and Bandana Dee while Kirby and Dedede inflates and Meta Knight deploys his wings. Looking up, they see Magolor, still looking at them, slowly floating down toward... they aren't sure what. It seems to be a black hole, or at least a black sphere surrounded by a disc of blue fire or gaz and various shapes.

They follow Magolor, and when they reach the blue thing, Kirby places a foot on it, and seeing that he can walk on it, surprisingly, he deflates, soon followed by the others.

"I will not ask... This dimension is just weird," says Sweetie.

"I did say that this dimension is messed up," they hear Magolor say. They look up, and see the wizard approaching, the crown still disturbingly moving on his head. "I was really hoping that you wouldn't be able to survive this dimension, but I underestimated Landia. Even the Lor Starcutter wasn't enough to stop you. Seems like I will have to do it myself. Once I'm done with you, the way will be open for me to become the ruler of the Dream Universe."

"Poyo!" shouts Kirby challengingly.

"Yes. Let's see who's the strongest," says Magolor as he raises a hand, black orbs appearing above it. "The son of the Dark God, or me and my power boosted by the most powerful magical artefact in both universes, the Master Crown." He chuckles. "I already know the answer. You're just a child. You've barely started obtaining your powers. But me..." He raises the other hand, and more orbs appear above him, until at least one hundred of them are floating above the wizard and the heroes. "I HAVE ALL MY POWERS!!!"

He lowers his hands, and the black orbs start raining on the party who destroy them with various attacks in the hope of avoiding being hit, Sweetie Belle using shield, whip, and materialized weapons, Kirby spinning to create a small tornado of fire, Dedede and Bandana Dee twirling their weapon above them, and Meta Knight slashing so rapidly that nobody can see his sword anymore. In just a few seconds, the rain of black orbs stops, and none of them have hit the heroes.

Sweetie Belle smirks. "But he's not alone."

Magolor finds himself slammed from behind by one of Sweetie's shields, and he's projected into Kirby's stream of fire. He places a hand on the way of the fire to protect himself and raises the other, and a puddle of liquid appears under the puffball. Meta Knight flies above him and catches him in passing just as the puddle turns into a spike, and Dedede inhales the both of them before spitting them back at Magolor, Kirby turning into a fire ball that hits him on the head, followed by Meta Knight slashing him diagonally. Bandana Dee then impales him from behind with his spear, and he teleports just before taking a charged beam from Sweetie Belle.

When reappearing, Magolor raises his hands, and a field of puddles appear on the whole battlefield. While Meta Knight catches Kirby and rapidly flies up, Dedede and Bandana Dee join Sweetie Belle who forms a platform under the three of them before making it rise quickly as the field of puddles turns into a field of spikes, Sweetie feeling some of them scratching her platform. From it, Dedede then jumps toward Magolor and bonks him on the head with his hammer, only to be caught in Magolor's hands. Fire suddenly appear on Dedede who starts yelling in pain, and Magolor throws him at the approaching Meta Knight still holding Kirby despite the spikes having disappeared. Meta Knight is slammed by Dedede and drops Kirby, and the puffball turns into a fireball and slams into Magolor in return, who's hit from behind by Sweetie's whip.

Magolor turns around and catches the whip before spinning, dragging Sweetie and slamming her into Kirby. He teleports a few times in random around the battlefield before appearing above Bandana Dee and crushing him under his fist. He then grabs Bandana Dee and throws him in the air before firing a few black orbs at him. A mirror shield then appears between the Waddle Dee and the orbs, and all the projectiles are deflected back toward Magolor who teleports out of the way.

Magolor appears directly behind Sweetie Belle and grabs her before teleporting again, reappearing in the air. Raising a hand, he creates a small field of puddles under him, and he starts to drop toward the forming spikes, holding Sweetie Belle between him and them. To his surprise, he's rammed by Dedede projected by Kirby, making him drop Sweetie Belle who is caught by Meta Knight before she falls on the spikes.

Growling, Magolor opens a portal and punches Dedede into it. Another portal appears just above Meta Knight and Sweetie Belle, and Dedede falls on them, while Magolor fires some blue fire blasts at all of them, Sweetie quickly creating another shield to protect herself, Meta Knight, and Dedede as they are getting back up. Upon reaching her shield however, the fire blast explodes, destroying it and projecting them backward while Kirby and Bandana Dee run to avoid the others. Magolor then opens a rift, and out of it come small versions of the Doomers they have fought in the portals, and the Doomers charge at Kirby, only to be destroyed by the puffball charging at them as a fireball. Magolor then raises his hands, and dozens of black orbs come out of them like geysers before they home in at the heroes from all directions, and Kirby jumps on Sweetie's back, giving her the Fire, before she envelops the both of them in a spheric shield covered in fire. The giant fireballs is then hit from behind by Dedede's hammer, and it destroys many of the orbs before slamming into Magolor who's blasted far in the sky.

However, Magolor reappears, and creates a familiar rune, followed by the appearance of a star-shaped black hole, but this time, the party is prepared, and they all run in the opposite direction to fight the pull of the hole until it disappears.

"Grrrr... Like I thought, you're a pain in the butt," then says Magolor before he places his hands beside him in a gesture that Sweetie recognizes easily. Energy charging between them confirms it. And effectively, Magolor fires a giant lasers that Sweetie doesn't even try to counter like she did with the ape, instead opting to jump out of the way, like all the others.

"This is why I tried to kill you when you didn't expect it, after you beat Landia. The moment I understood about Kirby's origins, and I heard about you beating Zero, I knew that I couldn't just leave you like I was planning to do at first. And I would've succeeded, if that wasn't for that stupid dragon! And by now, I would be on my way to rule the Dream Universe, as it is my right to do!"

"Your right?! How is it your right?" asks Sweetie Belle.

Magolor points a finger at her, and fires from it a black lightning bolt that she blocks by putting her whip in the way with her magic. With his other hand, he creates some ice shards that he throws at the others along with some black orbs. Seeing that the projectiles are easily destroyed or deflected, he starts spinning on himself, creating a tornado around him, and he starts floating toward the heroes to catch them in it, all the while creating firing more black orbs at them as they run away. Seeing that it doesn't work too as they disperse, he suddenly throws the tornado at Kirby, and Kirby is successfully caught in it and projected in the air where Magolor shoots a fire blast, but Kirby is saved by Meta Knight catching him, making Magolor growl in frustration, and he's hit by a charged beam from Sweetie Belle.

Magolor turns toward her. "Remember what I told you. The Ancients created the Dream Universe. I am the descendant of the Ancients. Ergo, it is my right to rule it."

"That's stupid!" shouts Dedede. "That's not because the Ancients created the universe that this means that they can rule it!"

Magolor raises a hand and creates a boulder that he throws at Dedede, only for the penguin to smash it with his hammer. "Why not? When you create something, you own it, so why shouldn't it be the case for the Dream Universe? If the civil war hadn't happened, no doubt that by now, the Ancients would be ruling the Dream Universe. And why shouldn't the universe have a ruler? It needs one! For the same reason that a kingdom needs a ruler! To guide it! To protect it! To make sure that it doesn't fall into anarchie!"

He creates another black hole, forcing the heroes to run again. This time, using more power, he creates spikes in their path, forcing them to watch out where they run and their speed.

"Since the civil war, the Dream Universe has become a nightmare! The Dark God's abominations run rampant, destroying many worlds! The Ancients' own inventions are used by overlord wannabes to hurt, destroy, and conquer, sometimes leading them to become corrupted and to become real monsters, adding to the list of abominations already rampaging! And when those are not overlords that cause problems, those are whole civilizations that go to their doom because of their foolishness! Take the humans for example. Because nobody was there to guide them, they let their greed get the better, and the totality of their population was exterminated in a war because some idiots didn't want to share the resources, and the weapons they used were so powerful that they led to an eternal winter that lasts even today a few centuries later, and the human survivors are scattered in the cosmos, hoping one day to rebuild their civilization, waiting for their end, or forgetting everything about their past."

"Oh... So this is what happened..." says Sweetie.

Magolor opens some portals and uses them like previously to punch the heroes through them, or to fire his black orbs, or even to try to impale them with spikes from directions they don't expect, the spikes entering in one portal and exiting from another. All the while, the heroes continue attacking Magolor despite him regularly teleporting to avoid them.

"With me ruling the Dream Universe, all of this would stop! With the power of the Master Crown, I would exterminate all the monsters! I would also find the other descendants of the Ancients scattered and rebuild our civilization, with me as the God King! Under my rule, I would assure that everybody would remain at their place! No more wars! No more conquerings! Greediness! Selfishness! Jealousy! Hate! All of this would disappear!"

He teleports to avoid a sharp shockwave fired by Meta Knight.

"So, you would lead the universe into a forced peace, where to assure it, we would have to act like robots," Dedede says.

"Not like robots. You would still be allowed to love, laugh, and do everything else that isn't 'negatif'."

Meta Knight lets out a growl. "Which means forcing everyone to act like you want without them being able to express themselves like they want. You remind me of myself a few months ago, when I tried to conquer Dreamland. I wanted to force everyone to learn to fight so they could protect themselves against threats. But I learned, forcing the others is not the way!"

"This is the only way! If not, then how can you stop billions of billions of beings from hurting each others?"

Meta Knight points his sword at Magolor. "We can't. But at least, we can make sure that you can't hurt them with your oppressive way!"

"Yes! We can't save everyone in the universe from themselves, but at least, we can save them from threats like you!" shouts Bandana Dee. "Like this, many people will still be happy!"

"And we can always find ways to avoid what happened to the humans without becoming tyrants," says Sweetie Belle. "I'm sure that we aren't the only ones in the universe who want to protect people. If we unite, then we will be able to fight every monsters, evil beings, and dangers that would appear, and we would save many, many people! This is what we've been doing in Popstar, me, Kirby, and the others, and we've successfully protected it from every threat until now!"

"Grrrr... This is why I tried to kill you. I knew that you wouldn't listen. Why only save the majority to keep most people happy, rather than saving everyone, even if for this, some people must lose that happiness?!"

"Because it wouldn't be worth it!" yells Sweetie Belle.

"Why did Marx had to lose?! When I encountered him, and he told me about his plan and the hero defending Popstar, I told him about Nova, and I thought that with the power he would gain from him, he would succeed! When I found this portal door to Halcandra and tried to get the crown from Landia only to lose, I thought that I could use him to defeat that blasted dragon before taking the crown and use its power to kill him! But no! When I came to Popstar, I encountered the very hero he talked about, still alive! And the hero had to be the son of the God and an happy-go-lucky moron at the head of a band of morons that can't understand that sometimes, you must dirty your hands for the better of all! Curse that idiot! And curse all of you!"

"You're the idiot! You refuse to understand that it is not worth to save someone if you force them to be unhappy the rest of their life! And how do you expect to fight the Dark God? I'm sure that the power of the crown is nothing against him! Me and Kirby are doing everything we can to be ready to fight him!"

"I would ensure that the heart where he's sealed would be buried in the deepest hole in the universe, with the best defenses assuring that nobody dare to come close to it! The God can't get out of the seal by himself! He can only get out with the help of someone! But who would be crazy enough to try to free him knowing that he would destroy everything?"

---

"Achoo!! Juh?"

---

"Enough!" yells Magolor before he creates a star-shaped shield formed of five smaller shields each forming one of the branches. "That you're able to fight me despite the power of the crown is impressive, but now, it is over! None of your attacks are powerful enough to break this shield! You can't hurt me anymore!"

At this, he starts unleashing attacks after attacks, from his black orbs to his black hole or giant laser.

"This is like against the Grand Doomer," says Bandana Dee. "We need a Super Ability."

"But Magolor is not as stupid as the Grand Doomer," says Dedede. "I doubt he will drop a super enemy for us to break his shield."

"And of course, he always makes sure that he's facing all of us, so we can't attack him from behind, where he's vulnerable," says Meta Knight.

Sweetie looks at the crown. "We don't need a super enemy. The origin of the Super Abilities is right there."

"The crown, of course," says Meta Knight.

"Poyo!"

Determined, Kirby charges toward Magolor and turns into a fireball before ramming his shield, which has no effects except making Magolor laugh. Despite this, and being hit by some of Magolor's attacks, Kirby continues ramming the shield again and again, covering its surface in fire, until Magolor has enough and throws some rune that destroys Kirby's Fire ability right there and then.

That's when Sweetie Belle falls right on the crown, Magolor not seeing her coming because of the fire covering his vision.

"What?!"

Quickly, Sweetie Belle clings to the crown and touches it with her horn, and immediately, her body is filled by an energy beyond anything she can think of, so powerful that her body glows in every color, and wings made of pure energy appear on her back. She can also feel...

...That Magolor doesn't control the full power of the crown. He's barely using half of it.

And this crown is corrupted. They MUST destroy it!

She's grabbed and thrown away by Magolor, the wizard filled with anger, the crown on his head glowing like never before as a second star-shield appears on the first one, this one inverted, creating a ten-branched star.

She must be quick, she can already feel the power of the crown leaving her little by little.

She raises a hoof, and forms a sun-like fireball above it before throwing it at Magolor, only for him to teleport. With one swing of her hoof, the fireball changes trajectory, and seeing where Magolor reappears, points her hoof at him, and the fireball strikes his shield, breaking one of the branches of the shield.

"Curse!" he screams before he throws the same rune as earlier to destroy the power in her, but she spins on herself, creating a tornado like Magolor has done earlier, but more powerful with razor sharp wind going at hundreds of miles per hour, enough to destroy the rune before she throws the tornado at Magolor, destroying a second branch.

He raises his hands, and hundreds of black orbs appear behind him before he throws them at the filly like a wall of death, only for the filly to counter by creating a giant wave of water that destroys every single orbs as well as another branch of the shield.

Magolor then creates a field of puddles, but one flap of Sweetie's wings is enough to get her out of range of the forming spikes before she unleashes a real column made of lightning on him, destroying a fourth branch.

Next, Magolor opens a black hole, only for Sweetie to plug it with a giant ball of ice like Kirby did to the volcano earlier before she creates a golem of ice and makes him punch the shield, destroying a fifth branch.

Magolor now fires a giant laser. Sweetie easily dodges it, preparing her own beam, only to see a portal open at her right, Magolor's laser coming out of it. She fires her own giant beam at it, and her beam destroys Magolor's laser before passing the portal and hitting Magolor. Six down, four to go.

A couple dozens portals open around her, and Magolor sends his fist through two more portals. No way to know from which portals the fists will come, so Sweetie Belle covers herself in stone, tripling her size at the same occasion, turning into a giant stone version of herself, and when Magolor's fists come out, they are not powerful enough to destroy the thick stone covering her. Still as a stone golem of herself, she then jumps and turns into a giant boulder, striking Magolor's shield. Only three left.

Magolor starts teleporting around without stopping, attacking her from all directions with his black orbs, but she unleashes a storm of cutter blades all around her, destroys all the orbs, and is able to hit Magolor despite his teleporting. Two left.

But Magolor continues teleporting around her, this time attacking with his fire blasts. Sweetie smirks, and starts spinning on herself, a giant hammer appearing in both her front hooves, one of them ramming Magolor from behind, and she quickly closes the other on him, crushing him between the two hammers. One last time! And it even hurt Magolor!

Magolor then teleports away, breathing heavily.

"I-impossible..." he says, seeing Sweetie Belle raises her whip, which is covered in energy until it becomes absolutely huge, before she cracks it toward him, destroying his last shield. He teleports, and appears just in front of the filly, grabbing her neck before shocking her with electricity. "DIE!"

Despite the pain, Sweetie opens her eyes and smirks. Gathering the energy of the crown remaining in her, turning back to normal, she creates an orb from her horn that she throws at Magolor, only for him to slap it away with his other hand. "No. Die," she then says.

From the direction Magolor has slapped away the orb, he hears the sound of someone inhaling something. Looking in this direction, he sees Kirby jumping toward him, a giant sword raised, ready to strike. Magolor quickly drops Sweetie Belle and places his hands on the way of the sword, trying to repel it as Kirby brings it down on him, engaging the two of them in a violent deadlock, the crown on Magolor's head glowing like the sun as the dimension around them starts shaking.

SLASH!

Kirby breaks Magolor's defense and cuts him. But Kirby doesn't stops there, and to be sure that Magolor is defeated, he strikes the wizard a few more times, finishing by growing his sword even bigger before cutting vertically. Magolor then yells in pain as his body starts exploding, intense energy escaping him, to the point that the whole area is plunged in light.

And everything becomes silent.

...

...

"Did we-"

Boom!

With the sound of an explosion, a silhouette appears in the light for a brief moment. It seemed to be the Master Crown but... different.

Boom boom!

The silhouette appears again, and dark energy comes out of it, turning the light into black light before absorbing it, letting everyone see the disturbing new form of the Master Crown, looking like a claw as the energy is gathering under it, forming a mass of gaseous looking energy. Then the crown glows brightly, and the energy takes form, looking like a floating ball with two big ram-like horns, surrounded by tentacle-like protrusions of the crown. Two wings of the same blue and red gas as Magolor's body then appear behind it, followed by two red oval eyes at the front, and finally, an empty, white, grinning mouth appear under them, along with the two floating hands, the tips of the fingers now black. Disturbingly, a droplet of his upper lip is dripping over his mouth and connects into his lower lip.

This is Magolor but...

Sweetie gulps. "M... Magolor?"

ROAAAAAAAAAR!!!

With a big roar, Magolor(?) claps his hands, creating the rune that destroys Kirby's Super Ability. Immediately after, he creates many star-shaped portals above the heroes who quickly run away as the space inside the portals solidify before forming large spikes.

"Okay then. We have to kill Magolor a second time. As if fighting him once wasn't enough," says Dedede.

"The crown revived him," says Meta Knight. "But... I don't think it's Magolor anymore. That roar..."

"He has become a monster!" shouts Bandana Dee.

"No..." says Sweetie Belle. She looks at the tentacle-like protrusion surrounding Magolor, then at the glowing crown. The glow grows in intensity as countless black orbs appear around the party. They all gather back to back in a circle, and start twirling their respective weapons to destroy many of the projectiles coming from all directions, except Kirby who inhales them. Once all the orbs are destroyed, Kirby jumps and spits a giant projectile at Magolor, hitting him violently. But then before their eyes, the crown glows again, and Magolor's injuries heal in just one second. Sweetie grits her teeth. "He has become the crown's puppet. This is not Magolor anymore that we fight, but the crown itself." She points at the crown. "We must destroy it! Everyone target the crown!"

"That's my second in command!" shouts proudly Dedede. His smile quickly disappears. "But this won't be easy..." he says as Magolor disappears inside a portal. Another portal opens beside Sweetie Belle, and out of it comes Magolor body slamming her before he disappears into another portal and comes out above Kirby who is not able to avoid him despite running as fast as he can. As Magolor flies back up, Meta Knight flies toward the crown to attack it, but Magolor teleports just before he's able to strike it, before he reappears just behind and fires a laser at close range that Meta Knight isn't able to avoid in time, heavily burning him.

Magolor then teleports between Dedede and Bandana Dee, and as the two of them jump to attack the crown, Magolor teleports away, creating before that a black hole that would have mean their doom if Sweetie hadn't slammed them with her shields to project them away from it. The area around the party is then surrounded by a barrier of darkness, and as Dedede and Bandana Dee go up after crashing after being slammed, they look up and see Magolor drawing with his fingers a giant star using white ink.

"Hey! Look up!" screams the penguin.

They all look up in time to see Magolor fill the star with more darkness, and they all understand what he's about to do before they start running toward parts of the area that aren't directly under the star. Magolor then throws the star that hits the ground, failing to hit anyone.

As the darkness disappears, Sweetie counters by firing beams after beams at the crown, and Magolor flies around to avoid them while firing back his black orbs. Some of the beams hit Magolor, but the crown easily heals all the injuries. At the same time, Kirby inhales the black orbs, waits for Magolor to stop flying around, and spits a projectile, targeting the crown, but Magolor just places a hand in the way, blocking the projectile before crushing it between his fingers.

That's when one of Sweetie's beams hit the crown, causing Magolor to roar. He turns toward her, staring at her.

Tears start flowing from his right eye.

Seeing this, Sweetie frowns.

She takes a big breath.

"You have tried to become the one, ultimate master of all.
You have attempted to bring everything under your control.
You have been ready to achieve everything to reach your goal.
To betray friends for it..."

As Sweetie starts singing, she is enveloped in an aura, exactly like in her fight against Kirby. All this time, she doesn't stop staring at Magolor, looking at the tears.

"It's about time she does this..." grumbles Dedede.

As she starts creating many elemental weapons around her, Sweetie Belle continues singing.

"You made of us your puppets so we could obtain this crown for you."

She throws the weapons one after another while her friends charge at Magolor. He teleports, avoiding the assault, and appears behind Sweetie Belle, ready to fire another laser. She turns around to look at him.

"You have gotten this crown so the whole universe would bow to you."

Rather than trying to avoid the laser, she throws a dozen sword at Magolor's face, making sure to reach the eyes, until his face is nothing more than a pincushion, hurting him so much that it gets him to miss, the laser fired just above the filly who then jumps and throws a Force Blast at the crown, making it crack a little and causing Magolor to float back, only to get attacked by Meta Knight, then Bandana Dee, and finally Dedede, damaging the crown a little more. Sweetie then shoots a fireball beside Kirby, causing an orange star to appear. Kirby inhales the orange star, and gains the Fire ability again thanks to it.

"But now just look at what, as a consequence, has become of you:"

With a roar, Magolor gets rid of all the sword in his face, and the injuries heal. Now able to see again, he looks back at Sweetie Belle, only to see that she has formed a small wall of ice, where he can see his reflection, which immobilizes him.

Tears starts flowing from the other eye.

"Just a crowned puppet."

Sweetie punches the wall, and it explodes into many shards of ice that impale Magolor, some of the shards hitting the crown, and Kirby takes the occasion to ram the crown like a comet, and the others follow in attacking the crown until Magolor teleports away. Far enough, he raises his hands, creating the small star-shaped that morph into spikes everywhere above the battlefield, leaving no space to run and hide.

Sweetie Belle takes Yin and Yarn.

"And you will discover that it was for nothing"

With the knitting needles, she quickly knits some kind of shield made of yarn as the others run toward her, understanding that she's preparing something to save all of them. Then, her horn glows as she touches the shield with her hoof, and it turns into metal just before the spikes come out, the new metal shield hard enough to protect them.

"Woah, good job," say both Yin and Yarn, impressed.

"Because against our friendship this crown is nothing!

With her magic, she places the metal shield in front of her, and hits it strongly with his hammer, proping the shield toward Magolor with Sweetie and the other clinging to it. As the shield slams on his head, they jump, and as Magolor is stunned, they attack the crown before running away as Magolor surrounds himself with the spike-portals to protect himself. That's at this moment that Dedede, who has jumped to catch the shield before putting it under him, uses it to pass the spikes and slam it violently on the crown.

With a roar, Magolor takes the shield as Dedede jumps away and crushes it between his hands, the damaged crown starting to glow more and more as a huge quantity of energy is starting to escape it. The heroes can only watch as Magolor is engulfed in light.

"What now...?" asks Dedede, sweating.

"No matter what this cursed crown, against us all, will bring
We will stand and continue, not giving up, fighting"

The dimension starts shaking again before the incredible power shown by the crown as the light disappears, letting the heroes see that Magolor has yet again taken a new appearance, much more terrifying than the previous one. More dark colored, fully black hands with jagged fingers, dark cyan torned-like wings, empty white eyes... The Master Crown still looks like a claw on his head, but the main body of it looks now like an eye, with what looks like deranged eyelashes at the top, two pairs of horns at the sides, the first bull-like while the second curls at the end, and two more extensions have appeared at the top of the wings. Those extensions, along with the ones around Magolor's horns, now possess black spikes, and the crown itself is now ivory colored. And the most disturbing of all...

Magolor's grinning mouth has turned into a frowning eye with a red iris. With the two small white eyes above, it's now impossible to say if he's smiling, or looking angrily at them.

And the power he releases is beyond anything Sweetie Belle has ever encountered. She can feel it right into her soul.

And the tears have disappeared...

She gulps.

"To... the... end!"

Magolor... No. It's not right anymore to call that thing Magolor.

The Master Crown roars, releasing energy like a sun releases light, before he slams his hands on the ground, freezing the whole area, almost making Bandana Dee fall, not prepared to walk on ice. The Master Crown then raises suddenly his hands, and big spikes of ice come out randomly of the frozen ground, hitting this way Dedede and Kirby, knocking the Fire ability out of the puffball who quickly recovers it after recovering from the hit.

The Master Crown then does circles above him with his hands, and a giant sun-like fireball appears above him before he punches it, breaking the ball into dozens of smaller fireballs, still really big, making them rain on the battlefield in front of him.

The party dodges the fireballs as best as it can, easier to avoid than the ice spikes, and Kirby screams "Poyo!!!" as he waves at the others before running toward the monster. The Master crown raises his hands again, and a giant hammer appears in them, ready to crush the very small pink ball compared to it.

Sweetie Belle grit her teeth, takes her whip, and turns toward Dedede. "Ready your hammer!"

Before Dedede can say anything in return to voice his confusion, Sweetie Belle wraps her whip around him and start spinning.

"You think you are frightening us with your overwhelming power?"

The glowing aura disappears from Sweetie Belle only for another one to appear around Dedede, to his surprise as he can feel himself becoming stronger. Sweetie Belle then throws him toward the Master Crown as the giant hammer starts to come down on Kirby.

"You think that you will crush us and that we are living our last hour?"

Understanding what he must do, even if he's not certain, Dedede readies his hammer, and when he reaches the giant one, bring it up with all the strength he could muster, and hits the giant hammer from below. The force of the giant hammer brings Dedede back on the ground beside Kirby, but the penguin is able to hold it, and Kirby successfully passes before attacking the crown with his fireball charge. With Kirby safe, Dedede quickly jumps back, letting the giant hammer smash the ground in front of him. Meta Knight then takes him away just before he's hit by the shockwaves created by the shock which destroy the spikes of ice on the ground.

"You think that you are surpassing us and we are gonna cower?
You have to think again."

The Master Crown roars, teleports a few times, then fires a giant black laser at Dedede and Meta Knight who are able to dodge it. The laser disappears into a portal, and comes out from another elsewhere, only to disappear again in another portal. As this continues, the Master Crown fires a second laser inside a portal, making a total of two lasers that are randomly entering and exiting portals and that the party has to watch out.

"Power means not much if this is everything that you possess."

The Master Crown then forms a sphere of energy around his body and enters a portal, forcing the heroes to dodge him at the same time as the lasers.

"Knowing how to use it is the better way for this fight's success."

The glowing aura disappears from Dedede, and appears around Bandana Dee as he jumps to avoid the Master Crown charging at him. With his boosted strength, he throws his spear down and impales the puppet, immobilizing him on the ground in a earth-shaking impact and causing the energy around him and the lasers to disappear. Everyone takes this occasion to attack the crown before he teleports away, letting Bandana Dee recovers his spear.

"As you can see, despite your massive power, you are in distress.
You are fighting in vain!"

The Master Crown roars, and a giant sword made of ice appear in his right hand before he charges toward the heroes, ready to swing it. Meta Knight flies toward him.

"You are understanding that it is for nothing,"

The glowing aura appears around Meta Knight just has both him and the Master Crown swing their swords, locking the two of them in a violent clash. But then, the Master Crown raises his other hand and invokes a great fiery dragon that immediately flies above Meta Knight toward the others like a flying snake.

"Because against our team your power is nothing."

The glowing aura now appears around Kirby as he jumps, spins, and charges toward the dragon enveloping himself in fire until becoming a fireball double its normal size. He passes through the dragon, destroying it and even absorbing some of its fire, growing even bigger as he continues his charge toward the Master Crown who punches Meta Knight away. The giant Kirby fireball rams the Master Crown, dragging him for several feet in the air.

At the same time, Sweetie Belle is flying above them on a platform.

"Be ready
Because your end is coming!"

She charges a beam with her horn as the glowing aura reappears around her.

"Be ready
Because you will lose your strings!"

She fires it at the crown as Kirby's charge is stopping, and the beam hits it right in the ruby at the center, heavily damaging it.

The Master Crown raises his hands, giving the most powerful, deafening roar that it can do. What seems to be unlimited energy is escaping him, the whole dimension is shaking more and more, cracks appear in its very fabric, and the crown starts discharging all its fury under the form of a real hurricane of devastating, uncontrolled attacks. The most powerful, deadliest tornado surround him, countless black balls, fireballs, ice shards, lightning bolts, lasers, and all other kinds of projectiles are expelled all around without stopping, spikes, now looking like brambles, pop randomly everywhere as well as black holes, the gaseous ground is opening...

And the cracks on the crown are expending more and more.

As the party tries to dodge the literal apocalypse, they all charge toward the crown, taking many hits, but continuing despite everything.

"We will triumph and return back to Popstar
And nothing of what you are..."

The glowing aura appears simultaneously on the five heroes who each ready their attack as they pass the storm of attacks of the crown and are reaching it.

"Will be left to bring suffering to someone."

They hit.

"So it is time for you piece of junk to begone!"

The Master Crown explodes in a big explosion of energy, and Magolor's body is enveloped in a blue gaseous fire as he starts to move and yell in pain, becoming smaller, losing form, until the fire disappears, revealing Magolor back in his normal appearance... crying.

And he disappears in a shaft of light.

But this doesn't stop the dimension from shaking and breaking. On the contrary, the intense discharge of energy at the moment of the destruction of the crown has made it worse. Already, the dreaded erasing purple space is appearing here and there, and the ground disappears under the heroes who start falling toward the void. Meta Knight quickly uses his wings to stop his fall, but the others are slower.

But before they can stop their fall, the injured Landias, followed by the Lor Starcutter back to normal but still slightly damaged, come from the shattering space and catch each party members, Sweetie Belle falling on the bow of the spaceship. She looks in wonder as the emblem of the Lor shoots a beam which creates a portal that they all pass just before the purple space reaches them.

And, exhausted beyond her limits, she loses consciousness.

---

The ponies sigh in relief as Sweetie Belle and her friends pass the portal.

"Too close... Much too close..." says weakly Rarity.

"Remember. I'm here to avoid the worst from happening," reminds Discord.

"In the action, I keep forgetting..."

"Is... Magolor dead?" asks Fluttershy.

"Hard to say," answers Discord. "Him disappearing in light can mean anything."

"Wait. The Lor is flying with the dragons... But who's piloting it?" asks Twilight.

"Mmh?" Discord raises an eyebrow before he snaps his fingers. The portal changes from showing the dragons depositing everyone to the inside of the Lor Starcutter, only to show that nobody is there. "Curious."

"Remember what Magolor said," says Celestia. "This ship apparently possesses a mind of its own. Maybe it refused to show itself to Magolor, but now that he's not here anymore, it has decided to come out."

"That's incredible!" shouts Twilight in awe. "Now I'm really glad that it hasn't been destroyed in the fight. It would have been horrible to lose such a technological wonder."

"And maybe thanks to this ship, Sweetie Belle will be able to come home without the need of Discord," says Rainbow Dash.

With another snap of his fingers, Discord shows back Sweetie Belle and the others. "It seems like this is not in the Lor's intentions," points out Discord as the ship opens a portal, and it flies through it with the four dragons.

"What?" shouts Rainbow. She flies to the window-portal and yells "Hey! Why are you leaving?! Come back! You could become Sweetie Belle's spaceship!"

"Maybe it wants to return home, or maybe it has something to do elsewhere," proposes Pinkie. "But I'm sure we will see it again. It seems to like Sweetie Belle."

"How can you say?" asks Starlight.

"Why would the Lor save specifically Sweetie Belle?"

"Because she was the only one that the dragons hadn't caught?"

"And why have the Landias let it save her?"

"Because there were only four Landias for five beings and they couldn't save everypony? And that they choose to save the others, but one of them could have saved Sweetie Belle instead?"

"No. I'm sure that there's a reason for the Lor saving Sweetie Belle! And now, I must go to start preparing a 'Sweetie Belle saved the Dream Universe and will have a spaceship' party!" And on this, she bounces out of the room.

"She's not waiting to see if something else happen?" asks Apple Bloom.

Discord looks at the portal. "Mmh... The heroes are walking toward the castle for a well deserved rest. I don't think there's more to see. Ahahah. Sweetie Belle is already resting on 3D's back. That Soul Song must have drained her."

"Especially boosting the five of them at the same time," says Luna.

"Being able to do this... She is becoming so powerful," comments Celestia. "I think she would be able to defeat you in a duel, Luna."

"No way! I am still much stronger than her!"

"At this rate, not for long."

Luna huffs. "Once she returns, we will see."

"Ooooh! I'll have to prepare the popcorn!" says Discord in glee. "Oh! And when you lose, Lulu, you'll have to put a shirt with written on it 'A filly kicked my flank' for a whole day."

Chapter 72: Duel Against the King

Slowly, Sweetie Belle opens her eyes, rapidly understanding that she is back on her bed in her room in Dedede's castle. Also, replacing her clothes, there are bandages everywhere on her body. Seems like they didn't dare force feeding her in her sleep to heal her. But gosh! She almost looks like a mummy! And the others must not have been better upon coming back.

A Maxim Tomato is presented in front of her.

"Welcome back to the waking world, sleepy head. Here, they left this for you," says Mini-Discord.

Using her magic, Sweetie Belle brings the tomato to her and starts eating it, starting the healing process.

"Thank you."

"So. I suppose that you have some questions. How long have you slept? What happened after you lost consciousness? Are you now really a mummy? Well, let me answer. No, you've not become a mummy, you're very well alive."

She giggles, rolling her eyes. "Thanks for the confirmation. I wasn't sure with my breathing, my injuries healing, and my belly growling in hunger."

"You're welcome. So. You've slept over one whole day. It's actually a little past noon two days after your fight against Magolor. Don't worry, you're not the only one who needed their sleep after this adventure. The others also slept for a while, especially Kirby."

"Normal. He loves sleeping."

"Just after you returned to Popstar, the Landias and the Lor Starcutter left by a portal to who knows where."

"Aww... I couldn't say goodbye. Wait. Even the Lor?"

"Yes. I don't know why. Anyway. Everyone returned to Dedede's castle to rest, and Kirby and Meta Knight are still here today, waiting for you to wake up."

"Even Meta Knight? I would have thought that he would have returned to his HQ."

"He's still waiting to fight Dedede, but he wanted to wait for you to wake up and watch their fight. Meta Knight also can't wait to see you fight Dedede."

"Oh, right." Now that she's healed, she takes out her bandages. "Well, thanks to that long sleep, and to that Maxim Tomato, I am feeling well enough to fight Dedede today. I can't wait to fight him too."

"That's what Dedede thought, and he can't wait to fight you too. He has already prepared the ring, and is waiting for you to give the green light. He has also prepared a banquet for after."

"Of course he prepared one to celebrate us saving the universe. it's the perfect excuse for him to eat a ton of food, and maybe have an eating contest with Kirby. And of course, I'll go to bed tonight on the brink of exploding with all the food that I'll eat like each time it happens, because I know that there will be Maxim Tomato pies. Ugh..."

"Bah. You will burn it off with your training that would make Shining Armor cry his mommy."

"Not all, sadly," says Sweetie Belle before poking her slightly softer belly. "No matter how much I exercise, I always manage to gain a pound or two. Sometimes, I wonder if I should just leave the castle and go live in my own house to stop being in the presence of so much delicious food."

"This wouldn't work. Remember that we're in a world where you can barely do a dozen steps without finding some cookies or a piece of cake."

"This still would be less food than in this castle."

"You know that I could simply snap my fingers to solve the problem, right?"

"And then, I would have to explain how I suddenly got thin, and I doubt that saying 'I lost everything while sleeping' would work. This is the Dream Universe, but two plus two still equals four."

"Why don't you simply reveal his existence?" she hears Yarn asking from the desk where he has been left with his brother and Sweetie's clothes.

"You know the Waddle Dees. They wouldn't feel safe with a guy like him possibly watching over their back all day. They would constantly be in fear of seeing him appearing and creating chaos."

"I don't need to create chaos. There's already enough chaos in this castle thanks to you and Dedede."

"Hey! I-"

"The noodle incident."

"That was only-"

'Your attempt to get a Cutie Mark about creating robots. That Sword Knight is still jumping in fright each time he hears 'exterminate'."

"Uh... I didn't think that-"

"That time you played with Spikezilla."

Yin and Yarn burst into laughter. "Oh yeah!" says Yin.

"Dedede's face when he ate all of his food!" says Yarn.

"And then, Dedede started chasing him in all the castle! Oh! That was fantastic!"

"I just wanted a pet..." says Sweetie Belle.

"A pet the size of an elephant with fangs, claws, and breathing fire?" asks Mini-Discord.

"So he could help me fight the bad guys. He was very useful against Shadowbite."

"You can knit him again anytime."

"But each time, he's not the same... Wait! I know!"

Quickly grabbing Yin and Yarn, Sweetie Belle starts knitting. In just a few seconds, she creates some kind of small doll version of Spike.

"Mini-Discord looks at it, eyebrow raised. "I don't follow."

"Each time that I knit Spikezilla, he 'dies' when I have to unpick him, so the next one has nothing from the previous one. But..." She shows the Spike doll. "If I turn this doll into Spikezilla, and Spikezilla back into this doll, then he will not 'die' anymore, he will just... go to sleep, so to say. Now, he will always remain the same Spikezilla! And I will always have him beside me ready to fight for me! Or to play with me!"

"But you still can't play with him in the castle."

"Yeah. Because he's too big and too dangerous. BUT!"

She starts knitting again, making the Spike doll grow in size until it reaches half her size. Once she's finished, the doll starts moving and looking around in curiosity.

"Tadaa! Say hello to Spiky!" She hugs the doll. "Spikezilla's pet form."

"Oh, I see. So, the doll form for when you need him to stay asleep, Spikezilla form for when you will need him to fight, and Spiky form for the rest. Clever girl. Well, good job, you now have a pet slash doll slash battle monster. What a great world. However, I don't think that Spike will take it well."

"It's the only way that I could find to keep him. And as good as I've become at using Yin and Yarn's power, I don't know yet how to give sentience to my creations like they could do. All I can do is giving an animal-like mind at best. So, for a dragon doll with an animal-like mind, this small size is the best so he will not be a hoofful. And he's so cute!" She starts tickling the doll's belly, making him laugh. "Yes, you're a little cutie! Yes, you are!"

She suddenly sees a flash, and sees Mini-Discord with a camera. "There. This should give diabetes to some of the ponies back home. Speaking of, you've a letter," he says, pointing at the desk.

Looking at the desk, Sweetie Belle spots the letter. She puts Spiky on her back, the doll starting to play with her mane, and takes the letter.

Dear Sweetie Belle.
We have seen your adventure, and what happened with Magolor. I know that it already happened in the past with Marx, but this must still hurt. But you must not forget that you still have many friends that will remain at your side no matter what, starting with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo who are really worried about you. Don't lose sight of friendship because of the actions of an idiot.

I didn't intend to. I still trust my friends despite Magolor using me, and he regretted it just after.

Princesses Celestia and Luna were with us and saw everything. They are really impressed by how much powerful you have become with your friends. The five of you were able to take down a monster more powerful than even Tirek after all! We were at the edge of our sits during all the fight, and we were encouraging you with even more energy than father encouraging his favorite hoofball team. Rainbow and Applejack were screaming so much that I thought that I would become deaf! Thankfully, princess Luna didn't use the Royal Canterlot Voice thanks to princess Celestia. Discord even created a cheerleader team of copies of himself for you (with Fluttershy as the mascot)! Now, princess Luna wants to fight you once you return

"Really? Neat!"

and the list of parties that Pinkie Pie wants to throw for you has grown bigger.

Saving a whole universe, fighting such a powerful being, and escaping the collapsing of another universe... I am so proud, Sweetie. We are all proud. You and your friends are the greatest heroes we have ever seen. I've also gotten some grey hairs after those events, but I'm your sister, so it's normal to get some with how much you are risking your life. (I'm kidding, of course. I haven't really gotten grey hairs)

I love you, and I look forward to hug you again.

Your sister, Rarity.

"Well, princess Luna wants to fight me now."

"Worried?"

"Not at all. I know that by the time I come back, I will be strong enough to fight her. I must, to fight one day the Dark God, and Kirby."

Putting the letter in a drawer with the others and Spiky on the floor, she puts her clothes, attaches Yin and Yarn to the belt along with her whip.

"Do you know where Dedede and the others are?" she asks.

"Dedede and Bandana Dee are playing chess at the usual spot outside the castle. Kirby and Meta Knight are with them, respectively napping and reading a book."

"Thank you. Let's go Spiky."

"Roar."

"See you, Dissy."

"Dissy? Seriously?"

"Well, you aren't the real Discord, so it was time that I give another name, and giving Spiky his name gave me this idea. It fits you. So from now on, you are Dissy."

Sweetie then leaves the room with Spiky, giggling, while Dissy sighs and rolls his eyes.

"If real me learns about this..."

A hole in space appear beside him, and out of it comes Discord's head who says "I already know, Dissy," before returning in the hole that closes as he laughs.

Dissy opens it back and says "Remember to warn the others about the duel between Sweetie Belle and Dedede!"

"Of course, Dissy."

Dissy closes the hole, grumbling, as Discord continues laughing.

---

Sweetie Belle goes on the castle's lower roof that is just in front of the 'eyes', which is where Dedede likes playing chess in the calm of Dreamland. Like Dissy said, Dedede and Bandana Dee are there, playing, and like always, Dedede is losing. Kirby and Meta Knight are beside them on lounging chairs, napping and reading a book.

Funny enough, a butterfly is also resting on Kirby's head.

Dedede places a tower beside Bandana's king. "Check!"

Bandana Dee takes a bishop, and uses it to capture the tower. "Checkmate."

"What?!"

"You could have taken my bishop first with your knight before placing your tower. You should stop focusing only on taking the enemy's king and watch the whole board before acting."

Dedede just pouts in answer, turning his head. He then sees Sweetie Belle approaching, and smiles.

"Oh! You're finally awake!" He then spots the walking dragon doll beside her, and frowns. "Really, Sweetie Belle? After last time?"

"Come on! He's only half my size this time!" She grabs the doll and presents him to Dedede. "I present you Spiky, Spikezilla's pet form. And don't worry, I will turn him into Spikezilla only to fight bad guys."

"Will he put the castle on fire?"

"As long as we keep an eye on him, no."

Dedede stares at the doll, doubting. Seeing this, Sweetie Belle gives him the puppy dog eyes.

"Please, Dedede. He will be a good boy."

He sighs. "Very well." He puts a hand under his chin, thinking. "Beside, I already imagine the face of future potential invaders at seeing that small guy turning into a giant monster. He will be a secret weapon."

"Yay!"

"Are you alright, Sweetie Belle?" asks Bandana.

"Yup. I'm well rested, and the Maxim Tomato healed all my injuries." She looks at Dedede. "We can start our fight anytime."

Dedede smirks. "You aren't losing time, uh?"

"Nope. I want to prove my superiority as soon as possible."

"Oh, you're asking for it. To the ring, right now!"

"Already? But she has barely woken up!" shouts Bandana. He turns to Sweetie Belle. "Don't you want first to pass some time with us, talking about our adventure, having some lunch, and all?"

"I will have all the time to talk and eat during the banquet. I have been waiting to win a fight against Dedede for too long."

"You think you'll win it?" asks Dedede.

"I know I'll win it."

"You two..." sighs Meta Knight.

---

The stands around the ring are full to the brim of members of Dedede's army so hyped that they are already cheering loudly for either Sweetie Belle or Dedede. Since there are not enough places for everyone in the army, cameras have been placed, broadcasting the event to the rest of the castle, and even to the other fortresses around Dreamland, without forgetting Whispy who wants to see it too. Everyone in Dedede's army want to see the fight between the king and his second in command, The Fatal Cutie Sweetie Belle.

Of course, Sweetie Belle's closest friends in the army, as well as some chosen ones around the kingdom, have gotten places. And so, Kirby, Meta Knight, Bandana Dee, Broom Sunglasses, Cape Knight, Knuckle Joe, the animals, Gooey, Marx, Adeleine, and even Daroach are sitting together, some of them eating popcorn, a whole pile of them beside Kirby. Spiky is sitting on Adeleine's lap, playing with a painted butterfly flying in a circle around him.

"When do they start?!" asks Knuckle Joe. "When do they start?! When do they start?! When-"

"Soon!" shouts back an irritated Cape Knight.

"What are the chances of the king winning?" asks Bandana.

"Honestly? I'm betting on a big, round 0%," answers Broom Sunglasses. "As soon as Sweetie Belle starts singing, he's as good as dead."

"You're underestimating Dedede," says Meta Knight. "I'm certain he will put up a great fight despite Sweetie Belle's overwhelming powers."

"But you know he will still lose," remarks Broom Sunglasses.

"Sweetie Belle hasn't even revealed yet what her whip can do," says Bandana.

Meta Knight doesn't reply.

"The king will use his mecha hammer," informs Cape Knight.

"Really?" asks Adeleine. "From what I've heard, this hammer can shoot missiles."

"Yep, and also fire," says Bandana. "He almost beat Kirby with it."

"This will be violent!" shouts Marx.

That's when the two fighters finally climb on the ring, and the electric cage is coming down.

"Oooh! They're even using the cage! THEY'RE USING THE CAAAAGE!!!" shouts Knuckle Joe, who shakes Cape Knight in his excitement.

Cape Knight takes his sword and uses it to bonk Knuckle Joe on the head, calming him.

On the ring, Sweetie Belle and Dedede are facing each other, each holding their chosen weapon; the mecha whip for the filly, and the mecha hammer for the king.

"I wonder... Why aren't you taking this hammer with you all the time?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"It's too heavy. It would tire me. But the time of a fight, it's perfect."

The cage finishes to settle around them, and the electricity starts running through it. Everyone on the stands become quiet.

Dedede then starts chuckling, before bursting into laughter.

Sweetie Belle raises an eyebrow. "What's funny?"

Dedede calms his laugh before replying. "I started all this. I auto-proclaimed myself king of Dreamland, and stole all the food for me, getting my butt kicked by Kirby who came from nowhere at this moment. I started a personal war against him, and I started training you thinking that you would help me getting rid of him. But then, this war turned into a more friendly rivalry, and my hate of Kirby eventually disappeared, and I stopped trying to surpass Kirby. But you... You continued, for me. You promised me that you would defeat Kirby, my goal became your goal, and now, here we are, seeing if you have surpassed me, who is pretty much your master, who made you into who you are today."

Sweetie Belle nods. "You, as well as Meta Knight, are steps that I must climb to reach Kirby. If I want to defeat Kirby and keep my promise, then I must first defeat you, to prove that I am closer to my goal. But also..." She smiles evilly. "Since the day you started training me, you beat me like a rag doll again and again. Finally beating you will be a personal satisfaction."

"Yeah, it was fun kicking your butt. Now, let's see if you will kick mine." He takes a defensive stance, hammer ready. "Come!"

"I don't need!" she shouts before firing a magical beam.

Dedede deflects it with a swing of the hammer. "If you refuse to come, then I'm coming!"

As everyone starts cheering again, he jumps, and Sweetie Belle runs away before he falls back on her. She then jumps to avoid the shockwave that he creates when landing. As she jumps, Dedede swings his hammer toward her, and she covers her right front hoof with both a shield and her soul energy before punching the hammer. This doesn't destroy it, but it propels her back far enough to not be reached by Dedede's swings. So Dedede plants the hammer on the floor, opens it, and fires a few missiles. Sweetie Belle covers her hooves in soul energy, and punches the missiles on the sides to deflect them before firing a Force Blast that Dedede dodges by side-stepping.

Sweetie Belle then cracks her whip on the floor, confusing everyone because she's actually too far to reach Dedede with it. She cracks it again, and again, prompting Dedede to ask "What are you doing?"

She smirks. "Lowering your guard."

She cracks her whip another time... Only, to everyone's surprise, the metal parts separate, letting appear between them what seems to be Sweetie's green magic given a physical form that keeps the parts linked together while lengthening the whip greatly, to the point that she is able to reach Dedede's face all the way from the opposite side of the ring.

Despite being suddenly hit in surprise, Dedede quickly recovers and is able to parry the next attack, so Sweetie Belle stops attacking and lets her whip floating around her like a snake.

"Ugh. Your whip can do that..."

She smiles. "Yup. My whip is not only mechanical, but also magical. I worked hard with the guys that created your mecha hammers, and the frozen Earth's robots to create it. Thanks to my magic being a part of it, it can become as long as I want, and I can manipulate it like a sixth limb." Her smile grows larger. "And I can make it do much more."

The magic inside the whip suddenly turns into fire, and Sweetie turns it into a wheel, the start of the whip touching its end, before it starts to roll toward Dedede, now looking like a wheel made of fire. Dedede quickly rolls out of the way, and the firewheel passes beside him, only to turn and to roll toward him again. So Dedede spins on himself with his hammer, and hits the whip, propelling it back toward the wall of the cage, only to be punched from behind by the filly. As soon as he feels the hit, he turns around and punches her back. He then spots the whip now flying like a snake, the magic inside now replaced by electricity, and lightning bolts start raining under it. He runs away from it toward Sweetie Belle who is creating a sword of ice. The two clash, but then he starts inhaling, and Sweetie Belle can't do anything in time to avoid finding herself inside his mouth, which causes her to lose control on the whip that falls on the floor. Dedede then spits her toward the cage, and Sweetie Belle is electrified when hitting it.

Not losing time, Dedede spins, and throws his mecha hammer toward her, the hammer still spinning in the air. Recovering, Sweetie Belle jumps to avoid it, but is then hit from above by Dedede now holding his normal hammer, and is crushed on the floor. From under the hammer, Sweetie Belle manipulates her whip to wrap Dedede with it, and the whip still being electrified, Dedede is heavily shocked by it. After a few seconds, Dedede is able to use his great strength to free himself from it, but is then punched in the belly so strongly that he's thrown against the cage at the opposite side of the ring.

Sweetie Belle then makes her whip fly again, the magic inside turning back to normal, and as it flies in front of her, she jumps on it, making sure that her hooves land on the metal parts. On her whip, she starts flying randomly above the ring, always staring at Dedede as he recovers and stares back at her, sweating.

She smirks.

"Leeeeeeeet's do it, you against me!"

Seeing the familiar glowing aura appear around the filly, Dedede frowns, sweating even more.

"Using my own anthem against me..."

"I will not let you defeat me Dedede!
The reason for that is really easy:
Proving that I am closer to beat Kirby!
For you, my friend!"

While flying around, Sweetie Belle starts firing energy balls that home in Dedede, and the penguin rolls, jumps, deflects as much as he can to avoid the maximum possible. When he reaches his mecha hammer, he grabs it with just his right hand, still holding his normal hammer with his left hand, to the admiration of the Bonkers in the room.

"You have trained me to one day reach this goal.
You made a warrior out of a foal.
And I am now among the strongest of all!
Thank you, my friend!"

Sweetie Belle jumps, and her whip becomes longer, reaching the walls of the cage at the opposite sides of the ring while becoming tight, now looking like a horizontal pole which is electrified by the cage. Landing on a forming platform, Sweetie Belle then makes it go down until reaching Dedede's level, and makes it go left and right, forcing Dedede to jump above it to not be electrified.

Her obstacle ready, Sweetie Belle then jumps from her platform toward Dedede to punch him, only to end up punching the mecha hammer. She jumps from it to avoid being hit by the other hammer.

"Dark Matters, Dark Mind, Drawcia, and Zero two;
I've beat the darkest villains so why not you?
Combining magic and my soul makes me strong,
So I can go to my next target before long!

They start exchanging attacks, Sweetie Belle punching left and right while Dedede parries most of the time, and Dedede swinging his hammers from all directions, Sweetie Belle dodging the majority of them, all the while jumping above the moving whip, the two of them trying to get the other to touch it to gain the advantage.

Meta Knight nods as he hears the last line, ready to be challenged by Sweetie Belle anytime.

"I don't mean that you'll be easy,
But I must get my victory!
Because this is a test
To continue my quest
To become the best!

She takes back her whip, letting it tight but making it smaller, and jumps away from Dedede. When landing, she goes on her back hooves and twirls her whip, now a staff, to show off before holding it behind her, ready to attack.

She then signs at Dedede to come at her.

"Bring it, my mentor king!"

Dedede charges toward her. She charges toward him.

And they clash.

"Let's go, everyone will be recalling
For the many years that will be coming
The two of us clashing on this boxing ring!
Until! The end!

Dedede swings down the mecha hammer, and is parried by one of the extremities of Sweetie's staff. He swings the other hammer, and the filly parries it with the other extremity of her staff. She spins to avoid another swing of the mecha hammer, and back kicks Dedede in the belly while putting the staff on her back to parry the wooden hammer again. Dedede trips her on her belly by kicking her other leg, and opens his mouth to inhale her again. This time, Sweetie belle turns into metal so her weight is too heavy for Dedede to inhale, and she quickly turns around to fire an explosive ball inside his mouth, the ball exploding inside it and hurting him.

She turns back to normal to go back on her legs, but Dedede chooses this moment to fall on her to crush her with all his weight. Trapped under his belly, Sweetie Belle turns her fur into spikes, forcing him to go back up in pain and freeing her. With a jump, she returns on her back legs and swings her staff at Dedede's face, the extremity of the staff turning back into the whip to wrap itself around his neck. She then pulls down, slamming Dedede's face on the floor.

"So come, give all you have! Do not hold your blow!
I'll return everything that you throw!
And give everyone the best of all shows!
Until! The end!"

On the floor, Dedede uses his feet to propel himself and headbutt Sweetie Belle. Despite the hit getting the breath out of her, Sweetie Belle is able to invoke a shield below Dedede and to make it go up, getting him crushed against the ceiling of the cage, electrifying him again. As soon as the shield disappears and that Dedede starts to fall, he starts spinning in the air with his two hammers, destroying many projectiles that Sweetie Belle throws at him. When he's about to reach her, she jumps out of the way, then jumps back toward him to bonk him on the head with her staff. He returns, and she takes a hit from the mecha hammer propelling her to the wall of the cage.

Dedede plants the mecha hammer and a stream of fire is expelled from it toward the filly, who quickly jumps back to her hooves and creates a mirror shield to reflect the fire back to Dedede, only for the penguin to twirl his wooden hammer, stopping the fire from reaching him. With one swing of Sweetie's hoof, the mirror shield is thrown toward Dedede. To not be slammed, he takes the mecha hammer and, using the jet integrated in it, violently swings it down on the shield, breaking it before slamming the hammer on the floor, creating a shockwave. As the shockwave approaches, Sweetie turns her staff back into a whip and makes it fly before jumping on it like before, avoiding the attack.

"We protected the universe together.
At your side I have grown and become better.
So this is why I must not disappoint you
By giving you a fight that is worthy of you."

On her flying whip, she flies toward Dedede, hoof ready to punch, and again, she ends up punching the mecha hammer. A quick move to the back lets her avoid the wooden hammer, and she starts flying around Dedede, attacking him from all sides with both punches, materialized weapons, and magical or energized projectiles. Rapidly having enough, Dedede starts spinning again, forcing Sweetie Belle to fly back, only for the filly to be surprised by the mecha hammer starting to expel fire, burning her until she flies up out of the way while surrounding herself with a shield of water.

With her shield of water, she turns back her whip into a staff while still flying on it, and charges back toward the still spinning Dedede, the extremity of her staff clashing with Dedede's mecha hammer. Like always, Dedede tries to hit Sweetie Belle with his wooden hammer, but Sweetie Belle has been prepared for it, and she wraps the other extremity of her staff/whip around the hammer's handle before forcefully pulling it out of Dedede's grip before destroying it by crushing it between her metallised energy boosted hooves as she flies back up.

She jumps, and grabs her whip turning fully into a staff again.

"Oh Great King, I will hold my end,
And against you I will defend!"

Air jumping, she envelops her staff with as much soul energy as she can give it, focusing it at the extremity, while Dedede is spinning again, the jet of his mecha hammer roaring as he gains speed.

"I will show you my might
That gives villains much fright
And finish this fight!"

Pointing her staff toward Dedede like a spear, Sweetie Belle plunges toward him. Seeing her coming, Dedede, with the huge momentum gained with his spinning and the hammer's jet, swings it toward her.

"Let's go, you against me!

The staff hits the mecha hammer, and a huge amount of energy is expelled by the impact, covering the two fighters in an explosion of light, followed by a real explosion, and creating a powerful shockwave that destroys the cage, collapses the ring, and force everyone to close their eyes and cling to each other to not be sent flying.

When everything calms down, and the spectators can open their eyes, the remains of the ring are covered in a cloud of smoke. Little by little, the cloud disappears and reveals the smoking pieces of Dedede's mecha hammer here and there. Finally, Dedede's unconscious body is revealed, Sweetie Belle on his belly.

The filly raises her hooves in victory, and the whole room explodes into cheering.

"The king has fallen," says Broom Sunglasses.

Tears are suddenly cascading on Cape Knight from Knuckle Joe.

"That was so awesome! I'm so proud of her!"

Annoyed, Cape Knight is thankfully helped by a Parasol Waddle Dee giving him a parasol to protect him from the sudden shower of tears.

Bandana Dee is so amazed by the fight that he's literally glowing, almost blinding Meta Knight.

"I want that whip," says Daroach.

"Sorry bud, it's obvious it only works with her magic," replies Marx.

Broom Sunglasses then gets up and yells "Queen Sweetie Belle! Queen Sweetie Belle!"

"What are you doing?" asks Cape Knight.

Broom Sunglasses doesn't answers, but he seems to start a chain reaction, more and more of the spectators repeating what he says until almost all of them sing "Queen Sweetie Belle."

Sweetie Belle looks around her in shock, blushing, then shouts, voice amplified by her magic to be heard, "N-no! This is not because I've beat Dedede that I'm now the queen! I don't want to be the queen! You all know that I will one day return to my world!"

"But you said yourself that you would come back in the future to live here," she then hears Dedede says. Sweetie Belle looks toward his face, seeing that he's already awake, and smiling at her. "Seems like they've decided who will be the next ruler of Dreamland in a few years."

Sweetie huffs. "Or this is just another scheme of Broom Sunglasses to annoy me."

"Them calling you queen doesn't seem to be fake."

"I don't want to steal your throne. If I become queen, then this will be of another kingdom." At this, she go down from Dedede's belly. "Are you alright?"

"I feel like a mountain fell on me, but the banquet should fix that. I'm just lucky I have another mecha hammer stocked."

"Sorry about that."

---

"I don't believe it! My little sister may become a queen in the future!"

---

It doesn't take long after that for the banquet celebrating both the heroes saving the universe and Sweetie Belle defeating Dedede to start.

"You know, despite everything I said, I knew that you would beat me today. I could already see in our adventure that you had become stronger. And your whip, allied to your magic and your soul energy, is a wonderful weapon," comments Dedede as he eats meat.

"This explains why there are already banners congratulating me," replies Sweetie Belle, the filly gobbling a Maxim Tomato pie. Spiky, who's sitting beside her, is happily eating meat too.

One can wonder how something made of yarn can eat meat, and where this meat goes.

"When will you fight Meta Knight?" asks Adeleine.

"Mmh... I'm not sure. I first want to see his fight against Dedede to see if I have a chance against him."

"Of course you've a chance against him. Meta Knight is strong, but not that strong."

"I swear," they hear Bandana Dee shouting to Broom Sunglasses. "We saw the Dark God's footprints, and they were bigger than all five of us together!"

"An exploit, with how the king is big," replies Broom Sunglasses.

"Hey!" shouts Dedede.

"For once, it's not me," says Sweetie Belle, giggling.

"The Dark God must be huge!" shouts Knuckle Joe. "How will you fight him?!"

"I don't know!" shouts back Bandana Dee in panic.

"Too bad you had to destroy the Master Crown. It would have been useful," says Marx.

"It was corrupted by the Dark God," replies Sweetie Belle. "It was for the best. Heck, the final form of Magolor even had a big eye like the Dark Matters and Zero." She gets goosebumps thinking back to it. "Why did it have to be in the mouth?"

The banquet continues with more discussions about the heroes' adventure, punctuated by some animated moments like when Daroach runs away from the kitchen with a bag full of food being chased by some cooks before leaving the castle, or when Marx threw a pie on Dedede's face for fun.

Until a Blade Knight comes in the room and says to Dedede "A ship has appeared out of a portal outside the castle. It goes toward the rampart, what do we do?"

Sweetie gasps. "It's the Lor Starcutter! It's back! Don't do anything to it, it's a friendly ship." At this, she leaves her chair, not without some difficulty with how stuffed she is now, and starts walking toward the exit, there again slowed down by her heavy stomach. She is quickly followed by the others, Dedede grabbing her and placing her on his back before running.

That ship had to choose to reappear now...

---

They all exit the castle on the rampart, at the spot where Dedede likes playing chess, and they see that the Lor Starcutter, now repaired, is already hovering at the edge. When they approach, the door opens, and the ramp appears.

In the light coming from inside the ship, an egg-shaped silhouette shows itself...

Chapter 73: Magolor's Return

Everyone gasps.

There's no way...

And yet, Magolor, alive, safe and sound, without anything remaining from the battle, is floating down the ramp.

Everyone immediately take their weapon, Dedede thankful to have thought to go take a new hammer before the start of the banquet. Even Marx has taken his monstrous form, having been told what Magolor had in mind for him. Sweetie Belle is ready to knit Spiky into Spikezilla, and Adeleine is ready to unleash the painted Ice Dragon.

Magolor raises his hands in surrender. "Wait! Wait! Don't attack me! I don't mean any harm!"

Sweetie Belle, Dedede, Bandana Dee, and Meta Knight stare at him in suspicion.

"Really! What could I do against all of you at the same time? You were able to destroy the Master Crown despite it unleashing all its powers, for God's sake! What would be my chances?"

More suspicion.

"And I'm not planning to create a black hole like the previous time or to backstab you. Without the crown, my black holes aren't as powerful, and I know the backstabbing wouldn't work. You're prepared for it. Just give me a chance, please. I see that you've given one to Marx despite what he's done."

"Marx didn't try to kill us the moment he revealed his intentions," says Sweetie Belle.

"Actually... If I had known that you and Kirby were strong enough to oppose me despite my acquired powers, I would've tried to kill you too," replies Marx.

"Oh..."

"Listen. I... I regret..." Magolor starts saying, looking down in sadness. "I wanted to protect the universe from monsters... But then, I became a monster. When you defeated me, and the crown took control of me, it turned me into what I truly was. I could only watch as I couldn't control myself anymore. Then, I started feeling the corruption of the crown entering my mind, until I wanted to spread suffering and destruction. For one moment, I became like the Dark God. Pain, despair, loneliness, hate... All those dark feelings that had invaded me, I wanted everyone to feel them." He looks back up, at the others. "This is what my actions as God-King of the universe would have caused. I wanted to stop evil, but I would have only caused suffering by forcing everyone to act like my perfects little puppets of goodness. I was not better than those that I wanted to fight. Never again. The universe, even the Dream Universe, is not all white. It could have been back then, but the Ancients made errors, and nothing can be done to fix it, and certainly not by force."

"This is what we tried to tell you when we fought you," says Meta Knight.

"And I refused to listen. Maybe the crown had already started corrupting my mind without me remarking, or maybe I'm just that stupid, but the fact remains that after tasting all that pain and despair, I don't want to cause innocent people to feel them. Not anymore. I still want to help the universe, but not this way." He closes his eyes, starting to cry. "All of this to say... I'm sorry. I wanted at least to say this before leaving."

When he opens his eyes, Magolor is surprised to see Kirby just in front of him, looking at him without doing anything else. Then, he raises his right arm with a smile. "Poyo."

Slowly, not believing it, Magolor raises his hand and grabs Kirby's. "You're too good, Kirby."

"Poyo."

Sweetie Belle rolls her eyes, smiles, and approaches the two of them. "Then I'm too good too. After all, I'm the first one who gave Marx a chance despite what he's done. So alright, I'm giving you a chance. I can see that you really regret what happened. And you had good intentions."

Dedede huffs, lowering his hammer. "If this happens again, you're dead."

One by one, the others lower their weapons, and approach Magolor.

"Even if you don't want anymore to force people to 'help' them, you still can fight evil and defend them, like us," says Meta Knight.

Magolor nods. "You're right. I can do that, at least."

"Ahahah. Welcome to the club of bad guys that learned their lesson!" shouts Marx, getting to Magolor's left. "We've cookies, embarrassing stories of how we got our butt kicked by Kirby and Sweetie Belle, and even a board game where we conquer the world."

"Really? Can we backstab in this game?"

"Of course! It's how I always win!"

"Then prepare to lose for the first time! I'm unbeatable thanks to my wonderful schemes."

"Ah! You can dream! I made the sun and the moon fight each other to manipulate Kirby!"

"That's nothing! I could do it with my eyes closed!"

"Ah yeah?!"

"Yeah!"

"Okay you two, you can banter all you want inside the castle. We've a banquet still ongoing," says Dedede.

"Yeah. Don't make me use the fan," says Adeleine.

"The fan?"

"Yeah... The fan..." say both Dedede and Sweetie Belle, gulping, which makes Kirby laugh.

"Well, I can't wait to go to this banquet!" says Magolor in joy, the others not sure if he's faking it in fear of Adeleine's fan. "This explains why Sweetie belle looks like she's pregnant."

"Hey!" shouts Sweetie Belle, her cheeks burning.

Kirby starts rolling on the floor in laughter, quickly joined by Broom Sunglasses.

---

Back in the banquet hall.

"But how did you come back? We thought you died after you disappeared," says Sweetie Belle.

"After the crown's destruction, I found myself transported by its power somewhere beyond space and time. It was... strange. There were ruins and creatures right out of Popstar and Halcandra, and many Doomers. I'm really not sure what this place was. But I had lost my powers so I had to search for pieces of a big and powerful crystalized apple which helped me recover them. Then, I ended up fighting the Master Crown who survived its destruction and followed me to this weird dimension. It merged itself with the apple and became a huge tree that transported me to... I'm not sure if it was an illusion, but I found myself in Halcandra in the middle of its destruction. So, anyway, I fought the huge crowned tree and, taking a trick from Kirby, I used a sword that I turned giant to destroy it, destroying the Master Crown for good which left behind an apple. I was then transported with the apple to an alternate version of Popstar, in a village. There, I planted the apple which grew into a giant apple tree which would make more apples for me to recover more power. However, being the nice guy that I am, I used these apples as a currency to help a group of four Kirbys fight threats. Basically, they were giving me the apples and I gave them in return weapons and armors. By the time the Kirbys were done with their quest, I had recovered all my powers and some. The Lor Starcutter then appeared, ready to transport me back to Popstar. It seems like it understood that I was regretting everything, and decided to come save me. After that, I returned to Halcandra to repair the Lor before coming here. Popstar is a really nice world, and I wouldn't mind remaining here some time before starting my next project."

"So the Master Crown was still alive? Darn!" Sweetie Belle exclaims. "Good job destroying it."

"Thanks!"

"Your next project?" asks Meta Knight, not without some suspicion.

"Nothing bad! Do you remember when I said that I found a portal door to Halcandra? I found it in a world full of ruins of the Ancients. Well, I plan to return to this world to build back the civilization." He takes some spherical device and gives it to Sweetie Belle. "Here's a map to this world if you're curious. When you push that button here, it will indicate the way, no matter where you are."

Sweetie Belle presses the button, and she finds herself surrounded by a map of the space around Popstar, with its name, and the name of the neighboring worlds written above them. A red line starts from Popstar and continues beyond the limit of the map. Laughing, Magolor touches the line, and the map moves to its other extremity, showing a planet that looks like a ring with many ruins visible on the surface.

Its name: New Halcandria.

"It was simply named 'the Gateworld 2' before, but I decided to name it New Halcandra to symbolise the new beginning," says Magolor. "I wouldn't be surprised if Halcandra appears near this world in the future once it fully enters this universe. There was another world like this one, like the '2' in the old name suggests, but it has been destroyed by the Dark God when the exiled mages used it to invade Halcandra. You can see the remains over there," he says before using his fingers to move the map until showing a big group of asteroids, some of them clearly forming an arc and having ruins.

Looking at the remains of the world in sadness and horror, Sweetie pushes the button, closing the map. "Thank you, Magolor."

"But before that, while I'm still in Popstar, I want to do a little something to make up for what I've done. Give me a few weeks, and you'll see. But I'll need a list of Kirby's abilities, and a recount of all your adventures."

Hearing this, at least half the people listening to him raise an eyebrow in suspicion.

Magolor waves his hands in panic. "It's nothing bad! I swear! This isn't an excuse to find all your weaknesses and use them against you! Besides, I'm really curious to hear how you defeated Zero."

---

Sweetie Belle opens the door to her room before slowly walking in it , groaning, followed by Spiky. Dissy closes the door behind them before saying "Oh dear. A zombie has entered the room."

"Very funny Dissy," replies Sweetie as she starts taking off her clothes.

Dissy sighs. "You know what's more annoying than being called Dissy? It's that I can't take my revenge by doing the same thing to you. How could I give you a sweeter name than 'Sweetie'?"

Sweetie giggles. "One advantage I have over you." She places Yin and Yarn, before climbing her bed with difficulty, and finally settling on her back while rubbing her very bloated belly. Spiky jumps on the bed before curling beside her. "I knew this would happen... I love Dedede's banquets, but I hate them too. How has nobody in this castle become obese yet?"

"Because nobody seems to gain weight at all no matter how much they eat?"

"The perks of not being from this universe... Only Dedede seems to be able to gain weight in the lot, and even then, he doesn't seem to have gained a single pound since I appeared here despite all the food in eats. Now that I think about it, that's strange. How is he big if he doesn't gain weight?"

"Why not ask him?"

"Not now... I still don't believe that Magolor is alive, but I'm glad he's. He was like Meta Knight, he had good intentions, but the wrong way."

"Do you think he still wants to be the ruler of the universe?"

"If yes, then I'm sure that this time, he wouldn't do anything bad. He really seems sincere. However, he forms a scary duo with Marx."

"Oh yes! I never laughed so much than when those two pretended to fuse. Everyone's face! BWAHAHAHAHA!!"

"You have no idea how it is scary to think of what a fusion of those two could do."

"Anyway. What do you think Magolor is preparing?"

"No idea. It has something to do with Kirby's abilities and our adventures, so... Maybe a museum?"

"Or a video game? I would love a video game!"

"Playing myself would be fun," agreeds Sweetie Belle before she leaves her bed and goes to her desk. Sitting on the chair, she takes a paper and starts to write.

"Writing a letter?" asks Dissy.

"Yes, to tell everypony back home about Magolor. They wouldn't understand if they suddenly see Magolor alive and now my friend. Oh, and also about Spiky."

"I will make sure to ask my real self what will be Spike's reaction to this."

"I'm sure the Spikezilla part will make up for the pet part. And like I said, that's the best I could do. As for Magolor, if I decide to use the Lor Starcutter to return home, he will probably be the one piloting it, so I don't want anypony bucking him if they see him."

"The Lor can pilot itself, Magolor is not forced to come."

"Still, just in case."

"And don't forget to warn Rarity that you're waiting for a foal."

"What?"

"What, you aren't pregnant?" Dissy asks before teleporting just in time to avoid a magical beam.

---

A few days later.

"A... theme park?" asks Sweetie Belle in wonder upon seeing the various attractions and other things that are being built by many people and robots that Magolor has recruited.

"Exactly," shouts happily Magolor. "A theme park! Themed on Kirby's adventures and abilities! Soon, you will be able to fire on holograms of Dark Matters with a laser gun -not the harmful type, of course- in The Invasion of Darkness! You will ride on the Roller Coaster of Heroes, unless you'll prefer the Phantom Train of Evil! Or if you prefer something more calm, then there will be «he's a small ball» where you will ride on a boat and watch hundreds of little animatronics of Kirby happily sing and fight the bad guys. Of course, not all attractions will be about Kirby or the villains. I'm planning for example a carousel with the various form that you take when Kirby is on your back. And since Kirby, Dedede, and you like eating-"

"I don't like eating! The food here is just too delicious!"

"There will be many stands for food and a few attractions based on food. There will be at least one Gourmet Race each day, opposing ten racers at the same time. I'm even doing a race on boats like you had on Aqua Star."

"You didn't have to do this much Magolor."

"I know," he says, laughing. "But that's not all I'm doing. Follow me." Then, as they start walking, Magolor continues. "While I hope that you will love this theme park, I also thought that it would be nice if I could do something that could help you against the Dark God."

"Fighting at our side would be enough."

"Yes, but I was thinking about preparing Kirby to better face him. You see, you all can train like you want, you have directly access to all your abilities, but Kirby, he can't. If he wanted to train to better use his Jet ability for exemple, he couldn't, because he would have to find and inhale the right being, like a Capsule J first."

Sweetie nods. "I see what you mean. You're doing something for that?"

"Yes."

At this moment, they come in front of a huge cubic building also currently being built.

"Inside this building, there will be a giant empty room. However, thanks to the technology of the Ancients, Kirby, as well as you and the others, will be able to fill it like you want to train. If Kirby wants to train with the Sword ability for example, then he'll just need to push a button with the sword symbol, and the room will be either filled with an obstacle course adapted, or many enemies, depending on the mode he'll choose, and also the difficulty. Note that the obstacle course will never be the same twice, and that more than one button can be pushed at the same time to create complex courses. As for you and the others, there'll be buttons with your faces on them. There will even be a button for Kirby to train without any abilities! I'll make sure to come back every once in a while to update and include any potential new move you may develop, unless I find someone that will be able to replace me."

"That's wonderful Magolor!" shouts Sweetie Belle happily. But then, she groans. "This means that Kirby will become even stronger..."

"Oh yeah, you want to defeat him one day. Don't worry, Kirby isn't the only one that's becoming stronger."

"Yes, this just means that it will take even longer for me to defeat him. If this continues, I'll reach adulthood before... But, you know, there's a little problem with Kirby. All he cares about is eating, napping, and playing with his friends. Training isn't really his thing."

"That's what I thought, that's why I will install a system of rewards. For the courses, if he's able to finish them in a given time, he'll receive food. The better the time, the more he'll get food, and the better the food will be. Same if he chooses to fight enemies by waves. He'll get food depending on the number of waves he passed before getting 'killed'."

Sweetie Belle sighs at this. "Me and the others will also get food as reward, right?"

"Of course! You must be rewarded for your efforts!" He pretends coughing. "You're not forced to eat it, if you're worried about..."

"Yeah, I know. I will give it to Spiky if I want. But knowing me, if there are cakes, candies, ice creams, or cookies, I'll have a hard time resisting. I'm becoming too much like Dedede."

"So you like eating!"

"I like sweets! But this doesn't mean that I like eating tons of them! I'm not to that point! Because contrary to Dedede, eating so much has an effect on me!" She crosses her forelegs in annoyance. "If I could eat like him and not gain any weight, then yes, I would like to eat, and I would devour mountains of cakes, cookies, and anything else without minding."

"Sorry for you."

"Anyway, after everything you're doing for us, I should do something for you, so... would you like to have a role in our series? The time of a few episodes at least, since you will eventually leave Popstar?"

"I would love to! I always dreamed to put my acting talents into use in front of a camera."

"Yeah... Your acting talents..."

Thus, in the series, Magolor will be known as Magolor the Dark Wanderer. A vagabond wizard from space using magic of darkness who will help Sweetie Belle fighting the Dark Matters the time of his stay.

His character will immediately become the second most loved one in the series behind Sweetie Belle, because Magolor can't help but play dark and cool, which people love. But he's not able to beat Sweetie's cuteness.

---

"So, you want me to train you into using Dark Matter magic?" asks Magolor.

Sweetie Belle nods. "Everything to become stronger and one day beat Kirby."

"Alright. But not here. Let's go inside the Lor Starcutter."

The Lor Starcutter has remained where Magolor has left it on the ramparts of Dedede's castle, so it doesn't take long for them to enter it, Spiky following them.

"Hello Lor Starcutter," says Sweetie Belle once inside. Knowing that the ship has a mind of its own, she has taken the habit to say it every time she enters it, even if the Lor has yet to reply. "So, what now?" she asks to Magolor.

"Now, we return to the other dimension!"

"What?! But doesn't it have collapsed after the Master Crown's destruction?"

"A part of it collapsed, but not all. But what remains has been made worse, so expect a multiplication of wild rifts between the other dimension and this universe. Thankfully, the majority of the Doomers were exterminated by the collapsing."

"But why do we need to go to the other dimension?"

"To learn how to use Dark Matter, you'll need to learn how to draw the Dark Matter in the environment, because..." He waves at Sweetie Belle to continue.

"Because we don't produce Dark Matter. The Dark Matter only comes from outside."

"Exactly! The problem is that because the Dream Universe has been created from dreams with some Heart and Soul put in there, there isn't much Dark Matter. You could still try to learn how to draw it here, like I did, but it would take longer, and it would be harder. However, the other dimension is full of Dark Matter, so learning how to draw it should be a matter of hours at worse, or of minutes at best. The best would be to go to the void between the dimensions since Dark Matter is the energy of the void, but it would be too dangerous. Who knows what is hiding in the void..."

"Okay. I understand. Let's go to the other dimension then."

Magolor doesn't even tap anything on the keyboard before the Lor Starcutter takes off, opens a portal, and flies through it.

"The joy of using a ship with a mind..." says Magolor with a laugh.

"Thank you Lor Starcutter!"

Magolor looks at the screen showing the outside. Yep, they are in the other dimension. It's the same mess of chaos with solid space here and there, and even a real star shaped like a cube of all things.

"Okay. Now, we must exit the Lor. It'll be easier to draw Dark Matter outside, there's too much Dream Matter inside the ship."

The Lor Starcutter opens the door, and Sweetie Belle and Magolor exit the ship, Sweetie Belle using a shield platform to move in space.

"And now, we can start." Saying this, Magolor puts a blindfold around Sweetie Belle's eyes. "Now, try to feel-"

"I already feel it, I think."

"What?!"

"Back home, experimented ponies can feel the magic around them, which is a form of energy. For unicorns, it's easier. I couldn't back then, but thanks to Knuckle Joe's training, I was able to learn to feel energies, starting with the one coming from my soul. But since then, I never focused on this, prefering to train to better use my energy and my magic, and to become stronger. But now that I think about it, I could have helped searching for the crystal shards, or the Energy Spheres thanks to it. The instant you said that I would need to draw Dark Matter, I knew that I would have to feel it first, so I've done like back at Knuckle Joe's training, only, instead of feeling inside me, I felt outside me. And now, I can feel four energies around me. I recognize the same one as the one coming from my soul, the Soul Matter, only there aren't much. There's that energie that feels like the love barrier that princess Cadance and Shining Armor used at the wedding, but different, which I suppose is Heart Matter, and like Soul, there aren't much. There's the energy that was coming out of the crown and that I could feel even without focusing, which I suppose is Dream Matter, which, by the way, feels a little like my magic, and there is much more of it, probably leaking from the Dream Universe. And there's that fourth energy that is everywhere, and that feels empty. It reminds me of when I was possessed by that Dark Matter... That's Dark Matter, right?"

"You're right, that's Dark Matter. Very impressive. But that was the easy part. Now you have to draw it."

At this, Sweetie frowns. She has never learned to draw magic from the environment back at Equestria, and has never learned to do anything like that since coming here. But learning it, with all this energy around her...

I'm an idiot! I should have trained earlier to draw energy from around me! I would be able to do my most powerful attacks without getting tired so quickly! I could have become much more powerful a long time ago! Maybe I would have already beaten Kirby!

So she starts focusing on the Dark Matter around her, trying to find out how to will it to come to her. She knows the key is her horn, and to a lesser extent, her hooves, so she starts using them to try to draw the Dark Matter like she uses them to draw magic and Soul Matter from inside her.

Excepted... To help her draw those energies from inside her, she has that... system... she doesn't remember what it's called, that guides the energy through her body to her extremities, mainly her horn, but also her hooves, and like she has understood when she has started throwing cutter blades, even her tail (the fleshy part, not the hairy part). Wings too if she had them. But to draw the Dark Matter from outside to those parts, there's nothing.

She has to create a system to guide the Dark Matter to her.

It takes many difficult minutes of fail and retry, but eventually, she's able to create some magic lines, invisible to the eye, that are able to draw the Dark Matter around her to her horn, and to form it into a ball of darkness like Magolor's black orbs at the end of it. Thankfully, the Dark Matter being all around her, she just had to create very short lines to reach it. But now, she's slightly winded. Creating those lines and using them to draw the Dark Matter before assembling it into a ball has taken a great amount of effort.

She hears Magolor clapping. "Good job Sweetie Belle! You did it. As you can see, this is not the perfect solution for unlimited power, but once you master it, coupled to the physical endurance you develop, you will be able to fight for hours without getting tired, at the condition that you don't decide to spam huge attacks from the start."

"Thank you Magolor."

"Do you want to continue?"

"Yes. I'm not too tired yet."

---

A few minutes later.

"Magolor, throw one of your black balls at me."

"Uh? You're sure? You're still blinded."

"I want to start training to avoid attacks just by feeling their energy. This way, it'll be easier for me to avoid attacks coming from behind."

"Clever! Okay, be ready! But... You know that it's not perfect, right? My body releases energy, but if I was to punch you, you couldn't tell which hand I would be using or its exact trajectory. Same with weapons if they aren't coated in energy."

"But at least, things like lasers or energy balls shouldn't be a problem anymore. Against the Dark God, it should be very useful."

"Better than nothing, yes. Ok, here I come!"

---

Sweetie Belle collapses on the floor inside the Lor Starcutter, exhausted and injured. Maybe she should have waited a few hours to rest a little before starting that second training. And gosh, despite not having the crown anymore, Magolor is still a powerful wizard!

"Let's return to Popstar so you can rest."

"Yes. Thank you." That's when Sweetie Belle sees Spiky bringing a Maxim Tomato to her. "There's food here?"

"Of course! Remember the fridge? During my stay, I filled it with Popstar's food, including a few Maxim Tomatoes, just in case. I'm actually thinking of turning a room into a food generator with the help of the Dream Matter generated by the Lor. This way, we will always have something to heal no matter where we go with the Lor, and we will never starve even if we find ourselves in a long journey. And I'm speaking of in other dimensions, not the Dream Universe where food is everywhere."

"Uh... Won't food in other dimensions not heal us anymore?"

"Thanks to the Dream Matter of the Lor, they will always heal us."

"Great!"

---

Magolor cuts the red ribbon.

"Welcome to Kirbyland!"

Sweetie Belle's Carousel

Sweetie Belle is sitting on a seat looking like her Fire form that is slowly moving up and down while turning around the center of the attraction. All seats are actually looking like one of her different forms, and a music box version of the song she has sung with Kirby at the party after Zero Two's defeat is playing.

Gonna start slowly and not do all the big attractions right away. And heck! It's an attraction about her, so enjoy!

Dedede's Dinner

She takes a ball that looks like a giant watermelon, and waits for the big statue of Dedede in front of her to open its mouth before throwing it.

An attraction that focus on Dedede's appetite rather than his hammer, fun!

he's a small ball

He's a small ball after all
He's a small ball after all
He's a small ball after all
He's a small, small ball

"Ugh. By the end of this ride, I'm gonna have this song stuck in my head for years," complains Dedede.

"But the animatronics are so adorable!" replies Sweetie Belle.

The Invasion of Darkness

Sweetie Belle fires a laser from her gun, and the holographic Dark Matter disappears. Quickly, she lowers herself to let Bandana Dee fire at another Dark Matter while she herself fires to another one coming from the opposite direction.

Maybe she should ask Magolor to create a real laser gun for her? Nah.

Marx' Maze of Madness

Up, down, left, right, twist, turn, moving, upside down, spinning, fake mirrors. This maze is turning her crazy! Where's the exit?!

The Lor Starcutter

It's not the real one. This one has a few rows of seats on the top, and moves like a pendulum. There's a second one that can do full circles!

Poor Broom Sunglasses is clinging to her in panic.

"You, you'll not go on the roller coaster, right?"

"Never! I would die!"

Vul's Wheel

Even him has gotten an attraction. A giant statue of him is fakely holding a Ferris Wheel that looks like the wheel of the Halberd. Perfect to have a great view of the park, and of a great part of Dreamland.

It's beautiful.

---

Many hours of fun later, testing as many attractions as she could, tasting the delicious and original recipes that many of the stands are proposing freely, watching small movies that resume their adventures, and getting goodies, Sweetie Belle leaves the theme park with Kirby, Dedede, Meta Knight, and Cape Knight, following Magolor as they go to the cubic building that's also finished.

"Best theme park ever!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

"Poyo!"

"Mmhmmhmmh mmhmmh mmhmmhmmh mmhmmh Arg! I can't stop humming this song!" shouts Dedede.

"It was amazing Magolor. You're really good at designing a theme park," says Sweetie Belle to Magolor.

"Thank you. I worked hard to create it. I'm glad you all loved it."

"Now I can't wait to see this new training building."

"And I will happily give you a demonstration with Kirby."

Not long after, they enter the building, entering a small room with a single console full of buttons in front of the entrance, a big window revealing the next room, which is a giant empty room that takes all the building, and a door leading to this room. Magolor goes to the console and presses two of the black buttons at the left, before waving at the console.

"Go on Kirby, press the button of your choice, but not the black ones, they are for the difficulty and to decide if you want to do a parkour, or a fight. Right now, I've activated the mode parkour at the easiest difficulty."

With Magolor's prompt, Kirby approaches the console, looking at all the buttons on it. He easily recognizes the symbol on all of them, each representing one of his abilities, or him without abilities, as well as his friends, exactly like Magolor said. Thinking for a moment, he decides to press the second button, which is the one with the Sword ability, the first button being the one without any abilities.

Immediately, the room at the other side of the window is plunged in light, and beside the console, a hole opens in the floor, and out of it comes some pedestal with the hologram of him with the Sword ability.

"Step on it," says then Magolor.

Kirby nods, and steps on the pedestal. The next instant, he finds himself possessing the Sword ability as if he had inhaled a Sword Knight or a Blade Knight or whatever else that gives this ability.

Then, the light in the other room disappears, and the door opens, revealing that it is now filled with walls, platforms, and various obstacles forming a parkour. Bronze, silver, and gold coins are also floating here and there.

"Your goal is to reach the finish line as fast as possible while collecting all the coins you can. Bronze coins are 10 points, silver coins are 100 points, and gold coins are 1000 points, and if you get hit by anything, you will lose 200 points," explains Magolor. "The better your time, the more you collect coins, and the less you're hit, the better is your score. The better your score is, the better the reward is: more and better food."

The instant he hears that the reward for a good score is more and better food, Kirby enters the room and starts the parkour, going as fast as he can while making sure to avoid the obstacles and to collect the coins.

"And this is how it works," says Magolor to the others. "There's not much to show for the fight mode. it simply consists of surviving as many waves of enemies as possible. In the bigger difficulties, there'll be the bigger enemies like Bonkers or Fire Lions, and at the top difficulties, you'll end up fighting the really powerful enemies you encountered in your adventures, like Whispy Woods, Kracko, the Grand Doomer, or HR-H. The highest difficulty is pretty much what you would call a boss rush."

"Oof... As strong as we've become, I don't think we would survive long just fighting those guys one after another," says Dedede.

"Unless we go in together," says Sweetie Belle. "We can, right?" she asks to Magolor.

"Yes, of course! If you, Kirby, Dedede, Meta Knight, and Bandana Dee wanted to go in like the good old times, then press the five respective buttons -Kirby will have to choose his ability- before entering. However, little warning in case you do that: the enemies will be stronger to compensate."

"Wait. Does this mean that we could fight the Master Crown possessing you again? Or Zero? Dark Mind? Dark Nebula?"

"I... avoided putting them in there. I thought that it would be too much. But if you want, I could add an ultimate difficulty where you would end up fighting them one after another."

"Do it," says Sweetie Belle, Dedede, and Meta Knight at the same time.

---

Later.

Sweetie Belle is on the rampart of Dedede's castle, beside the Lor Starcutter with Spiky, Kirby, Dedede, Bandana Dee, Marx, and Magolor.

"It was nice to be here. I had so much fun. Like I thought, Popstar is a very nice planet to live in. I'll make sure to come back often," says the egg-shaped alien.

"And we will make sure to visit New Halcandra one day," says Sweetie Belle.

"I'll make sure to prepare the traps," says then Magolor.

...

He starts laughing. "I'm kidding."

After that, bidding each other goodbye, Magolor enters the Lor Starcutter, and the ship takes off before opening a portal and disappearing in it.

"He's still a trickster," says Dedede with a huff.

"That's why he's my best pal!" says Marx.

"Making the two of you our worst headache..."

---

A few days later, in the middle of the night.

Sweetie Belle is sleeping peacefully in her bed, Spiky curled between her legs.

Until everything suddenly starts shaking. In just a few seconds, Sweetie Belle jumps out of her bed and takes her whip, alert while trying to keep her balance.

An earthquake? It has never happened since she has appeared here. Well, she is here for less than a year, which is not much time to judge if there are many earthquakes in an area. The thing is, this is Dreamland, in planet Popstar, the planet where every bad guys in the universe seem to take their turn trying to conquer it, so who knows is this earthquake is not caused by one of them?

With this in mind, she quickly runs to the window in the hope of seeing something. And seeing something, she does! She sees that the castle is somehow leaving the ground!

"What the..."

"Roar?" she hears Spiky roaring cutely in confusion.

"The castle is..." A vine then creeps into her room from the window. "Wait. No way." She returns looking outside, this time looking down at the walls, and discovers...

That the castle is being lifted into the sky by a giant beanstalk.

"You're kidding me..."

"What's going on?" she hears Yin and Yarn ask.

"We are being lifted by a beanstalk..."

...

"You aren't kidding?"

"Nope."

"Well... This is unexpected," she then hears Dissy beside her. "What will you do?"

Sweetie Belle starts putting on her clothes. "Join Dedede and see with him how we will get the castle back on land. And prepare ourselves for possibly another adventure. Sorry Spiky, but I'll have to knit you into your doll form."

"Roar..."

"I know, but we must be prepared."

Once she has everything, clothes, whip, Yin and Yarn, and Spiky doll, she exits her room and runs toward Dedede's chamber, only to be told by his guards that he has already left it and is now in the throne room, so she joins him here.

"Ah, Sweetie. Do you know the situation?" asks Dedede upon spotting her coming.

"The castle is lifted by a beanstalk. Anything else?"

"Nothing so far. But we were wondering where this beanstalk comes from."

"And we've got a bad feeling about this," says Cape Knight.

At this moment, the castle stops shaking. One of the Waddle Dees near the windows looks outside and says "We've stopped rising."

"How high are we...?" asks Dedede.

"....High enough than a cloud just passed in front of me."

"Great... How are we getting out of this mess?"

"The castle is totally wrapped by the beanstalk," says a Bronto Burt. "We will need to cut it to free yourself."

"Fool! The castle would fall, and everyone that can't fly with it," replies another Waddle Dee.

Dedede then yawns. "It's too late to think of a way to get out. My brain needs sleep. We will continue thinking of a way tomorrow morning."

"The castle has been lifted by a giant beanstalk!!!" they suddenly hear Bandana Dee yell as he enters the throne room.

"You're a little too late, Bandana," says Sweetie Belle. "Go around the castle and double the guards. If they see anything fishy, then they must wake us immediately."

"Okay!"

"Wait, no, triple the guards."

"Okay!"

---

Surprisingly, nothing happens during the night. So once morning comes, all the leaders gather in the throne room to continue the discussion of last night and answer this question: How will they get the castle back down?

"I fear we will have to rebuild it..." says Bandana.

"I would rather avoid it," replies Dedede as he taps his chin. "I know! We will attach everyone that can fly in the army to the castle, and they will lift it and deposit it back at its place!"

Sweetie Belle raises an eyebrow. "Will every flying creatures in the army be enough to lift the whole castle?"

"If not, then we can always use balloons."

"The problem with balloons is that we don't know where we will land. We could find ourselves in the ocean," comments Cape Knight.

"Mmmh... The Warhammer? Maybe?"

"It could work."

"INTRUDER!!!" suddenly yells a guard entering the room. "Someone has entered the castle! He's beating all the guards that get in the way!"

"It's only now that there's an intruder? The night was the best moment to attack the castle," says Sweetie Belle.

"Any info on the intruder?"

"He's some kind of flying spider that uses magic. And we think he's coming-"

The guard hasn't time to finish, finding himself propelled forward by some purple energy coming from behind.

Entering the room, like the guard has described, is some spider whose body hovers above the ground, six disembodied hands at his sides, but no feet. He doesn't look that threatening with his red scarf and his rather small size, the only things making him look threatening being his rather cute looking two fangs protruding from each side of his mouth, his curved horns, and his jagged cape (not counting the disturbing fact that, as a spider, he possesses eight eyes, with two white ones on his face, two orange ones above them in his hair, and most disturbing of all, four orange ones at the back of his head, which they can see when he turns around to attack the guards that come from behind), but Sweetie has learned to not judge someone by their looks. Marx and Magolor have proven to her that you can look non-threatening, but be very dangerous. And before that, there was the parasprite incident.

And there's the fact that he's easily beating everyone that attack him. In the space of a few seconds, all the guards in the room are KO. Bandana Dee and Cape Knight also try to stop him, but the spider expels them with some kind of magical shockwave, and nothing remains between him, and Sweetie Belle and Dedede.

"Who are you?" asks Dedede.

"Oh, sorry, how rude I am. I enter a castle, and I don't even present myself to the king. My name is Taranza." And without warning, he charges a magical ball and fires it at Dedede. A shield quickly appears in the way, stopping the attack.

"Do you really think that I would let you harm him?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"Out of my way."

Taranza does the same magical shockwave as previously, but Sweetie jumps back to avoid it, takes her whip, and attacks him with it. Taranza floats to the left, dodging it, then flies back.

"Amazing. You seem to be quite the experimented fighter to be able to counter me."

"Ah!" shouts Dedede proudly, pointing a finger at Taranza. "Sweetie Belle is the strongest, most powerful warrior in this castle! You've no chance against her!"

"Oh really now? This isn't you?"

"Erh... I'm still strong enough to clobber you!"

"Oh! Goodness me! I almost got the wrong person! This would have been bad."

Suddenly, Taranza shoots a magic string at her that she dodge. This string is followed by a few others that also doesn't hit. So Taranza starts throwing big dark magical ball at a surprising speed for their size, and Sweetie Belle is forced to protect herself with a shield. While behind her shield, she creates two swords of ice that she immediately throws at Taranza, who easily breaks them with his magic, but is forced to stop attacking for this. Sweetie Belle takes the occasion to run toward him, prepared to punch him in the face, only for Taranza to smirk.

Then, as Sweetie Belle is just in front of him, Taranza puts two of his hands in front of him and creates a ball of strings all around Sweetie Belle, who finds herself immobilized.

"Caught you."

"What?"

Sweetie Belle tries to move to get out, but little by little, she finds her strength disappearing, and before long, she finds herself in some kind of trance. She still can see and hear what's going on but... it's as if she's lost all control of her body.

"Hey!"

"Mmh?" Taranza looks up, and sees Dedede dropping toward him with his hammer.

"Release Sweetie Belle right now!"

Taranza flies back to dodge him, then starts flying toward the window. It's at this moment that Kirby enters the room, and spots Taranza flying through the window with Sweetie Belle trapped in that ball of string under him.

Sweetie Belle can't even look in despair as Taranza flies away from the castle, higher and higher in the sky.

Chapter 74: In the Spider's Web

"What did you say?!" yells Rarity.

"Sweetie Belle has been captured," repeats Discord.

"And you did nothing to save her?!"

"First: Remember, I don't intervene until she's about to be killed. Second: I'm not the one observing her, it's Dissy. He's the one that can snap his fingers anytime to save her. Third: Kirby, Dedede, and Bandana Dee are already trying to save her."

"Open a portal. I want to see the situation."

"Very well."

Discord licks the finger of his claw, then places it in the air in front of him and Rarity, and uses it to cut space, opening a portal.

"Is that a spider?" immediately asks Rarity with disgust as she looks at what the portal is showing.

Sweetie Belle is trapped in a ball that seems to be composed of purple magical strings carried under a weird flying creature which, judging by the number of eyes, and the number of hands, is a spider. Well, he misses what would probably be two feet to have the right count of (disembodied) limbs, but Rarity knows by now that some creatures in this universe don't have feet, or hands, or both.

"Yes, that's a spider. And yes, he's climbing a giant beanstalk that goes all the way to the sky, beyond the clouds."

The spider then looks below him, spots something, and starts flying faster. Discord makes the portal 'look' down, and very quickly, he and Rarity can see Kirby, Dedede, and Bandana Dee climbing the beanstalk too, the last two clearly pissed off and Kirby looking more determined than usual.

"With those three chasing him to save Sweetie Belle, this spider is as good as dead," comments Discord.

Rarity watches silently as the portal alternates between showing the spider, and his pursuers. After about one minute, the spider reaches a giant, beautiful floating island full of grasslands and forests. Rather than continue his way to climb higher, he flies toward the island, quickly followed by the heroes.

Rarity chooses this moment to go to the front of her boutique and to turn the panel from 'open' to 'closed' before returning, taking a chair, and sitting in front of the portal.

"Well then. I'll leave the portal open while I go warn the others."

Rarity doesn't answer him, the mare focusing all her attention to the portal, and her captured sister. So Discord teleports without saying more.

---

Sweetie Belle didn't know that there was a floating island so high in the sky above Dreamlands. She knows floating islands exist in Popstar, she's gone on some while climbing the Sky Tower in her previous adventure, but she's never paid attention to what is in the sky of the very kingdom she's actually living in. Sadly, since she can't move at all, she can't see much of the island she's actually on, carried by Taranza.

She knows that they're followed by Kirby and the others. Even if she hasn't been able to see them, it hasn't been hard to guess. They will chase Taranza to the end of the universe if they have to to save her. Now, she can't tell how much time has passed, but she can guess that it's already been at least one hour since she's been captured. This island seems to be really big! But her friends won't give up.

Taranza seems to try to get them killed by the various dangers of these islands, the spider flying through various places, but of course, it doesn't work. Too bad she can't see his reaction.

Eventually, Kirby, Dedede, and Bandana Dee are able to catch him. She knows because she hears Dedede ordering Taranza to stop. Surprised, the spider turns around to see his pursuers almost directly behind him. The ball, with her inside, is turned at the same occasion, and she can see her friends approaching, Bandana Dee ready to throw his spear.

But then, Taranza does something unbelievable. He turns a flower into a tree looking like Whispy! But with colored leaves that form stars with flowers among them, a green trunk formed from the flower's stem, and a little flower at the end of his nose. The flowery Whispy immediately starts attacking her friends by dropping from his flowers in the leaves big balls of pollen much like Whispy drops apples, and Taranza takes the occasion to escape, leaving the island as he continues his ascension. And judging by how he's flying slower, he's probably now thinking that he has eliminated his pursuers.

He's proven wrong just a couple dozens of minutes later, when he spotted Kirby, Dedede, and Bandana Dee, still alive, climbing the beanstalk after him.

"They survived?" she hears him almost shout. "I underestimated them. But this king did say that he was strong. So, he wasn't bluffing. Very well then, let's see how they will fare in the next island."

So there are more than one island? Well, no matter the dangers this fool will throw at her friends, they will pass through, and save her!

Sweetie Belle wonders for a moment why Taranza isn't simply fighting them, but she eventually guesses that it would be too hard for him to fight while carrying her. To where is he even carrying her? And why has he captured her? She will probably find out sooner or later.

---

Everypony has answered the call when they heard the news from Discord, and now, everypony excepted the Crusaders, who are still in school, is gathered in Rarity's home to support her. The poor mare doesn't fare well with her sister captured, and with Kirby and the others failing to catch that spider because that bug places obstacles in the way, or flies too fast. To put it simply, she's worried sick.

She was still worried before, seeing Sweetie risk her life, but at least, Sweetie was free, and could defend herself. But here, captured, stuck in some kind of trense, if the spider suddenly decides to suck her dry of her blood, she could do nothing to stop him. And no matter how much Discord repeats that Sweetie Belle risks nothing because he's here, something bad could happen so fast that not even him could snap his fingers in time to save her.

Now, her friends are constantly hugging her, comforting her, while Rainbow and Applejack are roaring one thousand and one ways they would make that spider suffer if they could get their hooves on him.

If only Kirby, Dedede, and Bandana Dee hurry to catch him... The chase has started for hours now, and the spider is reaching a second island... made of sweets?

...

"Now, I know where I'll go first if I go to Dreamland," says Pinkie.

---

Oh, Celestia. An island made of sweets. Now, her belly is roaring at her to go and stuff herself silly of all that delicious sweetness. She can't help herself but thank Taranza to force her to not move. Heck, Taranza has even ordered a bunch of Waddle Dees to use a tank that could fire giant candies to stop his pursuers!

But this island isn't only made of cakes, biscuits, or candies, Taranza has also passed curious places: one composed of jigsaw puzzles and other building toys that would make Apple Bloom cry in joy with how much she likes building stuff, and one that is none other than some weird circus full of ghostly creatures and of illusions. By the stars, some of the ghosts she has seen while in here looked like Skullys! Certainly not a circus where she will want to go to have fun! And now, she wonders if Kirby will get a new ability after inhaling those clowns.

Of course, none of this is enough to stop Team Heroes, and again, Taranza finds himself having to escape them as he enters another building where she can spot some scrolls, books, buckets of paint, and paintbrushes.

She has a bad feeling.

Quickly, Taranza turns around to face his pursuers.

"You are tenacious."

"We won't stop until you give us back Sweetie Belle!" shouts Bandana Dee, spear pointed to him.

"You will not stop, but SHE will stop you!"

Taranza raises his hands, and Sweetie Belle spots a painting floating down from a wall. The painting of...

Oh... No... You're kidding.

The painting is one of a witch with a familiar appearance, the bottom of her body ending in brushes.

Seriously? Drawcia's sister has been here, above our heads, all this time? And wait, this building, is this the artist's home? I thought he had hidden his corrupted paintings! Keeping one of the paintings in his home is NOT hidding it!

Suddenly, Taranza spins the painting before escaping. As they leave the building, Sweetie Belle can see Drawcia's sister coming out of her painting cackling almost like Drawcia.

I don't worry about their success, but I still hope she's the first painting. Too bad I'll not be able to fight her.

"Good luck to them to defeat Paintra," she hears Taranza says with a laugh. "They have no chance against her. Now I can continue in peace."

Don't be so sure, bugbrain. Soon enough, you'll have a nasty surprise. And once this is over, I'll bring Adeleine to this building. I'm sure she'll love it. I just hope I'll be able to resist eating all those sweets.

And indeed, many minutes later, she spots Kirby, Dedede, and Bandana Dee climbing the beanstalk again.

Taranza quickly spots them too. "No way!"

Yes way! Paintra was no match against them! And now, the two paint sisters are gone. All that remain is the clay statue, and Dark Crafter himself. Eh, the number of threats in the list is slowly decreasing.

More climbing later, they reach a third island with various biomes that they traverse. A giant lake with giant mineral pillars looking like carrots and with many trains transporting those minerals to unknown places. A big field of smaller floating islands and rocks surrounding plateaus and small mountains with many cliffs. Dark caves inside those mountains. And big, icy mountains with giant, beautiful fountains somehow in balance at the top of some of them.

She could pass hours watching those fountains, if that wasn't for that spider!

Among those mountains, they reach a palace that reminds Sweetie of the one they have traversed in White Wafers. Just as they reach it, Taranza starts panicking, meaning that her friends have caught up to them despite all the dangers of those mountains. So Taranza quickly flies to the top of the palace where the heroes reach him thanks to a cannon. He looks around at the clouds as Kirby and the others go back up after crashing, and he shoots a magic orb toward one of the clouds before flying away.

The cloud hit by the orb turns into Kracko. Or some clone of him.

Wait! Turning clouds into Krackos is illegal!

At least, Taranza seems to be a little tired after using such a spell. Unless he starts getting tired by this whole chase? He flew for hours through three islands without stopping and used two times this powerful animation spell, all the while carrying her, after all.

It's not long before Taranza spots that his pursuers have survived AGAIN. Growling in annoyance, he continues his climbing until reaching the next island: an island full of jungles and ruins. And in the water... Ooooh, the giant eels!

Typical.

Oh, and they traverse a haunted manor. Frankly, she's traversed so much haunted places by now, they don't even scare her anymore. Having become friend with a few ghosts in Dedede's army helps. And yet, the place has everything to be scary. She has been able to see a giant eye watching them above the front door! The inside of the manor seems to be in another dimension with a field of buildings looking like giant tombstones and a covered dark sky, there are many ghosts, flying objects, and even possessed armors.

Nothing that scare her anymore, and certainly nothing that will scare her friends.

---

"Nope! I don't want to be eaten alive by a piano! Nope nope nope!" yells Bandana Dee.

"How can a piano have fangs and a tongue?!" shouts Dedede.

---

Woah. There are many chests in those ruins. It's Dedede who will be happy. But now, Sweetie Belle is wondering what will be the enemy that Taranza will force him and the others to fight to escape. Last time they went through ruins like that, they fought a genie. So... Will Taranza reanimate a giant mummy? Provoke the wrath of the ghost of an old pharaoh or whatever?

She will discover soon enough, because her friends are catching up to Taranza again.

Taranza quickly flies to the statue of a giant snake, and uses his animation spell on it.

"Surely the Coily Rattler, the divinity of the People of the Sky, will be able to eliminate those pests."

Animation of the statue of an old divinity then. Nothing for her friends to worry about.

If Twilight was there, however...

---

"Why does it have to be a snake...?"

---

Later.

Oh! Hello Kirby, Dedede, and Bandana! Nice to see you again. So, what was it like to fight the animated statue of a divinity? Nothing? I thought so.

"Oh! COME ON!!!" she hears Taranza yelling.

If she could laugh, she would.

Ah! Take that! You can't do anything against them! What will you do now?

By now, the sun is starting to set as they approach the next island.

I can't believe it's already this late. Wait... Oh, really? A volcanic island? Come on Taranza. You can't seriously think that it will stop them? Volcanic areas have pretty much become our specialty now. You'll be more risking your life traversing this island than them.

And yet, Taranza starts traversing the island, and as Sweetie has thought, the spider has a hard time avoiding the many fireballs expelled by the volcanoes and raining almost everywhere. At least, thanks to his natural floating body, he doesn't risk falling in the lava.

Surprisingly, there are some water points in this island, but they seem to be here artificially. Also, there are more of those bucking giant eels. Taranza readies some traps, and judging the number of spiky walls, this is very bad news for her friends. Well, more exercise for Dedede.

To assure his chances, Taranza also sends some of the more powerful inhabitants of this island against them. Her friends will have to fight their way through many big creatures, like a Mr Frosty, a Grand Wheelie, and much more. But together, they'll easily defeat all of them.

But gosh, is Taranza the leader of those islands, for the locals to obey him like that?

Eventually, as Taranza climbs one of the highest volcanoes of the island, he spots his pursuers approaching. He growls, before cackling. Now flying on a narrow path in the middle of a lac of lava inside the volcano's chimney, they approach some kind of giant, fat frog actually sleeping. With what looks like a mustache and a crest looking like a crown with jewels, it reminds Sweetie Belle of what a caricature king would look like.

"Pyribbit, the terror of the volcanoes. You are my last chance to stop them before I reach the palace," says Taranza.

Palace? So those are not just a bunch of islands floating in the sky! This is a real kingdom! A kingdom in the sky! So, is Taranza the ruler? Probably not, he doesn't wear a crown. But then, who?

The spider suddenly throws a rock at Pyribbit and quickly flies away. The rock hits the frog on the head, then bounce back in Kirby's hands. Pyribbit wakes up, spots Kirby with the rock, and enters in a volcanic rage.

And this time, there's no escaping the battle. This frog will probably follow them if they try to escape. Darn you, Taranza. Well, I hope they'll not get too hard against it.

---

Kirby, Dedede, and Bandana Dee look as the frog ends up crushed in the lake of lava under four giant rock.

...

"We won't talk about it to Sweetie Belle," says Dedede.

"Aye/Poyo."

"Beside, it's not our fault if those rocks fell on it."

---

By now, the night has fallen as the ponies continue watching the spider climb the beanstalk while carrying Sweetie Belle. Just in case, Discord has teleported to them some sleeping bags, but they know that they will stay awake all night if they have to. Rarity knows she'll stay awake as long as Sweetie Belle isn't saved. She's so worried she couldn't sleep. She's barely eaten today.

But the climbing seems to be reaching its end, because the spider has now reached a sixth island. A huge island, where's built an also huge castle that would pass the Canterlot Castle for a simple manor.

This nightmare is coming to an end soon.

"Don't worry, whatever happens in this castle, they'll save Sweetie Belle," says Twilight.

---

Sweetie Belle is still mentally laughing at Taranza's reaction when he saw that the heroes defeated Pyribbit. He almost flew into the beanstalk in his surprise!

Well, after that, he said something about the guard in the palace stopping them, but this doesn't worry her.

Speaking of the palace. It. Is. Dark God darn it. HUGE! Whoever is ruling inside must be powerful!

And briefly seeing the banners beside the front doors, either the ruler is a queen bee, or has for symbol a queen bee. Unless this is a wasp? Hard to say.

Taranza passes the doors. "Close the doors!" he yells, and the doors close behind him. "Everyone get ready! Invaders are coming! Use everything you've to stop them!"

And thus, they pass beside dozens of bug creatures that start running left and right in preparation.

And then...

BOOM!

Without turning, Taranza continues his way through the castle, passing through huge rooms full of gears and weird structures going in all directions. They then reach a second part of the palace, made of giant crystal, but also of... squared, holographic-looking walls? The inside is weird. At first glance, it's just one very huge (HUGE!) room filled with giant pillar-like crystals, big floating diamond-shaped crystals, and... she's not sure what they are. They look like giant windows in space surrounded by red dotted lines and showing a red background with purple clouds(?) rapidly passing in front. But when Taranza passes a door, they appear in what seems to be the same room, but the crystals aren't in the same place.

And she swears she has briefly spotted some kind of flower fairy trapped inside a cage above one of those floating crystals.

And gosh, there are so many crystals... Maybe even more crystals than in the Crystal Empire. And if there is actually more than just this room...

They pass a second door like the first one, appearing in a third version of this same room, and continue their way through a path FILLED with big creatures, as well as with more of those flower fairies trapped in a cage. For good measure, Taranza even turns another flower into a flowery Whispy. They really want to stop her friends.

And yet, somehow, as they reach the top of a tower above the previous room, the highest point of the castle, they spot Kirby, Dedede, and Bandana Dee.

Strangely enough, Taranza doesn't react to that.

They pass a huge black double door that closes behind them, and they enter a room opening to outside, with barriers instead of walls.

The view is indescribable.

Taranza lets her cage of web float in the air beside him, and turns around when he hears the double door opening, the trio of heroes entering the room.

Sweetie Belle has a very bad feeling. He's too calm.

"To think that you've made it this far. Aren't you persistent?"

Dedede slams a foot on the floor in anger. "What do you think we would do? You enter my castle! Beat up my guards! And kidnap my second in command, which I consider my best friend!"

"Release Sweetie Belle!" shouts Bandana Dee surprisingly menacingly, spear pointed toward Taranza.

"POYO!" Gosh, even Kirby.

Taranza huffs in disdain. "Do you think you scare us?"

Us? He's probably speaking of the ruler. By the way, where is she? Sweetie Belle thinks. At this point, she's almost certain that the ruler is a queen bee (or wasp). Between Taranza who's a spider, and all the bug creatures they've encountered, it's certain.

"You've already lost," continues Taranza. "The People of the Sky thought that they could use the Dreamstalk to bring the hero of the lower world to defeat queen Sectonia and save them, but I saw through their plan. So I went down, and captured their hero, crushing all their hopes."

"Uh, you've mista-" starts saying Bandana Dee, but Dedede stops him speaking.

The penguin hides a smirk. "Oh, I see. Sweetie Belle is the hero of the lowerworld, so now that you captured her, you think that we've no chance against your queen."

In her mind, Sweetie Belle is rolling in laughter. Oh! That bugbrain mistook me for Kirby!

Taranza laughs. "You understand quickly. So, knowing this, will you still defy us?"

"Well, we managed to go through everything you sent at us so... Yes," answers Dedede.

"Yes, I must confess that you're stronger than I thought. All this to save her. So, how about I reward you?" Taranza lowers Sweetie Belle, who starts feeling weird. "I'll give you your precious hero back."

He releases Sweetie Belle who's then surrounded in a purple aura for one second before it disappears. Swirls appear in her eyes as she grabs her whip, slowly floating back to the ground. Barely visible strings appear, linking her limbs to... the air. And she stares toward the group aggressively.

Dedede and Bandana Dee gulp. "Oh..."

"But she may be a little more... hostile than you remember her!"

Rapidly, Dedede opens Kirby's mouth, takes his hammer, puts it inside, giving Kirby the Hammer ability, before taking his mecha hammer which he's been holding on his back all this time.

Properly armed and determined, the three heroes now face their manipulated friend that they've come to save.

And they'll make this spider regret this!

Chapter 75: Versus Sweetie Belle

"That monster!" yells Rainbow Dash.

"They will really fight her?" asks Fluttershy.

"They haven't a choice," answers Applejack.

As her friends look in horror and comment on what's going on, Rarity only look at what's happening in resignation. Taranza is forcing Kirby, Dedede, and Bandana Dee to fight Sweetie Belle. But... Even if her little sister will get hurt, she knows it's for the best. If they win, then they'll be able to bring her back.

But it still hurts to see Sweetie Belle like that.

---

Sweetie Belle turns her whip into its staff version before twirling it in front of her and slamming its extremity on the ground in an intimidating show of hostility, the filly now on her hind legs and Taranza moving his hands like a puppeteer. This doesn't scare the heroes who start running toward her, weapons ready.

She creates a shield that she throws at them, and they jump above it directly toward her, ready to attack. However, Sweetie Belle surrounds herself in another shield, stopping all the weapons from hitting her before she expands the shield. Already familiar with this trick, the three heroes place their feet on it to not be slammed and to let it transport them. Dedede then grabs Bandana Dee who puts his spear above him, jumps, and throws him toward the shield, Bandana Dee starting to spin. Thanks to this, Bandana successfully breaks the shield and passes through it before landing in front of the filly. The two then start exchanging attacks with their respective weapon, swinging, parrying and dodging.

Until Sweetie surprises Bandana by turning half of the staff back into a whip and wrapping it around him. With her weapon now turned into a flail, Bandana playing the role of the ball, Sweetie Belle starts using it to attack the others. Dedede is eventually able to grab the whip and uses his strength to unwrap Bandana Dee before pulling on it, propelling Sweetie Belle toward him. A few feet in front of him, Kirby is the one attacking the propelled filly with a hammer spin on the head, propelling her back and making her drop the whip.

But Dedede knows perfectly that her dropping the whip doesn't mean that the weapon is now harmless. Sweetie Belle could manipulate it with her magic anytime, so he quickly takes it and wraps it around one of the pillars of the room, making a tight knot to make sure she can't unwrap it even with her magic during the fight.

Only for Sweetie to destroy the pillar with an energy beam, almost getting Dedede who jumps back in both surprise and fright. With the pillar destroyed, Sweetie easily takes back her whip and starts working on the knot with her magic while she tries punching Kirby with her gloved front hooves turned into metal and enveloped in energy. Knowing that getting punched by those hooves would be very bad for his health, the puffball does everything he can to avoid them while attacking with his hammer, helped by Bandana who's quickly joined by Dedede.

Overwhelmed by their number and their constant attacks, Sweetie Belle surrounds herself in another shield that she extends to force them to go away before she starts using her tail to throw cutter blades. Dedede opens his mouth and starts inhaling the cutter blades sent toward him before spitting them back at the filly, who uses a mirror shield to deflect the formed projectile back at the penguin and hitting him on the belly.

Cursed mirror.

Sweetie Belle then successfully removes the knot on her whip, and starts making it snaking in the air before she jumps on it like in her previous fight against Dedede, where she starts firing projectiles after projectiles while moving around. While Kirby and Dedede use their hammers to deflect the majority of the projectiles, Bandana Dee jumps in the air, then jumps again to reach Sweetie Belle before twirling his spear, cutting the surprised filly at least a dozen times before she punches Bandana away.

Back on the ground, Bandana Dee laughs. "Eh eh. Surprise! I wanted to show it to you today."

Sweetie Belle stares at him, before she takes Yin and Yarn from her belt, the knitting needles seemingly manipulated too. Using them, Sweetie Belle knits a dozen bombs that she rains on the heroes only for Dedede to inhale them, but this time, he doesn't spit them back at her. Annoyed, Sweetie Belle takes the Spiky doll, throws it in the air, and starts knitting, making the doll bigger and bigger.

Until Spikezilla lands in front of the trio.

"Uh... Let's try to avoid killing him," says Dedede. "Sweetie Belle would be devastated."

Kirby and Bandana Dee nod, the Waddle Dee sweating a little.

Spikezilla roars, and spits fire at them. The trio easily jumps out of the way and starts attacking him in return. While they do their best to not be cut into shreds by Spikezilla's claws, Sweetie Belle then does something unexpected: she levitates Yin and Yarn who grow in size, and throws them at Kirby, who's not able to dodge them in time. The needles then start floating around with Sweetie's magic before attacking the heroes, either with slashes, thrusts, or charges.

And then, Sweetie Belle turns the magic in her whip into electricity, and starts flying around again, the whip constantly raining lightning bolts everywhere it passes, before she restarts firing projectiles at the heroes.

Kirby, seeing that he's the one that Sweetie Belle is targeting in priority, sticks his tongue out to get her attention fixed on him before running, separating himself from the others. As planned, Sweetie Belle goes after him, along with Yin, Yarn, and Spikezilla.

Now behind Spikezilla, Dedede jumps and bonks him on the head, getting back the dragon's attention, while Bandana runs after the needles, grabs Yarn who has just planted himself on the floor trying to impale Kirby, and throws him at Yin, causing the two of them to hit a pillar. Bandana quickly grabs the two of them again, and starts slamming them on the pillar and the ground. Meanwhile, Spikezilla tries again to cut Dedede with his claws, but the penguin is able to jump on his arm, and to jump again to clobber him on the head. Before he can land, Spikezilla counterattacks by spitting fire at him, burning him badly. But Dedede continues attacking the dragon despite this. As for Kirby, he continues to run while doing his best to avoid or deflect Sweetie's attacks.

Bandana Dee then throws Yin and Yarn at Sweetie Belle, and the filly, taken by surprise, is hit by the needles, and falls from the whip. Kirby takes his chance and runs toward her before swinging his hammer at her again and again and again, until he's grabbed by Sweetie Belle who suplexes him. Meanwhile, Spikezilla breathes fire at Dedede again, but this time, the penguin counters with a stream of fire from his mecha hammer. Once the dragon stops, Dedede then fires missiles at him, greatly hurting the dragon who roars in pain. Dedede then activates the jet of his hammer and starts spinning before jumping toward the dragon's head.

Bonk! Bonk! Bonk! Bonk! Bonk! Bonk! Bonk! Bonk! Bonk! Bonk! Bonk!

Dedede finishes his hammer by using the dragon's head to jump, spin again, and slam the mecha hammer on the top of his head. The dragon of yarn falls on his back against a wall, unconscious, as Dedede lands beside him, putting proudly his hammer on his shoulder.

"BWAHAHAHAHA!!! Dragons don't scare me!"

Taranza looks at the unconscious dragon of yarn, then at Yin and Yarn who have stopped moving on the floor, then at Sweetie Belle, staff in hooves, exchanging blows with Kirby, only for Bandana Dee to charge, jumps, and headbutt her on the back, opening her to the puffball's hammer.

Seeing the filly in difficulty, he starts sweating, not understanding what's going on. Since she's the hero of the lowerworld, shouldn't she be the one giving those guys a bad time? Mmh. Maybe he's overestimated the hero, and she's actually no match against those three clearly strong warriors teaming up. Even heroes have limits after all.

And despite the disadvantage, she's still fighting very well against them.

But if it continues...

That's when Sweetie Belle's whip splits into ten parts that she levitates above her as she jumps away from her attackers. All the parts then point toward them.

"Uh... This is new..." says Bandana Dee, not reassured.

"Wait, she hasn't revealed all that her whip could do in our fight?" asks Dedede.

The ten parts of the whip suddenly start firing small lasers, and the heroes quickly run to avoid them, which is not easy because there isn't much space to dodge all ten lasers which are moving. Dedede is obviously the one having the hardest time because of his size.

While trying to avoid the lasers, the heroes run toward Sweetie Belle who fires at them a Giga Force Blast. They avoid it, and attack the filly with everything they have while still watching out for the lasers. Sweetie Belle eventually creates two swords of ice and grabs them before using them to parry and attack, while some of the floating whip part turned cannon stop firing lasers only to fire other projectiles, like fireballs, fire streams, ice balls, ice spikes, ice streams, lightning bolts, lightning balls, explosive balls, water streams, strong winds, and even themselves. With all those projectiles raining on them or getting in the way, the three heroes can't stop moving, and are forced to adapt to a hit and run tactics.

Until after one last hit from Kirby, Sweetie Belle collapses, unconscious, and all the cannons fall around them.

"She was probably reserving this for her fight against Meta Knight," says Dedede, breathing heavily.

"What do you think would be his chances against this?" asks Bandana Dee, lying down back on the floor in fatigue.

"With how he kicked my butt in our fight, and if he used everything he had, I would say... 50/50, unless he has hidden moves."

Suddenly, magic looking like a lightning bolt coming from Taranza hits Sweetie Belle, and the filly starts floating as she's surrounded by a purple sphere of magic. "Let's give up all limits!" says then the spider. When the sphere disappears, the red of Sweetie Belle's cape, Dedede's symbol, and of her heart-shaped rubies turn purple, the gold of her gauntlets and circlet turn a lighter purple, and she glows with a small aura of energy. Sweetie Belle then roars toward the sky, cape floating without wind, as the ten parts of her whip start floating again. The four decorative axes in the room then start floating around her, and she coats the four of them in an element: Fire, Ice, Spark, and Wind.

She then stares at them, pure murder visible in her eyes.

The effects spread to Yin, Yarn, and Spikezilla, who wake up. The needles then start knitting alone, reforming the Yin Yarn Wizard that immediately grabs them. As for Spikezilla, nothing seems to change, but the trio knows better...

And like Sweetie Belle, the two beings of yarn stare at the trio of heroes.

And Taranza floats behind them, cackling like a madman... or madspider.

"He can do that?!" asks Bandana Dee in horror.

"He can do that..." confirms Dedede. "So, they're three, we're three, so how about we each take one? Kirby, we leave Sweetie to you. You're the only one that can defeat her. Besides, she's clearly after you."

"Poyo!"

"Bandana, you should be able to take on Yin Yarn."

"Yes, my king!"

"Which leaves the dragon to me. I already knocked him out once, so I should be able to knock him again, even boosted."

The three heroes fix their designed opponent, readying themselves. Taranza stares back at them, in his mind, his victory assured.

"Showtime!"

They charge, and Taranza immediately do a movement with his hands, followed by Sweetie's cannons forming three small circles of three cannons before firing each a single, slightly bigger laser at all three of them that they avoid by jumping. Yin Yarn separates from the others and, seeing Bandana Dee charging toward him, knits a dozen Spear Waddle Dees. Spikezilla takes a big breath, and spits a more powerful stream of purple fire at Kirby and Dedede. The penguin places himself in front and rapidly twirls his mecha hammer, deflecting the fire. Behind Dedede, Kirby slams his hammer on the floor and uses this to propel himself in the air, like a big jump, toward Sweetie Belle. Again, the cannons form three circles, and they all fire a laser at the dropping Kirby who deflect them by spinning in the air. Rapidly, Sweetie Belle grabs the tenth cannon, and out of it comes a beam sword that she uses to parry Kirby's hammer. She immediately kicks Kirby away, and sends the axes after him.

Kirby lands on his feet, and immediately jumps just in time to avoid being cut in half by the passage of the fire axe, and quickly swung his hammer to deflect the ice axe. When landing, he has to jump again and again to avoid sharp wind sent by the wind axe, and puts his hammer to parry the spark axe coming from above. The fire and ice axes choose this moment to attack Kirby from the left and the right while the wind axe continues sending its sharp winds. With a strong push, he repels the spark axe, then flatten himself against the floor, letting the fire and ice axes pass above him. A swing of his hammer destroys a sharp wind about to reach him, but he then gets hit by a laser from one of the cannons. He recovers and looks around him at the four axes and nine cannons (Sweetie still using the tenth as a beam sword), and sweats.

How can she manipulate all those weapons at the same time?

---

"She's your sister alright," says Twilight to Rarity. "As good at manipulating many objects at once than you."

"I would say that I'm proud, but in the actual situation, this is really bad news..."

---

Kirby has to jump to avoid a stream of purple fire coming from Spikezilla who's busy dealing with Dedede. The penguin has also jumped to avoid it, only to be slapped like a fly by Spikezilla's powerful claws, and he's barely able to stop himself from being propelled in the gap beyond the room by clinging to the barrier at the edge. Spikezilla then spits a dozen giant purple fireballs that all home in at Dedede, and he hides himself behind a nearly pillar to avoid them. The pillar is however destroyed by one of Spikezilla's claws, revealing Dedede to him, and he quickly uses his other claw to try to crush the penguin. Dedede does a small jump to avoid the claw, then start running on the leg before jumping on the dragon's shoulder. Spikezilla tries to grab him, and Dedede fires some missiles at it to fend it off before he does his Super Jump on Spikezilla's head, making sure to put in all his weight and helped by the hammer's jet, which slams the dragon's head against the floor.

At the same time, Bandana parries a thrust from Yin Yarn, the wizard using the needles like spears to counter Bandana's. But despite Yin Yarn having two 'spears', Bandana is much more experienced at using one, and has no problems passing the wizard's defense to cut some of his yarn into shreds. Yin Yarn flies back, and quickly starts knitting his own body before Bandana can come to him again. The wizard's form starts to change, and in just a few seconds, his body has become the one of a giant spider keeping his normal body's features with four legs finishing like the ones of a real spider and four arms, the two lower ones finishing in hands holding the needles while the upper ones finish like the ones of a praying mantis, as sharp as a scythe.

That thing comes from a horror movie, but Bandana remains focused and doesn't let his fear take over. With the needles, Yin Yarn starts knitting some Comos while he swings one of his scythe-like arms at Bandana Dee. He avoids it with a side jump, quickly eliminates an approaching Yarn Como, then approaches Yin Yarn while avoiding the other scythe. When he starts attacking Yin Yarn himself, the giant spider rapidly uses one of the needles to parry Bandana's spear, and walks forward to try to impale him with his spider legs. Trying his best to avoid the legs, Bandana takes the occasion to attack Yin Yarn's belly before rolling away when it starts to become a little too hard to dodge. He rolls again to avoid the swing of a scythe, and starts attacking the Yarn Comos that circle him. But then, the Yarn Comos spit strings at him, and he finds himself trapped in a ball of web. By instinct, he still rolls while inside it, dodging anothing swing of Yin Yarn scythes, so the giant spider decides to use them to sweep the floor, slapping the cocoon in which Bandana is trapped and propelling him right at Spikezilla's back, destroying the web. Thankfully, Spikezilla is too busy breathing fire at Dedede to pay attention to him.

Bandana lands beside Spikezilla's tail, and the Yarn Comos quickly circle him again, and the Spider Yin Yarn also approaches. Thinking quickly, Bandana looks at Spikezilla's tail, turns toward his butt, raises his spear and...

Poke!

"ROAAAR!!!"

Roaring in pain, Spikezilla uses his long neck to stare at Bandana in anger without turning, then starts sweeping the floor with his tail. As planned. Bandana jumps above the tail, but all the Comos around him are destroyed, and Yin Yarn is propelled, unexpectedly, right toward Sweetie Belle who's in the middle of a deadly dance with Kirby. Kirby spots the Spider Yin Yarn coming and jumps back, and Sweetie Belle finds herself being slammed by the giant spider and she slides until she's stopped by the barrier at the edge. The lost of her focus causes the many levitated weapons to fall, and Kirby quickly runs, passing beside Yin Yarn who's getting back up, jumps, and falls back on the recovering Sweetie Belle, crushing her under his hammer. The filly rapidly uses her strength to push back the hammer, freeing herself, before levitating all the weapons again. At the same moment, Yin Yarn starts knitting again, turning his body into the one of a giant bat, holding the needles in his legs. Meanwhile, Spikezilla fires dozens of fireballs at Dedede, who destroys them with his missiles, covering a good part of the room in explosions and smoke.

By now, all of the pillars in the room have been destroyed, and it's a wonder that the roof hasn't collapsed on them. But it has certainly been weakened.

Well then...

Dedede points his mecha hammer up, targeting the roof above the dragon, and fires. The missiles fly to the targeted destination, and explode upon impact. Rapidly, the explosions cause the roof above the dragon to collapse on him, and the destruction spreads to the majority of the roof in the room. Dedede, Kirby, Bandana Dee, Sweetie Belle, Yin Yarn, and Taranza run/fly toward the edge and fly/air jump beyond it before being crushed by the falling fragments.

While in the airs, Taranza uses the strings to make Sweetie Belle fly, and the filly takes the occasion to attack Kirby. The puffball releases the air inside him to avoid the first wave of projectiles, and quickly inflates again, making the second wave of projectiles pass just under him where he should have been if he continued to fall. To help Kirby, Dedede flies above Sweetie Belle and releases the air in him, making him drop on the filly and making the two of them fall until she uses her air jump.

All the while, Yin Yarn has been flying around with Bandana Dee on his back the Waddle Dee having clung to him after avoiding a slash from the needles with an air jump. On his back, Bandana Dee has not stopped attacking him with his spear, and the bat is starting to lose speed and height.

By now, the roof has stopped collapsing, turning a part of the tower into a pile of rubble, and the Bat Yin Yarn eventually crashes on it. Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle grabs Dedede from her back and kicks him toward the tower. Just at this moment, Spikezilla's head comes out of the rubble, roaring, only for Dedede to ram it, stunning him. Seeing this, Bandana quickly cuts the legs of Bat Yin Yarn, grabs the needles, and starts using them to knit a giant weight above Spikezilla's head. The weight falls on him before sliding of his head, the dragon roars in pain, and the head falls on the rubble, stopping moving.

Bandana raises his arms in victory. "Woohoo! I knocked out Spikezilla!"

But then, Yin and Yarn jump out of his hands and starts knitting a new body, only to be stopped by a swing of Dedede's hammer, propelling the two of them against the remains of a wall that collapses on them.

Dedede takes a proud pose. "Aah! It feels good to clobber those two!"

"The castle!" they hear Taranza yelling. Dedede and Bandana turn to look at the spider floating toward them, red in anger. Sweetie Belle is following him, still floating thanks to the string. Meanwhile, Kirby lands behind, at the edge. "How dare you destroy the queen's castle?!"

"Oh, come on, it's just a part of the roof of the tower, nothing too bad compared to the full size of this castle," says Dedede.

"And hey. It's you who started this fight here. It's your fault," says Bandana Dee.

Taranza becomes more and more red, until he's suddenly bonked on the back of his head by Kirby, propelling him in the rubble. Bandana Dee gives Kirby a high five for this.

The pile of rubble where Taranza has been sent to suddenly explodes as the spider unleashes his powers with a loud "ENOUGH!!!" before sending another lightning-like spell at Sweetie Belle. The aura around her becomes purple, and the purple of her clothes becomes various shades of black. The filly gives the biggest roar that her lungs can unleash as the smaller rubble around her, as well as her mane, tail, and cape, start floating thanks to the energy her body is now releasing, her eyes now glowing with power.

"Oh, drat!" shouts Dedede in panic.

The ten cannons form a circle around Sweetie Belle's horn, all pointing at the top of it as a ball of pure energy appears here. The three heroes immediately start to run as best as they can on the rubble, and when the filly unleashes from her horn a huge black laser, they quickly jump forward, barely avoiding being disintegrated, like everything that is in the laser's path, leaving a big hole in the tower.

Almost directly, Sweetie Belle's horn glows black, and she flies away. Almost as soon, a black hole appears where she's been, starting to suck up the rubble around. Despite the surprise of seeing Sweetie opening a black hole, the heroes rapidly think to run in the opposite direction to not be sucked, having to jump when the rubble under their feet start being aspired. The cannons start firing lasers at them, forcing them to jump more while changing direction to avoid them, until the black hole closes.

With a good part of the floor now cleared of rubble, they have less problems to keep their balance, but then, the four axes join the assault. The fire axe slams on the floor, and pillars of fire come out of the ground one after another randomly. The ice axe starts spinning, unleashing a storm of ice shards all around it. The spark axe starts glowing, and out of it comes dozens of orbs of electricity raining in front of it. The wind axe swings left and right, sending with each swing a tornado. The ten cannons start spinning, beam swords coming of both of their ends and they home in the heroes one after another. Sweetie Belle raises her hooves, and a giant orb of darkness forms above her before she throws it. The orb goes to the floor, and unleashes a huge dark explosion.

By now, Dedede and Bandana Dee are both unconscious against the remains of a wall, propelled by the explosion of the orb, and Kirby slowly goes back up beside them, covered in burns, frost bits and many cuts.

But despite how much it hurts, he must not give up. For Dreamland. For Popstar. For Sweetie Belle.

He starts running toward her. Taranza suddenly starts throwing orbs of magic at Sweetie's axes, and the filly uses the axes to deflect them at Kirby while giving them elemental effects, and Kirby moves in all directions, jumps, and slides to avoid them and the fire, ice, electricity, and wind that follow them. Taranza then creates a huge orb, and throws it at the fire axe which deflects it at Kirby. The puffball jumps out of the way, and the orb bounces on the floor, creating a fiery shockwave on it that Kirby jumps above. The spark axe deflects the orb back at Kirby who dodges it again, and when it bounces on the floor, it releases a few lightning bolts. The ice axe is the next deflecting it, and when it bounces, it causes ice spikes to come out of the floor around it, but again, Kirby just runs away from it to avoid them. Finally, the wind axe deflects the ball, and when it bounces, it creates a strong air current that almost propels Kirby against some remaining rubbles. The four axes then swing down at the ball, and it explodes on the floor, unleashing the four elemental attacks at the same time. So Kirby runs away from the ice spikes and jumps to avoid the fiery shockwave, spins in the air to avoid a lightning bolt, and places himself so when he reaches a pile of rubble because of the wind, he lands on them on his feet and bounces from them back on the floor.

Seeing that the fiery shockwave, which has now disappeared, has left an orange star near him, Kirby starts spinning and throws his hammer at Sweetie Belle, surprising her and hitting her. While she recovers from the hit, Kirby quickly inhales the star to gain the Fire ability, and immediately jumps, avoiding a laser from one of the cannons, before he spits a fireball at the filly burning her as he lands back. He continues his jumping and spitting fireballs tactic, avoiding many attacks this way while continuing attacking, but Sweetie Belle quickly creates a mirror shield, deflecting his fireballs back at him. But now, he's close enough, so he jumps again, but instead of spitting another fireball, he uses his comet attack, destroying the shield and ramming the filly.

He jumps away to avoid a counterattack, then jumps to avoid a shockwave when Sweetie Belle punches the floor. The ten cannon then surround the filly, and create a column made of lasers around her, the lasers circling her. She then starts flying after Kirby, the column of laser moving with her, forcing Kirby to run away while still avoiding the attacks from the axes. Sweetie Belle raises a hoof toward him, and from it, she unleashes dozens of black lightning, electrifying Kirby and knocking the Fire out of him. Despite the pain, Kirby inhales one of the green stars left by the lightning and gains the Spark ability.

Still running around to avoid the column of lasers and the axes, Kirby is able to surround himself in a ball of electricity that he sends toward Sweetie Belle, the ball passing through the lasers and shocking her, which causes the cannons to fall. Kirby then avoids a tornado sent by the wind axe, and releases the Spark ability before inhaling the star left by the tornado, gaining the Tornado ability. Kirby then uses it to turn into a tornado and fly around before charging at Sweetie Belle, hitting. Still a tornado, he turns around in the air and charges again, and again, and again, until Sweetie Belle recovers and punches the Kirby Tornado, propelling him and knocking away the Tornado.

Kirby quickly bounces from the floor where he's landed to avoid being hit by projectiles from the cannons, and sees the spark axe charging at him. He opens his mouth, and the axe enters it. The helmet of a knight appears on his head, and a double edged battle axe appears in his hands: the Axe Ability. With it, he deflects a fireball, then runs back toward Sweetie Belle as the filly starts firing rather big black lasers from around her at him.

He jumps left, right, left, right, deflects the ice axe, jumps right again, and jumps toward Sweetie Belle, headbutting her and bringing her back on the floor. He jumps back to avoid the laser of a cannon, and runs back toward her, swinging his axe. Sweetie Belle grabs a cannon and a sword beam comes out of it, parrying the axe. Another beam sword comes at the other end, and Sweetie starts using the double beam sword like she uses her staff, twirling it back and forth to first attack with a sword, then attack with the other from another direction, all the while the cannons are still firing and the axes are still attacking.

Kirby jumps above Sweetie Belle to avoid a big spike of ice coming from the floor under him caused by the ice axe, then twirls the axe to deflect some fireballs from the fire axe before swinging at Sweetie Belle. As he has thought, the filly parries him, so he kicks the double sword beam at the metal part between the two, getting it out of her hold, then swings his axe at her again and again. Sweetie Belle then punches the axe, destroying it, and they both jump back, Sweetie Belle creating two shields in the shape of fists that she starts to use to try to punch Kirby from a long distance.

Now without ability again, Kirby can only avoid the shield fists before he runs toward a pile of some remaining rubble and inhales them. He doesn't spit them, instead keeping them in him as he starts running toward Sweetie Belle. Bloated like he's, he can only jump and run to avoid the various attacks that rain on him, but he still succeeds to approach. Sweetie Belle takes another double sword beam, and swings it at Kirby, only for him to jump above the sword before he finally spits the rubble in him, the giant formed projectile ramming Sweetie Belle with the force of a train.

Despite this, she starts recovering, only for Kirby to grab her by the tail before slamming her on the floor at least a dozen times. When Kirby sees that all the weapons have stopped flying, he stops slamming the filly, and looks at her. She seems unconscious.

She grunts, and her eyes open, still glowing. He punches her in the face. She grunts again, another punch.

Another grunt. He grabs her, places her on his head, jumps, and falls back on the ground head first.

She doesn't grunt anymore. The purple aura around her and the strings disappear, and her clothes return to normal.

He has won. Sweetie Belle is saved.

Taking a big breath, Kirby runs back to Dedede and searches something in his finery. Quickly, he finds a bad full of food they've collected and not eaten in their adventure, and Kirby rapidly eats a Maxim Tomato before giving one to Dedede and Bandana Dee. Once done, he runs back to Sweetie Belle with the bag, only to see that Taranza is now beside her, trying to wake her up.

"Wh-what's the meaning of this?!"

Kirby punches him away from Sweetie Belle, and still keeping an eye on the spider, gives a Maxim Tomato to Sweetie Belle.

"This... This shouldn't be happening!" he hears Taranza shout. "I did just as Her Majesty commanded! The lower world should fall to its knees before me! How could I fail?!"

"How about 'by getting the wrong hero'?" proposes Dedede who's approaching Kirby and Sweetie Belle with Bandana Dee. "Good job, Kirby."

"Poyo."

"You don't mean..." says Taranza.

"Yup!" says Dedede, tapping Kirby. "This little guy is the real hero!"

"We are all heroes," corrects Bandana Dee. "But... Kirby is easily the strongest of all of us."

"And Sweetie Belle is his sidekick in most of his adventures," says Dedede.

At this moment, Sweetie Belle opens her eyes, and starts rubbing her head, grunting.

"Uugh... Why can't a Maxim Tomato stop headaches?" Before she knows it, she's hugged from all sides by her friends screaming her name. She giggles. "My heroes!"

Taranza growls. "Curse..." He then raises his hands. "Majesty! Your Majesty Sectonia!"

A rune formed with heart symbols suddenly appears above Taranza, and out of it comes a giant bee-like creature who's facing the spider.

"Oh, glorious Sectonia! Please come to my resc--" Before he knows it, he's blasted away by the bee's scepter, the spider slowly disappearing toward the horizon as he screams "Wh-whyyyyyyyyyyyyy...?"

"Pitiful, Taranza..." says the bee, Sectonia. "I have no use for a fool who cannot follow orders."

"Hey! He almost got it! I'm, like, the hero number two of Dreamland!" shouts Sweetie Belle in anger.

Sectonia turns toward them, revealing her prodigious beauty that would make any model in Equestria jealous.

"I only ask for perfection, and nothing else, so he failed. And I don't need failures."

Sweet. A tyrant. I don't think we got to fight one yet.

"Now then, heroes of the lower world. You would risk your life for this land? You would stand against me, the ruler of the heavens?"

"Well, it's our job as heroes," says Bandana Dee.

"Very well... You will bow before the great Queen Sectonia! My beauty rivals the divine..." She disappears, and reappears further, before charging toward them, another scepter appearing in her other disembodied glove. "And my power will crush all that you hold dear!"

Chapter 76: Queen Sectonia

Sectonia flies above the heroes as she shoots orbs from her scepters at them with a cackle. Dedede grabs Sweetie Belle who's still on the floor, and they jump out of the way. Quickly, Sweetie Belle uses her magic to take one of the three remaining axes, and she sends it at Kirby who eats it, gaining the Axe ability again, while the filly, dropped by Dedede, grabs one of her cannons to turn it into a double beam swords, and the other cannons start floating around her.

Sectonia then appears a few feet away from them, and turns her scepters into rapiers. She then charges toward the nearest hero, Kirby, and swings one of her rapiers at him. Kirby parries it with his axe, and Bandana jumps from her left to impale her, only for her to use her other rapier to block his spear. She then thrusts her rapier at him, and he barely dodges it with an air jump. Dedede runs toward her while Sweetie Belle starts shooting beams both with her horn and her cannons. Sectonia chuckles before teleporting, avoiding the lasers, and she appears beside Sweetie Belle. With her rapiers, she performs a dozen thrusts very rapidly, and Sweetie Belle is able to parry all of them with her double beam swords before jumping out of the way to avoid a few orbs that Sectonia fires at her from one of her rapiers turned back into a scepter. She's caught off guard by Kirby who slashes her from behind with his axe, before getting a few missiles on the head from Dedede, and she teleports away, causing Bandana to miss his thrust.

Sectonia appears away from the heroes, then teleports again elsewhere, and another time, this time appearing just above Dedede, rapiers turned back into scepters as she raises the golden one before firing many black lightning bolts from it in the area below her, electrifying the king. She teleports again, and tries to do the same to Kirby and Bandana Dee who are together, and Sweetie Belle quickly puts a mirror shield above them, deflecting the lightning bolts back to the queen bee. Annoyed, Sectonia fires some orbs at Sweetie Belle, only for her to use another mirror shield to deflect them, forcing Sectonia to teleport.

Appearing beyond the edge of what remains of the room, Sectonia materializes a golden, clearly sharp ring around her waist that turns like a saw. With it, she starts flying after Sweetie Belle who's forced to run, but this leaves the bee open to the projectiles from Sweetie's cannons as well as a stream of fire from Dedede's mecha hammer. So she turns the ring into a giant one, and throws it after Sweetie Belle who lowers herself against the ground to avoid it. She throws more giant rings at Dedede and Kirby, but they avoid respectively by jumping and flattening. All the while, she fires more orbs this time at Sweetie's cannons, and the filly has to assemble them together back into her whip (still keeping the tenth part for her double beam swords) to make them avoid the projectiles more easily. That's when Bandana, who's been able to approach Sectonia, starts twirling his spear, making him raise in the air until he reaches Sectonia and cuts her continuously until she slaps him with one of her scepters.

At this moment, Sectonia teleports near the edge, turns toward the sky, raises her hands, and creates a giant rune from which a huge crystal like the floating ones back in the castle comes out. Once the crystal has fully appeared and starts floating in the air, Sectonia turns back to them, and the floor under them starts shaking. The queen then raises her hands, and the heroes find themselves projected on the crystal. And with the four of them, there isn't much place to move.

Seeing Sectonia create smaller versions of the sharp golden rings, Sweetie Belle decides to fly on a shield, freeing some space for the others, and they have less problems running around to avoid the rings. Until Sectonia stops playing with them and throws ten rings at the same time, targeting the whole surface of the crystal at once. So, to avoid them, the three heroes still on the crystal simply jump beyond the edge of the crystal, letting the rings hit it, before flying/jumping back on it.

Sectonia is displeased.

She sees Sweetie Belle approaching her on her shield, whip floating beside her and double beam sword on her right hoof, and she quickly turns her scepters back into rapiers to parry the double sword. The whip then turns into its staff version -a little smaller since it's missing its tenth part-, and Sweetie grabs it with her left hoof. She then starts twirling her two weapons back and forth, moving them to both attack and defend as Sectonia reveals to be an excellent swordbee, the queen parrying and counterattacking Sweetie's blows with great grace and efficacy.

Meta Knight would have a blast fighting her.

But Sectonia spots missiles coming toward her, and she quickly teleports above the crystal, where she creates five smaller runes. From those runes come five ant soldiers, one big red, two greens of smaller size, and two whites even smaller. Those ants are all equipped with a spiked club and a heart-shaped shield, and as the colors suggest, the red one uses fire attacks, the green ones use spark attacks, and the white ones use ice attacks. There's not many place on the crystal, and with those ants, it's pretty much impossible to move without bumping on someone or falling beyond the edge. The heroes still have no problems facing them, but this opens them to Sectonia who starts a flying-and-slashing maneuver, and Sweetie rapidly flies to her to parry one of her slashes, stopping her. This, instead of exchanging blows with her, Sweetie decides to shoot a stream of fire at her face, forcing her to fly back.

By now, the others have dealt with the ants who have been pushed beyond the edge of the crystal, and Dedede immediately shoots more fire with his hammer, burning Sectonia even more. So Sectonia surrounds herself with another golden ring, and flies toward the center of the crystal, and the ring is so big that it forces everyone on the crystal into a dilemme: rest on the crystal and being turned into shreds by the ring, or jump beyond the edge and become an easy target. Kirby takes none of those solutions, and moves directly under Sectonia just before she reaches the crystal. He then performs many slashes with his axe, cutting her heavily at the lower part of her body and forcing Sectonia to move back up to stop this. The ring around her disappears, and she raises her golden scepter, unleashing her storm of lightning bolts in a large area on the surface of the crystal. But again, Sweetie Belle creates a mirror shield above her friends, and Sectonia is the one getting shocked. The others all attack her then.

Badly hurt, Sectonia starts teleporting randomly around the crystal before appearing directly behind Sweetie Belle, quickly using a scepter to slap her back at the surface of the crystal. She then teleports more, before appearing above the center of the crystal, her two scepters raised. The heroes near the center rapidly run away, just in time, as Sectonia slam her scepters on the crystal, destroying it, and blasting the four heroes back at the tower, at the remains of the room.

As they recover, Sectonia creates seven runes, invoking seven ants: two whites, two greens, two reds, and a yellow one even bigger than the red ones that doesn't use elemental attacks but shoot magic blasts. With the heroes forced to fight the ants, Sectonia directly starts rapidly teleporting around the room, her chuckle seemingly coming from everywhere at once. She then appears directly behind Sweetie Belle as she is busy attacking a green ant, and performs a big slash at her back. The ant takes the occasion to bonk her with his shield before shocking her with his club. But Sweetie quickly recovers and finishes the ant by trapping him in ice.

Meanwhile, Sectonia restarts teleporting around while chuckling, and she successfully slashes Kirby on the back, knocking out his ability and leaving him vulnerable to the yellow ant he's facing. Thankfully, Kirby is able to roll, avoiding the ant's club, and inhales back his Axe ability. And Sectonia restarts teleporting around again, while more ants appear. This continues for a moment, more and more ants appearing while Sectonia teleports around before appearing behind one of the heroes at random to slash at their back. At that moment, Bandana as spotted Sectonia appearing behind him and has tried to run to avoid being slashed, only for Sectonia to teleport again and to appear just in front of him. Too surprised by this, Bandana couldn't parry the following slash. By now, there are dozens of bodies of ants littering the floor, and it starts to get hard to move around because of them and the ones that continue appearing.

But eventually, as Sectonia appears behind Dedede to attack him, she's slashed in the back by Kirby, stopping her from attacking. Annoyed, Sectonia restarts teleporting, and this time, appears behind Sweetie Belle, only for Bandana Dee to throw his spear at her. With the heroes now watching each others backs, forming some kind of circle, Sectonia can't take them by surprise anymore, because, as soon as she appears to attack, she's attacked by someone else. Understanding that this attack doesn't work anymore, Sectonia stops it, and simply starts her flying-and-slashing maneuver again, which is not much more effectives, the heroes not stopping keeping an eye on her while fighting the ants that are always coming.

Now very angry and hurts, Sectonia starts creating and throwing her rings, both big ones and small ones, toward all the heroes without caring for the ants, both conscious and unconscious, that get cut in half by them, turning the room into a bloody mess. And despite this, the ants continue coming and attacking, without caring if they are killed by their own queen. Disgusted by such a dirty act, the heroes stop attacking the ants and focus on the queen. Sweetie Belle jumps on her whip and starts firing her projectiles on her, while Dedede fires his missiles. Kirby and Bandana Dee run toward Sectonia, avoiding the rings, and once she throws her latest giant ring, they jump at her before she can reform one and slash at her as much as they can before they land back on the ground.

The pain being too much for her, Sectonia falls on the ground, half conscious.

The ants run away, and the heroes sigh in relief.

Only to see Sectonia starting to slowly fly up again.

"Bah... Aha... I see..."

"Give up, Sectonia," says Sweetie Belle. "We have beaten you. You can't win against us."

"Yes. I didn't expect less from you four. The four of you have been chosen by the Dreamstalk after all. I wouldn't even be surprised if just one of you could defeat me. I had no chance from the start. But I wonder..." Sectonia flies higher, revealing the giant bulb of the Dreamstalk further in the sky behind her, glowing in the light of the moon visible behind it. "How will you handle this?"

The four heroes raise an eyebrow in wonder. What is she talking about concerning the Dreamstalk?

"You see, true beauty... is control," continues Sectonia.

Sweetie Belle huffs. "My sister would like to have two words with you about what beauty truly is."

"She's just cuckoo," says Dedede, twirling a finger beside his head.

But Sectonia doesn't listen to them as she continues her monologue, her eyes glowing as she flies closer to the bulb. "The Dreamstalk has guided you thus far." And suddenly, as she reaches the bulb, they are both plunged in light, and her voice starts echoing, powerful. "But its bloom will be your doom!"

"Wait. Don't tell me she's..." says Dedede in horror.

Below them, beyond the clouds, they can see the vines of the Dreamstalk quickly growing and spreading all over the surface.

"Floralia, Dreamland, and this entire planet!"

"She's fusing with the Dreamstalk! What the heck?! How can she do that?!" yells Sweetie Belle.

"The question is: How will we stop her?!" replies Bandana Dee in panic.

The vines are spreading everywhere, including the castle. There's nowhere to hide. The whole planet is invaded by those.

"You should all feel honored. You will serve as my sustenance... for eternity!"

And the light spreads, plunging everything in it.

When it disappears, and everyone can see again, everything is covered in vines, and the bulb of the Dreamstalk, still visible, is now surrounded by Sectonia's four wings.

And dozens of vines suddenly come and block the way. Not giving up to panic, Sweetie Belle starts using fire on them, and Dedede quickly joins her with the fire of his mecha hammer, but each time a vine disappears in ash, another takes its place. They then see a small bulb on one of the vines opening, revealing a single eye in it, and Sweetie Belle targets it with her fire, destroying it. Surprisingly, this causes some of the vines blocking the way to disperse, opening a hole, but before they can do anything, the hole closes with more vines, and three more of those bulbs appear.

That's when the flower fairies, now free of their cages, come with a cannon, and they drop it in front of the vines.

"Use it to pass those vines and reach Sectonia!" says one of them.

"You should be able to use the vines of the Dreamstalk as platforms to get to her," says another.

Bandana looks at the cannon, insure. "One of us will have to take control of it, but it means that one of us has to remain behind."

Dedede huffs. "I can already see that I'll be too big to enter the cannon, so I suppose that I'll be the one remaining behind." At this, he sits on the seat of the cannon and starts using the levers to move it, getting the feeling. He then gives the bag of food to Sweetie Belle. "Don't worry, I'll try to find a way to join you. Until then, you'll have to deal with this loony flower bee without me."

They nod. "But first, we have to deal with those vines," says Sweetie Belle.

At this, Kirby enters the cannon. Smirking, Dedede shouts "Ready the cannonball!" He then targets one of the bulbs, wait for it to open to reveal its eye, and... "Fire!" BAM! "Target destroyed!"

Sweetie Belle, Bandana Dee, and the flower fairies laugh at Dedede's silliness, before the filly places herself beside the cannon and shoots a fireball at another opening bulb, destroying it. Kirby returns inside the cannon, and Dedede firesat the last bulb. When it's destroyed, the vines separate, opening a hole, but it quickly closes before Dedede can fire Kirby through it, and five bulbs appear, now possessing spikes on them.

"Rah! Come on!" yells Dedede.

"Let's continue," says Sweetie Belle.

Despite the bulbs trying to trick them into misfiring and even shooting big seeds to try to destroy the cannon, which are destroyed by Sweetie, the five bulbs are eventually eliminated, and a hole opens again, and this time, it doesn't close right away. So, rapidly, Dedede fires Kirby through it. Bandana Dee then enters the cannon and Dedede fires him. Sweetie Belle quickly follows him just before the hole closes.

They land on a vine about halfway between the castle and the giant bulb of the Dreamstalk, covered in shadow because of the moonlight coming from behind. They look up at it, understanding how big it is, as it raises in the middle of a jungle of vines.

Without hesitation, they start jumping from vine to vine toward it, and their next battle to save Popstar from becoming plant food for eternity. The first rays of the sun rising beyond the horizon appear.

---

"How do you think they'll be able to fight that giant flower?" asks Spike.

"For Sweetie Belle, it's obvious, she'll fire lasers at it," says Pinkie Pie. "For the others, I don't know... Kirby possesses an axe, so maybe he'll cut the stalk. And Popstar will know forever how Kirby saved the world this day: by becoming a lumberjack!"

"Still. A giant queen bee fused to a giant flower... That's probably the weirdest thing they've fought until now," says Rainbow Dash.

Rarity sighs. "That queen as such a beautiful body. Too bad her soul is as black as Sombra's magic," she finishes in disgust.

---

The heroes run and jump on the vine, approaching the bulb of the Dreamstalk. The bulb then opens, revealing Sectonia's head inside it, who's glaring at them. She then gives a big roar, her new voice having nothing to do with the one she had previously, and dozens of one eyed flowers rise from the vines before separating from them and flying toward the heroes. As for the vines themselves, they start moving chaotically, forming hills, slopes, crossing each other, and some of them also start rising like towers in a threatening way, pointing their sharp end toward the heroes.

The movement of the vines forces the trio to separate, each going on a different vine to continue, weapons ready as the flying flowers approach them. Stopping herself from focusing on her friends, Sweetie Belle slashes with her double beam sword at one of the flowers, cutting it in half. This seemingly hurts Sectonia a little, but not much, and more of the flowers come at her. She jumps to avoid being impaled by a vine, and starts running on it, before parrying one of the flowers that has turned into a sword to attack her. Other flowers then start firing seeds, while others try to ram her after turning into spiked bulbs.

She quickly cuts the sword flower in half, and jumps on another vine below her to avoid the seeds and the spiked bulbs. Here, two sword flowers do a cross slash at her, and she jumps back to avoid them before she turns her staff back into nine cannons, and turns five of the cannons into double beam swords that she starts twirling around her with her magic. Flowers after flowers are cut, as well as a few vines, while the cannons shoot fireballs at more of the flowers, the filly not stopping her advance toward the looming Flowered Sectonia.

Two flowers start spinning, their petals becoming as sharp as her beam swords, and she stops herself just as one pass in front of her. She quickly jumps forward to avoid the other, and destroys the two with some fireballs. She creates a mirror shield, deflecting some fiery seeds, before she jumps to a rising vine at her right. Coating her gauntlets in ice, she glides on the formed slope, cutting more flowers in her way, before she spots Bandana Dee further down at her left, her friend thrusting continuously his spear left and right to destroy the flowers while jumping to avoid the attacks, clearly in difficulty.

Waiting for the right moment, she jumps, and lands right on Bandana Dee's back. Bandana Dee has spotted her coming, so he isn't surprised and continues his advance. On his back, Sweetie Belle turns the sbeam swords back into cannons, except the one she's holding, and makes them surround her before they fire lasers all around, disintegrating dozens of flowers and damaging many vines. Some flowers are able to pass the barrage of lasers, and four of them surround Bandana Dee before creating stream of electricity between each other, surrounding the Waddle Dee with them. The flowers then close on him, and Bandana jumps just in time to avoid them.

Flowers start firing lasers back at them, and the two separate, jumping at opposite direction from vine to vine, Bandana Dee impaling one that is rising to cling to it and gain height, while Sweetie Belle cuts a giant leave and uses it as a parachute, flying left and right to avoid many vines trying to impale her as well as many lasers before she reaches another vine that is however moving backward, so she quickly jumps to another one next to it, cutting in two ten spiked bulbs charging at her one after another. The vine she's on, however, starts rising vertically like a tower, threatening to make her fall, so she creates a spiked shield around her hooves and uses them to cling to the vine. She starts climbing it as more flowers fire lasers at her, until she comes to a group of flowers that she uses to reach another vine, jumping from flower to flower.

She lands just behind Kirby just as he starts using his axe to glide on the vine as it forms a slope going down. She quickly jumps on the axe beside him, and she makes the axe spin to be able to attack and defend at all sides. The vine comes to an end, and Kirby bounces his axe to another vine at the left, continuing his gliding on it. A vine blocks their way, and they both jump, Kirby taking his axe to cut the vine and be able to continue his gliding. Eventually, they jump on a vine forming a slope that goes up, forcing them to stop gliding and to return to running.

They jump to avoid a vine trying to impale them from above, Bandana Dee clinging to it, and Kirby jumps on a vine at their right to eliminate a group of laser firing flowers, while Sweetie Belle raises her hooves, catching Bandana Dee who's jumped toward her. She spins, and throws him to another vine where there are not many flowers, and she uses her cannons to destroy the ones chasing him.

A sword flower cuts the vine she's on, and as she falls, she quickly forms back her whip before wrapping it around another vise. A quick swinging later, she jumps, reforms her nine cannons and double beam sword, and cuts a flower about to slash Kirby from behind. She jumps to another vine a little higher, planting her sword in it to balance herself and land on it, and starts climbing it as it rises vertically. Like previously, a sword flower cuts it, and as it falls, she runs on it before jumping, clinging to Bandana's legs as he flies on the way with his twirling spear. Not wanting to cause problems to him because of her weight, she quickly jumps to another vine, and she lets Kirby cut the flower behind her as his vine is rising beside her.

Her vine then starts rising too, as well as the one on which Bandana Dee lands, and in a few seconds, they find themselves in front of Sectonia herself, who's surrounded by some of her flowers, all of them glowing as they gather energy.

The three heroes stare at her, and ready themselves.

"Under the moon
The beautiful queen bee is filled with love."

They jump from the vines they're on just before Sectonia fires a huge laser at them, the laser disintegrating the vines they've been on, and they land on other vines below.

"Which so much, she has of,
Rationality leaves her as she croons."

Countless flowers start to rise from the jungle of vines below. Sweetie Belle, now surrounded by the familiar aura, surrounds her horn with the ten cannons, all pointing at its end as she gathers energy, before firing a powerful laser, not as big and powerful as the black one she fired while puppeted by Taranza, but still powerful enough to disintegrate every flowers that get in the way before hitting Sectonia on the face. But more and more flowers continue rising, as well as the vines, more and more of them rising their pointy ends around Sectonia and the heroes.

The sun fully appears at the horizon behind them, while the moon still shines behind Sectonia.

"In the moonset,
Moonstruck blossoms before the rising sun."

They restart running and jumping on the vines as the flowers restart attacking them. Simply using a double beam sword to cut the ones getting too close, Sweetie Belle continues firing at Sectonia with her cannons and her horn, only for Sectonia to create a shield in front of her using some of the flowers. Understanding what she's to do, Sweetie Belle targets the flowers moving in the shield. Meanwhile, Bandana Dee is using his spear to climb a vine close to the stem, while Kirby is attacked by a dozen vines trying to impale him one after another, only for him to always jump at the last second before landing on them.

"Care for the others, there is none
Her love song is not a duet!

By now, hundreds of flowers are darkening the sky above them, and they start diving toward the heroes. Sweetie Belle stops attacking the ones creating the shield in front of Sectonia, and grabs Kirby as he jumps toward her. She spins, and throws him toward the sky, where he twirls his axe, cutting all the flowers on the way. At the same time, Bandana Dee has reached the top of his vine beside Sectonia, and jumps toward her, reaching her behind her shield before slashing her. He then grabs one of her antennas, and clings to it to attack her again and again. To get rid of him, Sectonia starts to shake erratically until she successfully throws him away. This has still caused the shield to disappear, so Sweetie Belle immediately starts firing giant fireballs at her face, burning her badly.

"She loves just her reflection,
Others are imperfections!
She is the supreme, and everything else deserves to bow before her beauty!"

Sectonia roars at Sweetie Belle before sending the majority of her flowers and vines after her. The flowers slash, charge, fire, and the vines try to impale her, crush her, wrap her, but the filly surrounds herself with ten double beam swords, and uses them to cut everything attacking her as she runs up a hill-like vine to get closer of Sectonia's face. Then, Kirby falls from the sky just above Sectonia, and slashes her vertically before bouncing on the stem to land on a nearby vine.

"She is among the divines
And like the great sun she shines!
Everything else is just a mean for her to remain for all eterni-ty!"

Sweetie Belle throws all the double beam swords at Sectonia. The flower-bee moves around to dodge them, but still gets impaled by many of them because of her great size, mainly in the petals and one time in the stem, while the rest impale her around her head. The flowers take the occasion that Sweetie is weaponless to charge at her, only for her to surround herself in a shield of fire before expelling it, turning the flowers and vines around her to ash, only for another vine to slap her toward a sword flower ready to impale her. With an air jump, she passes above the flower, and punches it toward Sectonia, slamming her face with it.

"Her body is all beauty
But her soul is all dirty!
She is ready to doom Popstar so her beauty can remain like this forever!"

She's not sure how long the fight will continue. They've already greatly hurt Sectonia, between the flowers, the vines, and the head, and they can see her petals starting to drop and lose their shine, but she doesn't seem ready to give up anytime soon. Knowing that she's using her vines to suck energy from the whole planet, this could last for hours unless they give a decisive blow, but Sectonia, in this form, reveals herself to be extremely resistant. Maybe the big black laser from earlier could have worked, but she would need to become an alicorn to reach that level of power without Taranza's boosting.

But if she has to, she's ready to fight until the sun sets. Well, mentally, but physically, she and the others may not last that long. If only she had mastered gathering energy from her environment, like she used while she was under Taranza's control! Right now, all she can do, at best, is throwing a few dozen energy balls before getting tired.

As she shoots more giant fireballs at Sectonia while using her double beam swords to destroy all the flowers attacking her and her friends, she starts thinking of what they could do to end this fight early.

"So the queen must be absolutely
Stopped to save the world as it is our duty.
So we won't give up and will continue to fight like this, if we have to, for-ev-er!"

Then, a shadow passes rapidly in front of Sectonia, slashing her, before stopping a little further, revealing itself to be none other than Meta Knight! The knight, flying thanks to his bat wings, then starts flying all around, cutting the flowers one after another.

"Meta Knight!" shouts Bandana Dee in happiness.

Suddenly, a familiar laugh resonates, and when Sweetie Belle looks at its origin, she sees Marx, split in two, creating a black hole that starts sucking up the flowers nearby. Lightning bolts, normal and black, then start raining here and there on the flowers, their origin being none other than a painted Kracko rode by Adeleine, followed by Gooey in his Dark Matter form! Enraged, Sectonia sends a good number of her flowers after them, only for a laser beam to suddenly appear and freeze the majority of them, the frozen flowers dropping. Turning her head at the source of the laser, Sweetie Belle spots Daroach floating not far in the sky, charging another laser with his wand.

Sweetie Belle smiles like Pinkie Pie. Of course they would all come help when the vines spread to the whole planet!

And then, Dedede drops from the sky, and bonks Sectonia right on the head, before his hammer opens and expels fire right on her, covering her in it. Seeing a flower come to him to attack him, Dedede bounces from Sectonia and Meta Knight catches him before dropping him beside Kirby. Sweetie Belle quickly joins them with a few air jumps.

"Ah! Told you I would join you sooner or later!" He then points up. "And I come with a gift for Kirby!"

Sweetie Belle and Kirby looked up to see Taranza approaching them, holding some weird red fruit surrounded by a yellow spiral and glowing blue.

"Taranza?" asks Sweetie Belle in wonder.

"Explanation later!" shouts Dedede before grabbing Kirby. "Kirby, time for you to do what you do best: eat!"

Dedede then throws Kirby toward Taranza, who throws the fruit at him. Looking at the fruit, Kirby opens his mouth and eats it. Immediately, he loses his Axe ability, is surrounded in light, and his body starts glowing all the colors of the rainbow! When he lands on a vine, he jumps on a few others before going on the highest one and facing Sectonia, the sun now shining behind her as she turns around to face him despite the chaos of attacks and of destroyed flowers surrounding her.

With a roar, Sectonia sends all her flowers at Kirby, who opens his mouth, and inhales.

The vortex created by his inhaling is at least ten times more powerful than usual, and he starts inhaling all the flowers, dozens, hundreds, over one thousand! Roaring again, Sectonia rises a vine and brings it down at Kirby, who jumps just before on a vine below. With most of the flowers gone, everyone starts attacking directly Sectonia who finds her body bombarded from all sides by all kinds of projectiles, fireballs, ice beam, lightning bolts, missiles, arrows, lasers!

With another roar, Sectonia makes the majority of the vines around her rise like giant spikes, and everyone still on them is forced to take flight or to air jump to not fall. Coo suddenly flies from above and starts scratching Sectonia's eyes with his claws while Sweetie Belle joins Kirby on one of her shields and lets him go on her back so he doesn't have to keep his mouth closed to remain inflated to fly. Her body then also starts glowing in the colors of the rainbow as the ability spreads to her, and like when she had the power of the Master Crown in her, she can feel herself becoming much more powerful.

Roaring, Sectonia headbutts Coo to stop him from attacking her eyes, then continues rising her vines like spikes all around her again and again to try to impale her attackers. She then spots Kirby on Sweetie's back just as the filly shoots with her horn and her cannons a huge fireball that engulfs the flower-bee. Roaring in both rage and pain, Sectonia rises a vine and uses it to try to impale them, only for Kirby to open his mouth before inhaling the vine. The giant vine disappears more and more inside Kirby's small body until it is torn apart from Sectonia.

Now having enough, Sectonia charges energy, and fires a huge laser at them.

And Kirby opens his mouth and inhales it.

Sectonia continues firing her laser which continues to be inhaled by Kirby, until she can't take it anymore and stops. But Kirby continues inhaling, and one by one, Sectonia's petals are torn from her. The queen, totally drained, is totally at the mercy of the puffball.

But Kirby doesn't swallow the laser.

He stares at Sectonia, who looks back at him...

"STOP!" screams suddenly Taranza as he places himself between them.

"What are you doing?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"Please, don't kill her! She wasn't always like that! I'm sure there's still some good in her!"

"You idiot!" they hear Dedede yell from Daroach's back. "Don't you see she's totally lost it!"

"Maybe her defeat has returned her to her senses! Please, let me try!" Taranza then turns around to face his queen, giving her the softest smile he can give. "Queen Sectonia, do you remember me? We watched each other since our childhood. I swore loyalty to you to the end." Sectonia looks at him, without saying anything. "Sectonia. It's me. Your best friend. Taranza."

"Ta...ranza...?"

"Yes! Remember! I was with you all the time! We played together! I watched over you when you caught the flu! I searched the whole planet for the best dresses for you! I even went to that mirror world to give you this mirror at your last birthday!"

"What?" asks Sweetie Belle in surprise at hearing this.

"I followed you despite you becoming like this because I didn't want to leave you. But... Let's restart like before! Let's return to the castle and forget about all this! You were already beautiful, you don't need more!"

"No..."

"Uh?"

"I... was... ugly... I... was... weak... But... I... I..."

"Sectonia!"

"I... Ugh... Uuuugh... Rah... Raah...! RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Sectonia raises her head toward the sky as she starts shrieking, a sudden wave of energy coming from her pushing back everyone around.

"I...! WILL BE...! THE MOST BEAUTIFUL...! OF THE UNIVERSE...! EVERYTHING...! WILL BOW TO ME...! FOREVER...!!!"

As she yelled those words, dozens of vines start to rise from the islands of Floralia, each wrapping a fruit similar to the one that Kirby has eaten. Then, flowers come and start eating those fruits. Sectonia, and the whole Dreamstalk start glowing.

"No!" yells Taranza in despair.

"Now Kirby!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

"Mmh!" answers the bloated puffball on her back before he opens his mouth, firing back the laser he's eaten earlier at Sectonia. The laser envelops her, and soon, Sectonia disappears in it.

Only for a very bright light to engulf everything, and Sectonia's silhouette reappears in it, only now, her wings look jagged, and a huge power emanates from her. When the light disappears, they can see that she now possesses darker colors and... all reason seems to have disappeared from her eyes. As for the Dreamstalk, the vines now have thorns and roses.

She then starts stirring herself on the stem, until she succeeds, only leaving her head and her disembodied wings floating with a purplish blue aura behind her. Then, with a ghostly cackle, she disappears.

At this instant, as she looks in horror at what has happened, Sweetie Belle remembers Magolor's words:
If you encounter someday someone with a strong will, you may end up having to fight their soul to definitively kill them. The soul can either be unleashed by killing the being a first time, or the being can choose to unleash it. Just watch out if this happens, because souls are pure will, so if the being unleashing it wants you dead, then the soul will do everything to kill you without a care for what happens to it or around it. A battle against a soul may also be triggered if the being totally loses their mind.

Sweetie looks as Sectonia reappears in the sky to her left, only rapidly to fly to her right with this same ghostly cackle before disappearing. She continues to do that, randomly reappearing somewhere in the sky, flying rapidly to another point, before teleporting again, all the time with that cackle that seems to come from Tartarus and makes her fur stand on end.

Then, Sectonia appears right beside Taranza, who has barely time to look at her in pain and despair before she shoots four cutter blades around her, one of them cutting the spider. After that, Sectonia restarts teleporting and flying randomly. In the meantime, the vines start to move again despite Sectonia having left the Dreamstalk, and with their thorns, they look even more threatening.

The Dreamstalk as nothing dreamy anymore.

The filly looks at all her friends that are flying a little everywhere, some of them on others' backs, and they all nod.

Time to fight a soul to save the world.

She quickly grabs Taranza in her magic before they all dove toward the jungle of vines below them despite the dangers, but at least, they could use the vines to hide from Sectonia's attacks, and the ones that can't fly and attack at the same time will be able to fight, even if it means getting hurt in the feet by the thorns.

She lands on a vine, and lets Kirby, still with the power of the fruit, leave her back, before she places Taranza on it. Now, the ghostly cackle seems to come from everywhere, and the filly keeps her senses alert for whenever the soul decides to attack her. Her horn is already ready to fire a beam, while Kirby inhales a vine to be ready to spit something.

They hear a few explosions not far, either Dedede firing some missiles, or Daroach dropping some bombs, but they don't lose focus. Then, the vines around start to close on them, and they start running to not end up crushed or turned into cheese.

Almost immediately, Sectonia appears in front of them, and they both fire their respective projectiles at her while Sectonia surrounds herself with some runes before firing lasers from them. They are forced to jump on other vines to avoid them, which separates them, but Sweetie Belle, not afraid for Kirby, restarts running as the vines start attacking her.

"Sectonia..." she hears Taranza say sadly on her back.

"We can't do anything for her anymore, Taranza. We've no choice but to kill her, or this will be the end of Popstar."

Taranza doesn't reply.

"You love her, uh?"

No reply again.

"I'm sorry."

Nothing more is said as Sweetie starts using her cannons turned double beam swords to cut the vines around her. She then feels a powerful source of energy coming from her right, and she quickly jumps back just in time to avoid being rammed by a giant fireball, its passage putting the vines on fire, adding another danger. The fireball, which actually reminds Sweetie of Drawcia Soul's fireball form, then starts bouncing from vine to vine before it bounces toward Sweetie Belle, and the filly jumps back again to avoid being crushed as the ball destroys the part of the vine she's been on. The fireball then turns back into Sectonia who immediately disappears.

She jumps on another vine, and continues running. Above her, she spots Daroach and Adeleine running on another vine, Adeleine on a painted Waiu (the ninja from her adventure in the Rainbow Islands), and Sectonia appears not far from them. They both attack her immediately, Daroach using Necrodeus' staff to fire lightning while the painted Waiu shoots kunais. Sweetie Belle helps them by firing beams. But then, Sectonia, to everyone's surprise, turns into a big ball of paint before shooting multiple pink and blue paint blobs that start raining everywhere, exactly like Drawcia Soul! The painted Waiu grabs Adeleine and puts her under him, becoming a shield for her, but Daroach can't do anything to protect himself, and before Sweetie Belle can creates a shield for him, he's hit by some of the blobs. Sweetie Belle also quickly creates a shield for herself, however, the Waiu is destroyed.

And now, Sectonia has disappeared again.

At this moment, Sweetie Belle sees Marx flying below her, and Sectonia appears behind him, many runes appearing around her. Marx turns around to face her, and starts flying erratically to dodge the lasers before he spits his own laser, that Sectonia counters with another laser. Sweetie Belle, as well as Daroach who has spotted her, take the occasion to attack her, while Adeleine quickly paints another Waiu. Sectonia then surrounds herself with a sphere of runes, firing lasers everywhere, in all directions, destroying many vines, which causes some of them to almost fall on the heroes who are forced to jump from vine to vine until reaching some where they're safe. Meta Knight suddenly comes flying from the vines and does a series of strikes against her until she teleports.

A big vortex then inhales some of the falling vines, and Kirby spits the giant formed projectile toward a big fireball charging toward him, stopping it in its course and forcing Sectonia to give up her fireball form. Before the heroes can attack her, she teleports randomly around the heroes before disappearing completely, her cackle still resonating.

Sweetie Belle then starts feeling a very huge amount of energy being gathered into a single point further, before hearing the distinctive sound of Sectonia firing a laser. The heroes then see an absolutely HUGE laser pass below them, cutting all the vines in its way as the laser does a whole arc until it disappears out of their view, hidden by the now falling vines. The heroes run, jump, or fly up the falling vines while avoiding the ones about to fall on them, until they reach the last ones. They then go on the cut surfaces of what remains of the vines, seeing that every vines have been cut to that level, and only the stem of the Dreamstalk is still standing completely, but badly burned.

If the stem is cut... Celestia, the damages it would cause as it falls! Speaking of damages, that laser has left a nasty scar on the few mountains it has hit. At least, now, with all the vines cut at the same level, the heroes can see each other again. But now, the problem, nothing is hiding them from Sectonia's attacks. And speaking of her, they spot her beyond the cut vines.

Behind her, many vines suddenly rise toward the sky, wrapping around each other to form a giant tentacle-like thing almost as large as the stem. The giant thing then brings itself down on the heroes, the ones that can fly or teleport doing so while helping the ones that can't or that are too slow. With this, the arena composed of the cut vines is pretty much separated in two.

And Sectonia restarts teleporting and flying in random.

Ugh, she has no choice... Even with their number, she's still too powerful.

"Has beauty been so worth it?
Even to lose your reason for it?
Just was it worth it to become a mindless monster for it?!"

Sectonia suddenly appears at one end of the arena, and starts flying so that she gets near as much heroes as possible while shooting constantly cutter blades down at them. Some of the heroes start jumping from cut vine to cut vine while others take flight, including Sweetie Belle, to avoid the attack. Kirby simply opens his mouth to inhale as much cutter blades as possible before spitting them back at Sectonia while the others start attacking her in their own ways.

"Beauty means nothing anymore for you,
Destruction is just all that count for you,
And so to save the world we sadly have to destroy you!"

After some teleportations, Sectonia creates about two dozens runes above the arena, and she fires lasers from them. Not ending right away, the lasers start randomly moving in all directions through the arena. With the help of the power of the fruit, Kirby does like earlier and inhales one of the lasers before spitting it back at Sectonia. Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle fires all she can at the soul, like the others.

"You were once a queen full of goodness, of kindness, full of joy, full of love, full of life.
But right now you are just a sad shell full of hate, full of pain, that we must send to the af-terlife!"

Sectonia appear at the center of the arena, and creates a circle of vertical runes around her. The runes all fire a laser toward the sky before the laser all move down at the same time. The heroes closest to her have the hardest time avoiding them because of the small space there's between them this close, but this doesn't stop them from continuing assaulting the soul from all sides.

And then, as the lasers stop, dozens of vines start rising around the arena, and the sky is suddenly covered by over one hundred of those runes. As the lasers start raining everywhere, half the vines fire themselves at them like spikes, and as they return to their previous position, the second half attack. Thus, the two halves start attacking alternatively without stopping. Between them and the raining lasers, the situation is getting desperate, as Sectonia flies back and forth above the rune, getting hard to hit.

Despite the heavy injuries she's getting, Sweetie Belle uses half of her cannons to fire at Sectonia while she uses the other half as double beam swords to cut the vines, but for each vine cut, another one takes its place.

Then, as she's about to continue singing, the unbelievable happens.

Taranza, after hearing what Sweetie Belle has sung, has stared at Sectonia for a few seconds, understanding that the filly is right. Nothing remains of his friend but a twisted version of her.

He starts flying toward her, grabbing on the way one of the double beam swords.

He flies left and right, dodging the lasers.

He passes the runes.

And he impales Sectonia with the beam sword.

Everything stops, everything becomes silent.

"I'm sorry... Sectonia..."

At this, Sectonia starts flashing, and screaming, before exploding in a shower of petals.

Slowly, Taranza looks toward the rising sun as he opens one of his hands to let one of the falling petals land on it.

Thank you...

Chapter 77: The Amazing Cursed Mirror

Following Sectonia's death, the whole Dreamstalk starts glowing, and all the vines that have spread across Popstar disappear, forcing everyone to fly to not fall as the vines disappear under their feet.

Sweetie Belle looks in awe as a new giant, magnificent pink flower, surrounded by many smaller pink flowers, blooms at the top, where Sectonia has been, in a grandiose show of light.

But despite the beauty of the scene, there's a shadow. Sweetie Belle looks up at Taranza, the spider fixing the petal that has fallen on his hand.

For once, the adventure doesn't end well for everyone...

But despite Taranza's pain, she knows she must talk to him about something he has said earlier.

But first, they should return to Sectonia's castle.

---

"I don't understand..." says Fluttershy, some tears flowing from her eyes as she has Discord's claw wrapped around her. "Taranza said she was so nice. Then why did she become like that?"

Rarity sighs. "Sometimes, ponies just change, and it's not always for the best. Maybe Sectonia was a nice queen before, but with years, without Taranza paying attention, she became little by little the Sectonia from today. And I know how love can blind us, so Taranza can very well not have seen the changes, or cared, until that moment where she blasted him."

"Still, ending up having to kill her..." says Applejack.

"It was her or the world," says Rainbow Dash. "And seeing how she had totally lost her mind and how letting her go would have meant the death of everyone, the choice was obvious....." She sighs. "But it still must have hurt. It's as if I was forced to kill one of you to save everypony. Just thinking about this...!"

In the portal, they see the heroes, Kirby now without the power of the fruit, land back in the damaged tower where they're joined by the flower fairies, the ponies turning eyes at the sight of the cut corpses of the ants. Thankfully, the heroes quickly leave this area, and they start walking in the hallways of the tower. Some of the bug creatures of the castle slowly approach Taranza, hesitant.

But before they can say or do anything, Taranza says "The queen is dead," shocking them. "Go warn everyone."

The bugs stare at Taranza in shock, before looking at each others. They then disperse to do what Taranza said.

"Uh... Any idea of who will take her place?" asks Bandana Dee hesitantly.

Taranza shakes his head. "She had no heir nor brother or sister to take the throne."

Sweetie Belle sighs before putting a hoof on his shoulder. "I'm sorry you had to do that."

"I'm sorry I let things go this far," he replies. "Maybe I could have saved her if I had acted earlier..."

"Darn it. That guy needs a hug," says Applejack.

"A wanna give him one so much..." says Pinkie.

As if hearing them, Sweetie Belle hugs Taranza, quickly followed by Kirby, Adeleine, Gooey, and the flower fairies while the others just look unsure.

The ponies hug each others for comfort.

After a few minutes, following Taranza, the heroes, without the flower fairies who have all gone their way to warn the others of the news, enter what are none others than the queen's quarters, which, as expected from Sectonia, are HUGE and totally reflect her vanity. Portraits of her are everywhere, and a great part of her quarters are dedicated to clothes all perfectly reflecting the queen's beauty, without forgetting all golden objects and other beautiful things, and also... crystals, crystals, crystals, crystals!

"Do you want us to leave you alone?" asks Adeleine.

"No need. I'm just here to take something."

So they continue following him, Daroach looking left and right interested. Dedede sees this and he stares at him.

"Nope! You're not gonna steal anything from those rooms!"

"He can take a few crystals if he wants" says Taranza without turning. "We've more than we can deal with, and now that Sectonia... isn't here anymore, nobody will mind if somes are gone. Just don't take anything else."

Daroach doesn't need to be told twice, and already, he's filling a bag with crystals, much to the frustration of some of the others.

Soon enough, they enter the queen's chamber, also very huge, and Sweetie and Kirby gasp upon spotting a certain object hooked against a wall: a big mirror surrounded by a golden frame with wings! Mirror to which Taranza is walking... erh... floating.

"The Great Mirror from the Mirror World!" shouts Sweetie Belle, making some of her friends look at the mirror in shock at hearing what it is. She then looks at Taranza. "Earlier, you said that you went to the Mirror World to give a mirror to Sectonia for her birthday. So that was you who stole it!"

Taranza looks at them, sweating. "Uh... I just wanted to give the best mirror for the best queen."

Meta Knight shakes his head. "This mirror belongs to the Mirror World. You had no right to take it, no matter the reason."

Dedede huffs. "And you made us think that it was the Squeak Squad who stole it."

"Hey!" shouts Daroach indignantly... before chuckling. "Eh, yes, I can't fault you, we could have done that."

Taranza looks at the heroes, sweating more, before he says "W-well then... I wanted to take it with me because it's the last gift I gave to Sectonia, but I can give it back if you want. I will take something else."

Sweetie Belle nods before she starts walking toward the mirror, only to be stopped by Kirby who puts an arm in front of her with a "Poyo!" Surprised, Sweetie Belle looks at him, and sees that Kirby is glaring at the mirror.

"What's going on Kirby?" she asks.

Kirby points at the mirror and says "Poyo!" with a tone that clearly says "That thing is dangerous!"

Sweetie Belle looks back at the mirror, now suspicious. In wonder, Taranza gets away from it.

Then, she sees it. It's very faint, very small, almost invisible, but from the top edge of the mirror, she spots some purple energy leaking. She immediately starts focusing on the energies around her.

And she immediately feels negativity coming from the mirror. She recognizes the four matters, but heavily tainted, evil...

She can only think of one being from which this negativity comes from... The only one that has touched this mirror for his evil deeds.

Dark Mind.

"The mirror is still corrupted by Dark Mind's evil!" she shouts. She looks at Meta Knight. "But how is this possible?! We killed him!"

Meta Knight facepalms. "What an idiot! Killing an evil being doesn't necessarily mean that all objects corrupted by them are cleansed! If an object has been too much corrupted, and if we don't possess a means to get rid of this, then nothing can be done but to destroy it! We should've inspected the mirror after our victory! Why didn't I think of this?!"

"You were still recovering from Dark Meta Knight kicking your butt."

"Urgh..."

Taranza joins them. "You mean that the mirror is corrupted?" He then realizes something, his expression turning into horror. "Could this means..."

Everyone, and everypony, realise the same thing.

"No..." says Fluttershy.

"Ta... Taranza..." starts slowly Sweetie Belle. "Has Sectonia started to act... evil... after you gave her this mirror?"

"Well... Now that I think about this... At first, she was passing more and more time watching herself in the mirror. She was starting to say things about 'needing to become more beautiful', and was starting to be a little more pushing... Then, a few months later, she used her magic to change her form into a form more beautiful to her tastes."

"This bee form wasn't her real form?" asks Dedede.

"No. Before that, she was actually like me," answers Taranza before continuing. "Then, she made us build this castle, spread her rule over all Floralia, treated everyone more and more like objects... And she was always passing hours in front of this mirror, admiring herself, everyday." Taranza 'kneels' on the floor, shaking. "Sectonia... The mirror... How could I not...? My gift... What have I done?!"

"So this means..." slowly says Sweetie Belle as she sits because of the shock. "Sectonia was innocent? She was..." She's then hugged by Adeleine, who starts crying. Coo stops flying, landing on Dedede's head before looking down in sadness.

"All... All of this happened... because of a birthday gift?" asks Pinkie. Her friends immediately surround her in a pile of hugs. "But... But birthday gifts should lead to joy, not to death..."

"It was an accident Pinkie!" says Twilight. "That... That kind of thing can happen...!"

Meta Knight sighs, closing his eyes. "This is my fault. I should have checked the mirror after Dark Mind's death." He then looks at the others, especially at Sweetie Belle and Adeleine. "You can rest your mind, however, by knowing that by the time she was killed, nothing could be done anymore. Death was the only way to free her."

Dedede growls and takes his mecha hammer. "And now, we can make sure it doesn't happen again! I'll destroy it!"

But as soon as he says that, the mirror suddenly expels a huge quantity of negative energies as it gets surrounded by a dark aura.

"Oooh... The mirror didn't like that..." says Marx.

"What now?" asks Rainbow.

Then, a familiar silhouette appears in it. Round, with two feet, two bat wings, and two hands, one of them holding a sword. Sweetie Belle, Kirby, and Meta Knight immediately recognize who is this silhouette as it gets out of the mirror.

Once fully out of the mirror, Dark Meta Knight lands on the ground, eyes still closed as he comes to his senses.

"Wait a minute! We killed you!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

"The mirror brought him back to defend itself," says Meta Knight, sword ready.

Recognizing Sweetie Belle and Meta Knight's voice, Dark Meta Knight opens his eyes and...

https://youtu.be/zRfmFdaBdyk

He stops moving as sweat appears on his head. He would be the first to gloat about being strong, but even him knows that if he ends up fighting not only Kirby, Sweetie Belle, and Meta Knight, but also all those beings around them, then he's as good as dead... again. And even if many of them look weak, like that jester or that blue blob, he knows better now than to underestimate someone just by their appearance. Kirby and Sweetie Belle proved it to him. And if all those guys are as strong as those two...

But he has been reborn with a goal in mind: protect the mirror. What will he do?

This room not being adapted for a fight doesn't help.

But last time, it had taken five Kirbys plus Sweetie Belle plus a surprise attack in the back from Meta Knight to defeat him, so maybe if he goes all out from the start... Thinking that, he readies his sword.

Then, Sweetie Belle surrounds herself with ten double sword beams. The penguin behind her opens his mechanical hammer to reveal a missile launcher. The jester turns into a bat abomination. The mouse starts gathering energy in his two wands. The blue blob jumps and turns into what looks like a smaller and darker version of his old master's true form. The human girl paints an ice dragon and gives it life before jumping on its back. The Waddle Dee points his spear at him. And the spider readies some big magic orbs.

...

Maybe he should just say "Screw you!" to the mirror before flying through that window beside him.

No, he must remain here and protect it.

Protect it, HOW?! He can't protect it against THAT!

It doesn't matter! He must fight to the end for his master! Death doesn't scare him!

There's no use dying in a battle that he can't win!

Maybe he can win. At least, the owl seems to have nothing beside his claws, and this Waddle Dee with his spear doesn't look too problematic. And hopefully, this bat form of the jester is just all bark, no bite.

Suddenly, Meta Knight advances in front of the others, swinging his sword. "Let me fight him alone."

They all look at him, many of them with a raised eyebrow, before they all nod.

Really? They'll let this weakling fight him solo? Well, at least, this will make one less opponent to fight for when hell will break loose.

He can't help but laugh. "Do you really think you can defeat me?"

"Yes," simply replies Meta Knight.

"Have you forgotten the last time we faced each other?"

"No. I still have the bitter taste of my defeat. This is why I want to fight you. Many months have passed since your death, and I have trained hard."

"Oh, really? Eh. This will change nothing. I'm still the most powerful swordsman between the two of us. But I accept your challenge. It will be fun to make you taste your weakness again."

"But I propose that we go to someplace more adapted for our fight."

At this, Dark Meta Knight looks at the others, then at the mirror, before saying. "Do you take me for an idiot? As soon as we leave this place, they'll destroy the mirror behind my back!"

Meta Knight rolls his eyes. "Just take the mirror with you then."

And after a moment of silence... "Fine."

"Now I can't wait to see this. Meta Knight versus the dark mirror version of himself," says Rainbow Dash, excited. "I always dreamed of fighting a dark version of myself!"

The others aren't as excited, especially after the revelations from earlier. Also, they really need to sleep. They've passed almost a whole day watching this adventure. Thankfully, not all the adventures are this long.

---

The two knights, followed by the others, have returned to the area where the fight against Sweetie Belle and Sectonia has taken place, the Great Mirror floating above the gap facing the flowers of the Dreamstalk. By now, they are staring at each other, swords ready to slash, wings ready to propel them forward.

And then, Dark Meta Knight starts the fight by charging first before starting to attack his counterpart relentlessly, slash after slash. Meta Knight parries all of them without moving from where he stands.

Like the first time," says Meta Knight. "This is what caused my defeat, your brutality, your relentlessness... You are my opposite in so much points, but I hadn't taken that into account when facing you, and I paid for this."

"There was not only that, but also the fact that the mirror made me naturally superior to you!" shouts back Dark Meta Knight before he flies back and swings his sword in the air. Three mirrors appear in front of him, and out of them, three giant versions of his sword come out, almost impaling Meta Knight who side steps to avoid them. "You can't use the mirrors like I do! But I can use ALL your attacks!" finishes then Dark Meta Knight.

"True," confirms Meta Knight. "And yet, I will prove to you that I am the superior among the two of us."

"Because you've trained a little? Ah! Yeah. We will see."

Dark Meta Knight then swings his sword three times, each time firing a dark sword beam at Meta Knight who deflects all of them without problem. In return, Meta Knight fires a sword beam too.

"This is not gonna work!" shouts Dark Meta Knight as he hides himself inside a mirror, deflecting the beam back at Meta Knight who side jumps to avoid it.

The mirror is which Dark Meta Knight is hidden then separates into four mirrors, each with a Dark Meta Knight in it. The mirror then rapidly start moving around, sometimes superposing each others to better confuse Meta Knight who doesn't stop following them with his eyes. After a few seconds, one of the Dark Meta Knights comes out of his mirror and dives toward Meta Knight who dodges him at the last second with a side jump. He avoids in the same way the second Dark Meta Knight coming out, then also side jumps the third, only this time, he slashes at him. The three clones disappear as the real Dark Meta Knight is knocked on the floor by this, surprised.

"What? How?"

"The real you was the only one moving inside the mirrors."

"Curse!"

"Now, get back up."

With a growl, Dark Meta Knight charges at Meta Knight, and after a first clash from their swords, the two of them start flying around the round at the speed of lightning, finally going serious. One instant, they are over here clashing, the next, they are over there for another clash. Sometimes, Dark Meta Knight fires some sword beams, only for his counterpart to deflect or dodge them.

After a whole minute of clashing around like that, the two separate at opposite sides of the area before they charge their swords. Once charged, they swing, both sending a big tornado toward the other. In the middle, the tornadoes cancel each other, and the two knights collide while spiraling with their swords outstretched, causing some sparks to appear between their swords.

They jump back, and Dark Meta Knight raises his sword, causing a mirror to appear right under his rival. Meta Knight quickly flies out of the way just before a giant sword comes out of it. Dark Meta Knight continues rising his sword, creating more mirrors along Meta Knight's path as he continues to fly to avoid the swords coming out of them. Until Meta Knight is able to reach him, forcing him to stop using the mirror swords to parry a slash. Dark Meta Knight flies back, then charges again at Meta Knight, only for him to fly to the side before immediately counter attacking with another slash that Dark Meta Knight isn't able to counter in time. Meta Knight quickly flies back to avoid an attack in revenge.

Dark Meta Knight then starts spinning with his sword, doing the 'sword tornado' before he flies toward Meta Knight. The blue knight wraps himself in his cape, and does his teleportation thingy like he did back when Sweetie first encountered him, appearing many feet away, far enough to not be reached by Dark Meta Knight's sword tornado, to his annoyance.

Dark Meta Knight stops his attack and turns back toward Meta Knight, swinging his sword to send five sword beams at the same time, all the beams going in a different direction. But then, Dark Meta Knight raises his sword, creating mirrors in the way of the beams, deflecting all of them toward Meta Knight who ends up deflecting all of them one by one. He then turns around, just in time to parry a slash from Dark Meta Knight at his back, only for Dark Meta Knight to punch him on the head, following this immediately by some strikes. Meta Knight stops him by spinning and doing his own sword tornado, catching Dark Meta Knight in it and striking him countless times before expelling him at the end.

Dark Meta Knight immediately charges back toward him, not to slash him, but to headbutt him, and Meta Knight flies down to dodge him before slashing up, cutting the dark knight from below. Meta Knight doesn't stop here and continues attacking, pushing Dark Meta Knight to the defensive. Until...

Cling!

Meta Knight propels Dark Meta Knight's sword upward out of his grip. He then raises his left hand and catches it as it falls back toward him, before he quickly swung the two swords at Dark Meta Knight's left and right, only to stop just before they hit, trapping the dark knight between them.

"You've lost."

"No... No way..."

"I evolved, unlike you. I learned from my defeat. And most of all, unlike you, I fight for a cause. You... You're just a mirror's dog."

"How dare you-"

"If you aren't, then prove it!" Meta Knight points at the mirror. "Destroy it, and become your own master! Don't let what you've been created for define you! Become your own being!" At this, Meta Knight tosses back Dark Meta Knight's sword at him.

The dark knight catches it, growling as he glares at his counterpart, who glares back. "I will show you!"

Then, in less than one second, Dark Meta Knight charges toward the mirror, and gives a big vertical slash at it, cutting it in two. He then strikes it again, and again, and again, until all that remains of the mirror are small pieces barely visible for the eyes.

"I'm nobody's dog! And certainly not from a mirror!"

Behind him, Meta Knight nods as he joins his friends. "I'm warning you," he starts, gaining the attention of his counterpart. "If you start anything that would make you a threat to Dreamland, Popstar, the universe, or anyone... We will kill you, and this time, there will be no come back possible for you."

Dark Meta Knight looks at them for a few seconds without saying anything before he finally flies out, quickly disappearing in the sky.

"Are you sure this is a good idea to let him go?" asks Dedede.

"He's not fundamentally evil, for the same reason that I was not fundamentally good at the start. He's just... more violent, without honor..." He chuckles. "And edgy. Hopefully, while he trains to one day defeat me, he'll develop a new vision of the world. Or he'll be so focused on surpassing me that he'll not try anything else."

"I'll be sure to keep an eye on him," says Marx before he flies out after Dark Meta Knight.

"Speaking of surpassing you," starts Sweetie Belle as she walks in front of him, her attentions clear.

Meta Knight laughs. "I was waiting for this moment. I accept your challenge. Tomorrow, noon, on one of the plateaus surrounding your castle. What do you think?"

"I think it's perfect." She then stares at Taranza. "Too bad that I revealed my trump card..."

Taranza laughs sheepishly, rubbing his head. "Sorry..."

Chapter 78: Duel Against the Knight

Hopefully finished with all of this, Sweetie Belle and some of her friends decide to remain a little in the castle to rest, while Meta Knight, Daroach and Coo prefer to leave, respectively to prepare for the fight tomorrow, to bring all the taken crystals to the Squeak Squad, and to go tell the other animals what has happened. Yin and Yarn are now sleeping attached to Sweetie's belt, and Spikezilla has been returned to his doll form.

Thankfully, with Sectonia gone, the bug clan has become more friendly toward the heroes and even say how sorry they are to the flower fairies still in the castle. Speaking of, Sweetie Belle has told the fairies about their little problem with the castle, and as it turns out, also with Kirby's house, and the fairies have gotten the idea to use vines to lift them. This has gotten Sweetie Belle and Dedede to raise an eyebrow. Yes, they could lift Kirby's house without too many problems, but the castle? At this, the fairies have replied that with the help of the bug clan, it may be possible. Smiling, Dedede has then proposed the help of his army, which has been gladly accepted.

Then, Dedede has gotten an idea and has asked everyone, both fairies and bugs, to gather somewhere in this castle, because he has an announcement to do.

"What is this announcement?" has asked Sweetie Belle then.

In answer, Dedede has just smirked before saying "You'll see."

---

Back at Equestria, the ponies curious to see what this king want to say, decide to keep the portal open while they get some shuteye.

"I'll wake you when he starts," says Discord.

---

And so, a couple of hours later, Dedede, Sweetie Belle, Bandana Dee, and Taranza stand on a balcony facing a big room filled with both the bug clan and the fairies (which, Sweetie Belle has learned, are the ones called the People of the Sky), among all kinds of other creatures living in Floralia, most of which are also creatures that live on the surface, like Waddle Dees. Kirby, Adeleine, and Gooey are among them, curious to see what the king had in mind.

Dedede eventually clears his throat before he starts to speak.

"Everyone! As many of you have probably learned by then, the queen of the sky, Sectonia, is now dead. I learned that before she was corrupted, each of you lived in their own little clans, like the Bug Clan, or the People of the Sky. So, now that she's dead, everything will return like before? Bugs will return with bugs, fairies will return with fairies, they'll all return living in their own space, and barely interact with each other as if all of this never happened? One of the good things about Sectonia taking over all the islands is that she made Floralia into one kingdom, united under the same banner. Well, why not keeping the whole 'united kingdom' thing and just remove that thing about 'bugs being superior to others'? Wouldn't it be better if everyone remains with everyone, together like you are now in this room? Moreover, the Dreamstalk is now linking all the islands! So more reason to stop being isolated!"

Every creature in the room start talking to each other about this. This penguin is right, it would be nice to form a real kingdom together. Beside, the Bug Clan and the People of the Sky are already in good terms despite what has happened.

Taranza then says "I approve about this, but then, who would be the ruler?"

At this, Dedede smirks.

"Oh, I see where this is going..." says Sweetie Belle with a sigh.

"Me, of course!" shouts Dedede.

"And here we go..." says Sweetie Belle with a chuckle.

Before anyone can voice anything, Dedede continues. "First, let me present myself. My name is Dedede, and I am the king of Dreamland, the kingdom at the surface just under us. I have helped killing Queen Sectonia. You know what this means?" He raises his arms, spreading them wide. "I conquered Floralia! So this makes me the king of Floralia too!" He then starts walking back and forth on the balcony, rubbing his chin with a calculated smile. "Now, I could annex Floralia into Dreamland and make one single kingdom, but..." He suddenly grabs Sweetie Belle by the neck.

"Wh...? Hey!"

Dedede shows her to everyone. "Let me present to all of you my second in command, hero number two of the lower world, Sweetie Belle. She's kind, she's adorable, she's a perfect plushie to sleep with the night..."

"Hey!" shouts again Sweetie Belle at this, blushing, much to the amusement of some of the creatures below.

"But she's also one of the greatest warriors of the lower world, and the strongest in my army, including me. She's helped save the world, and even the universe, more than once. To do what is right and protect innocents, she's ready to fight a god! And she can turn anyone into her friend! And now..." He rises his other hand, and a Bronto Burt comes before dropping on it a crown made to look like the Dreamstalk, with the big flower at the front. The Bronto Burt then takes the golden circlet from Sweetie Belle's head, and Dedede places the Dreamstalk crown on it instead.

"What?"

"From now on, she's your new queen!"

"EEEEHHHHH?!?!!!!"

---

The ponies drinking coffee or tea just at this moment all do a spit-take at hearing this.

"WHAT?!!" yells Rarity.

---

Sweetie Belle is babbling incoherently at the announcement Dedede has just done, before she's finally able to say. "Y-you know that I can't-"

"However..." Dedede cuts her. "As you can see, she's just a child, so she's not yet fitted to rule. Besides, one day, she'll return where she comes from, and she won't return here until she reaches adulthood, when she'll have finished her schooling. And let's not forget that she's a hero, and as the job implies, she'll have to leave sometimes to go save the world. So..." He taps Taranza on the back, almost making him fall on the floor. "I name Taranza here regent! He'll administrate Floralia until Sweetie Belle returns adult! And each time that Sweetie Belle has to leave because of her duty as a hero, he'll be there too!"

"What?!"

"You could have talked to me about this before deciding to make me queen!" shouts Sweetie Belle at him.

Dedede laughs. "Remember! After you defeated me, everyone down here wanted you to become the queen, and you refused because you didn't want to take my throne, but you never said that you didn't want to become queen at all! You even said 'If I become queen, then this will be of another kingdom'!" He looks at her with a big grin, pointing a finger just in front of her face. "You don't actually mind becoming a queen! And as I'm talking now, you aren't even refusing becoming a queen! I didn't need to talk to you about this, I knew that there would be no problems!" His grin becomes wider. "Beside, I wanted to see your face. Worth it."

In answer, Sweetie Belle looks at him annoyingly, pouting.

Dedede then turns her toward the crown. "Now, give them a speech!"

"What?! Right now?! But I'm not prepared! And will you drop me?!"

"Since Her Majesty asks so nicely." He drops her, without even lowering her first. Thankfully, Sweetie Belle's reflexes let her land on her hooves. "As for the speech, just improvise. You improvise all the time when you fight."

"Giving a speech isn't the same as fighting!"

"Come on Sweetie Belle!" shouts then Bandana Dee. "Just be yourself! Say whatever you have in mind!"

She sighs. "I'll try..." Using a shield, she rises until she can be seen by everyone in the room. Having butterflies in her stomach, she looks at the crowd, everyone looking back at her in wonder. Oh Celestia... This reminds her of when she was scared of singing in front of a crowd. She has beaten that fear since then, but here, this feels the same. No, this feels worse! But now, she has to do this. Not singing is one thing, but failing to give a speech to introduce herself as a new queen, she would be a laughing stock for all Floralia! But she's so scared to screw it! Curse you Dedede!

So, with a gulp, she starts talking uncertainty. "Uh... Hello, everyone. It's nice to become your queen!"

...

Breathe, Sweetie! Just do like Bandana said!

So Sweetie Belle takes a big breath and continues. "Ahem! Like King Dedede said, my name is Sweetie Belle. I come from another dimension, transported here by accident, and... Well... Before coming here, I wasn't special. I was just a filly trying to find my Cutie Mark -my special talent-, going to school, playing with my friends, and involuntarily turning my big sister crazy sometimes," she says that last part with a laugh, followed by the laughter of some of the people below. "Really, nothing prepared me to become a leader, even less a queen. But... When the time will come, with the help of my friends, of all of you, I will do everything to turn Floralia into heaven, and to protect everyone from any dangers. I don't have the experience, but I have the abilities.

Until then, I'm certain that Taranza will have no problems. He was close to Sectonia, so he certainly knows what to do. And I'll be happy to help him. And you can be sure that Dedede will help too. Speaking of. I'll probably continue to live in his castle before I return to my home dimension. Because..." She waves all around her, at the whole room. "Excuse me to say this, Bug Clan, but this castle looks too much like the fortress of an evil tyrant with a big ego (which is the case). And I can't even start to guess what is the meaning of those rooms with the gears, without forgetting that we will have to find what to do with all those crystals. Suffice to say, there'll be many changes for this castle. We will probably have to rebuild it from the start into a more nice-looking castle."

At this, everyone, even the bugs, agree. The Bug Clan has built this castle for Sectonia not long after she has become tyrannical, respecting her criterias, and the result certainly looks like a fortress of doom and vanity.

"So, until the new castle is built, we should consider Dedede's castle as Floralia's castle too. It'll be not far from the base of the Dreamstalk once it's placed back on the mountain."

Behind her, Dedede whispers to Taranza "I think I have an idea of what to do with the crystals."

Sweetie Belle rubs her head, not sure of how to end her speech. "So... Let's do our best! For Floralia!"

After a small silence, everyone in the room started applauding her. This is certainly not the best speech ever, but at least, she's done her best seeing how she's been thrown into the role without warning, and how young she's.

"See?" asks Dedede. "It wasn't that hard."

Sweetie Belle rolls her eyes, smiling. "I would like to see you at my place."

---

"Congratulation Rarity, your sister is a queen," says Applejack. "When I'll say that to Apple Bloom, that filly will run on the wall."

"Wait, does this make Rarity a princess?" asks Rainbow Dash.

Twilight shakes her head. "No, Rarity would be a princess only if her parents were already royals. Since Sweetie Belle got her title by being given a kingdom, then Rarity's title can be anything that Sweetie Belle will decide, princess, duchess... or nothing."

"Oh my... So I could become a princess..." says Rarity before fainting.

This makes Rainbow Dash laugh. "Too awesome for her!" She then turns toward Pinkie. "You know what to add to the list, Pinkie!"

"Yuperonie! Already noted!" replies Pinkie who's holding a rather big list of parties planned for Sweetie Belle once she returns. "'One 'Sweetie Belle is a queen' party added to the list!" By now, the pink pony has recovered from what she has learned earlier, but her still slightly dropping mane shows that she still has this in mind. Only time and friendship will solve this. She looks at the list. "Mmh... This starts to be a lot. I may need the party supplies that I've hidden in Manehattan to have enough."

Twilight rolls her eyes. "Of course you have party supplies hidden in Manehattan."

At this, Discord snaps his fingers, closing the portal. "I think this concludes this long observation session. Poor Fluttershy needs her sleep."

"Oh, I'm alright, Discord. But, thank you..."

Discord materializes a violin in his hands. "Do you need me to play a lullaby?"

She giggles.

---

Not long later...

"You can open your eyes."

Hearing this, Adeleine opens her eyes, and gasps upon seeing the building Sweetie Belle has led her into.

"Is... Is that the home of the Great Artist?!"

Sweetie Belle nods. "Yes. When Taranza captured me, he came here and forced Kirby, Dedede, and Bandana Dee to fight none other than Drawcia's sister, Paintra."

Dedede laughs proudly. "A great fight it was! But she was nothing against us! She didn't even turn into a giant ball of paint!"

"So, the two Painting Sisters are dead. All that remains is the clay statue," comments Adeleine.

"And the monster that corrupted those two and Yin and Yarn: Dark Crafter," finishes Sweetie Belle. "So what do you think?" she asks as she waves at the room.

"What I think? I think it is awesome!" shouts Adeleine like a fangirl. "Oh! All that I could learn about the art of giving life to... Well, to art!" She then takes a big breath, and starts to shake Sweetie Belle. "Can I come live here?!"

"O-o-of..." She gets out of Adeleine's grip. "Of course you can come! You don't need to ask!"

"Of course I need to ask! It's part of your kingdom!"

Sweetie Belle rolls her eyes. "You're helping me learn how to give life to paintings, which makes you my master, without forgetting that you are my friend. You don't need to ask me anything, and especially not something with an answer so obvious. This place screams your name!"

Adeleine wraps her in her arms, giving her a bear hug while she starts turning and repeating "Thank you!"

Dedede laughs. "You know, you could even use this building to create a school!"

Adeleine gasps and drops Sweetie Belle. "You're right! I will learn everything that is written in those scrolls and books, then I will open a school so I can teach it to dozens, hundreds of people! I must start right now!" At this, she runs toward the nearest scrolls.

Sweetie Belle giggles, before yawning. "Then I will leave you here while I go sleep. With all this, I haven't slept since yesterday." As she leaves with Dedede, she adds, "Good luck becoming the New Great Artist."

"IIIIIIIIIIHHHHH!!!!!"

And so they leave the human girl fangirling.

---

By the next day, Dedede's castle and Kirby's house have been placed back at their place, and everyone has returned at the surface excepted Adeleine who has remained in her new home. As for Taranza, he remains in Sectonia's castle to do his new job and to start the work to build the new castle. Dedede has sent a small part of his army to help the people of Floralia in destroying the old one and building the new one.

Now, Sweetie Belle is well rested, and ready for her fight against Meta Knight. Now, it's near noon, and one of the Bronto Burts patrolling around the castle has spotted the knight landing on a nearby plateau. Sweetie Belle has immediately taken flight on a shield to join him, wearing her regular golden circlet instead of the Dreamstalk Crown. She will put the crown on only when she'll return in Floralia to help or visit.

Dedede and Bandana Dee will probably join her to watch the fight in a few minutes.

She soon spot Meta Knight on a plateau waiting for her, but to her surprise, he's not alone. Vul, Sailor Waddle Dee, and some of the knights are here too, standing at the edge of the plateau.

"You've come with your fanclub?" she asks when she lands in front of him.

He chuckles. "They insisted to come. They want to witness this fight."

She giggles. "They aren't the only ones. Dedede and Bandana are probably coming as I talk. And..." She looks up toward the sky. "Did you spot them?"

Meta Knight looks up, fixing the two silhouettes he can see in the sky. "Yes. I saw them."

"Dark Meta Knight seems curious to see how screwed up he would be if he decides to do something bad. And of course, Marx is with him to keep an eye. I wonder who's the strongest among the two."

At this moment, Dedede lands on the plateau, holding Cape Knight on his back, followed by Bandana Dee, Broom Sunglasses, and Knuckle Joe carried by Bronto Burts. When they land, Bandana and Knuckle Joe place a banner with written on it "Go Team Dedede!"

Dedede then shouts "Come on Sweetie Belle! Prove to those guys that Team Dedede is now the best!"

Sweetie Belle and Meta Knight facepalm/facehoof.

"You dare!" yells Vul. "Lord Meta Knight will defeat your champion!"

"Yeah!" shouts Sailor Waddle Dee. "Team Meta Knight is the best!"

"Then where's your banner? Show your boss some support." shouts back Bandana Dee.

"Our presence is enough!" replies an Axe Knight.

"Sweetie Belle will explode Meta Knight! I saw her train this morning, she's become a real fighting machine!" shouts Knuckle Joe.

"You forget that Lord Meta Knight is the strongest warrior of the world!" shouts back Vul.

"Was!" laughs Dedede.

"Kirby doesn't count!" yells Vul angrily.

"I wasn't speaking about Kirby! Bwahahahaha!"

"You...! You...!"

"I knew this would come to this!" shouts Sailor. "You want to play like that? Then we will play!" He takes some kind of communication device from his hat. "Guys! Come!"

The next instant, the Halberd comes from between the mountains before it remains hovering beside the plateau, behind Vul and others. On the Halberd, countless members of the Meta Knights are here, cheering and holding banners with things like "Our boss is the boss!", "We are N°1!", or "U losers!"

By now, Meta Knight is hiding his eyes behind his hands, groaning.

"So, you're bringing your A game, uh?" asks Dedede before he takes his own communication device. "Come too!"

And the next instant, the Warhammer comes from between the mountains before hovering at the opposite side of the plateau, behind Dedede and the others. On the Wahammer, countless members of Dedede's army are cheering and holding banners with things like "Sweetie, Sweetie, Sweetie, that's the name you should know!", "The king rules!", or "Kings > knights!" Some of the Meta Knights promptly answer by booing, quickly replicated by Dedede's army doing the same.

Sweetie Belle looks around her at what's going on, sweating. "When has this rivality appeared?"

"The instant we became rivals, I suppose," answers Meta Knight. "Let's just do as if they aren't there."

"I can't. I could kill someone with my lasers."

"We thought about that!" shouts Dedede at her. The next instant, everyone on the Warhammer takes a huge metal shield behind which they can hide.

"As for my guys, you don't have to worry. They can jump out of the way of a laser."

"Very well. So, do we start?"

"Anytime."

"Well then..."

She takes her whip, separates it into ten parts, and turns each of them into a double beam sword. She grabs one with her right hoof, while the others start floating and spinning around her.

Meta Knight takes his sword, and prepares his bat wings.

Everyone around them stop cheering or booing.

The two warriors look at each others, not moving, not talking, not making a sound.

The wind is howling.

They charge.

The following clash is so chaotic that the spectators have a hard time following what's going on. Sweetie Belle uses her ten double swords to attack Meta Knight from all sides, but the knights counters that by constantly moving and swinging his sword left and right to dodge and parry all of them. And despite the number of weapons against him, he is able to attack the filly more than once. Some times, the filly would see the attack coming and create a shield to stop it, but other times, they hit.

In the sky, Dark Meta Knight is already frowning. "He was playing with me..."

"I can't fault him," says Marx beside him. "It's fun to play with you."

"Go die."

"Nope!"

Back in the fight.

"Whoa. You've really gotten stronger since the last time we fought," says Sweetie Belle. "And Kirby is still able to defeat you?"

"His swordsmanship is not as great as mine, but he knows how to wait for the right moment to strike. He dodges my attacks, parries when he's not given choice, and attacks when he finds an opening."

"Mmh... Maybe I should try to get better in the art of dodging. At the start of my training, Dedede helped with this, and it was painful. But after a while, I started focusing on other things."

"To better your powers and to master their use."

She nods.

"But you are still very good at dodging. I saw it in our adventure."

"But against fast adversaries like you, dodging is almost impossible for me."

He chuckles. "Maybe you can use this fight to learn. You can't win if you can't touch Kirby, but Kirby won't be able to win if he can't touch you."

Sweetie Belle frowns. "The problem is that I have learned how to feel the energies to dodge attacks, but swords are still difficult for me."

"The air."

"Uh?"

"When I swing my sword, I displace some air. It's the same when I move. Each movement causes a quantity of air to be displaced. You learned to feel the energies? Then now, you will have to learn to feel the air moving around you. If you can feel the air moving..." He closes his eyes. Immediately, a sword comes to strike him on his left shoulder, only for him to parry it. "Then you'll be able to feel when it is displaced by an attack, and you'll be able to properly counter it even if you don't see it." He chuckles again. "At least, it means we have both an advantage over the other. You haven't learned to feel the moving air... But I don't know how to feel energies. This is the main reason Kirby is always able to defeat me. He always knows when to use a sword beam to surprise me."

Sweetie Belle smirks. "Too focused on your sword training to learn that?"

"Yes."

"Then..."

She jumps back and quickly turns nine of her double swords back into cannons, only keeping the one she's holding.

"Lonely knight, who above the ocean had lost his ship,
You searched your way, and by now, you have found peace and friendship.
Lonely knight, yet again, you're facing me and my whip."

Sweetie Belle, boosted by her song, starts firing lasers from her nine cannons at Meta Knight from all sides, and the knight finds himself having to constantly fly in an erratic way to avoid them while charging toward Sweetie Belle to attack her again. The two clash again, but this time, Meta Knight gets hit by some of the lasers while he attacks Sweetie Belle without stopping.

"You have been training hard to be Popstar's strongest,
I have been training hard to surpass the strongest,
So it is time on this plateau to see who is the strongest!"

Meta Knight flies away from Sweetie Belle, then starts flying in circles, moving up and down to avoid the lasers while charging his sword. Then, he plants his sword in the floor, and out of it comes a tornado moving to his right, then another, and another, and another... Quickly, fifteen tornadoes circle Sweetie Belle, slowly closing on her, and she rapidly turns all her cannons back into the whip's staff mode that she levitates above her before making it spin very rapidly as it gains in length. Thanks to it, she creates a very big tornado around her, protecting her from the other tornadoes, only to end up being slashed by Meta Knight. She traps his sword between her hooves, and turns her staff back into cannons, firing lasers from them, hitting him with all of them. Meta Knight quickly kick her on the belly, propelling her back and making her release his sword, before he flies away.

"With your mask hiding your emotions
You're striking me with your sword using quick motions,
Attacking with calm and fury,
And you're ignoring any injury.

Sweetie Belle lands on her back hooves, and immediately uses her energy covered gauntlets to parry the strike. Continuing parrying Meta Knight's strikes as best as she can with her hooves, she reforms her staff and uses her magic to force Meta Knight to parry its strikes while Sweetie Belle herself jumps back. She rises a hoof, and creates three black orbs above it that she throws at the knight, the ball homing from three different directions. Meta Knight pushes the staff, then rapidly destroys one of the orbs while he jumps to avoid the two others. This causes him to be bonked on his back by the staff, and Meta Knight lands on his feet before jumping back to avoid again the two black orbs chasing him. But then, he gets striked by a lightning bolt from Sweetie's horn, and because of the shock, he's hit by the two orbs, and the staff, taking the Ice element, strikes the floor just in front of him, causing spikes of ice to appear around it, hitting Meta Knight with one of them.

"You're living for challenging fights like this one,
So you can become a warrior like there is none."

Meta Knight is projected a few feet by the ice spike, but is able to land on his feet. He then quickly turns to face Sweetie Belle, and swung his sword vertically, cutting a huge energy beam from the filly in two, separating it into two beams that pass him at his right and his left. Behind the laser, Sweetie Belle jumps, readying the strongest punch she can give.

"But I have a promise to keep so I must become this warri-or!

She punches him right on the mask, but at the same moment, Meta Knight slashes her on the belly. The knight is propelled back by the hit while the filly misses her landing, hitting the floor belly first, the pain getting her to stop her song. Sweetie Belle then hears the sound of something breaking, and she looks up to see that Meta Knight's mask has shattered into pieces, revealing his face to her for the first time since that celebration after Zero Two's death.

It is well known by now that each time that Meta Knight loses his mask in a fight, he gives up and teleports away to take a new one. He really doesn't like revealing his face. So Sweetie Belle thinks that she has won, that Meta Knight will teleport away. But to her surprise, he doesn't. He uses his hand to feel his face, and looks down to stare at the remains of his mask, but then, he turns his gaze toward Sweetie Belle, and his eyes are suddenly filled with determination.

He will not give up this fight. If they want to see who's the strongest warrior of Popstar, he'll fight to the end.

So, if Sweetie Belle wins, she knows that she could look to fight her next target: the most powerful warrior of the universe, Kirby.

So Meta Knight readies his sword again, while Sweetie Belle takes big breaths because of her bad injury. The pain is so much, she doesn't think she'll be able to focus enough to use her cannons, or to do much with her magic. The only reason she's still standing despite this pain is that she doesn't want to give up. At least, Meta Knight seems in pain too, if his shaking sword is any indication. So, with the few magic that she can still focus on, she levitates her staff back to her, back in neutral mode, and she grabs it, before facing her opponent again.

The only sound she can hear is her own heartbeat.

Meta Knight is the one charging at her, and the two start clashing again for a few seconds, until Meta Knight knocks her on her back with an upward slash almost getting her staff out of her grip. As soon as she lands on her back, she uses her back legs to buck him on the face, forcing him to step back as she goes back up.

They restart clashing, the exchange lasting a little longer, until Meta Knight is able to push her staff out of the way, opening her. However, Sweetie Belle uses the momentum she's gotten with this to spin on herself before thrusting her staff and hitting Meta Knight on his right eye. As Meta Knight is knocked back by the hit, Sweetie Belle immediately follows her attack by spinning her staff, hitting the knight many times on the cheek until he catches it, his right eye now closed. He pulls on it, pulling Sweetie to him, and prepares himself to headbutt her, only for the filly to use the pull to headbutt him out, knocking each other back with a bad headache.

They clash again, he slashes her on her left back leg, forcing Sweetie to kneel. She catches his right hand as he swings again to strike her, and she punches him between the eyes. They clash again, her staff its him on the right shoulder, damaging his pauldron. In return, Meta Knight slides on the floor and trips Sweetie Belle, making her fall on her belly. She quickly goes back up before facing him. They clash again, Meta Knight does his sword tornado. Sweetie Belle immediately hold her staff vertically to counter it, Meta Knight's sword striking it rapidly creating sparks. After a small moment, she lowers herself and trips Meta Knight with a kick at his spinning legs. As Meta Knight falls, she then gives him a back kick on the face, but as he's propelled back by it, he grabs her leg, spins in the air, and slams her on the ground. On the floor however, she kicks him on the face again with this same leg, and as he steps back, she quickly gets up.

They clash again, and Sweetie turns a part of her staff back into its whip version, wraps it around Meta Knight foot, and pulls, making him fall on his back, only for Meta Knight to wrap himself in his cape before teleporting. Feeling some air above her being displaced, she thrusts her staff up, catching Meta Knight off guard as he has been about to strike her from above, getting instead her staff right in his mouth. He doesn't possess a seemingly infinite hole inside him like Kirby, so the staff quickly reaches the back of the inside of his mouth, stopping his fall. Before he can do anything, Sweetie makes her staff taller, and taller, and taller! Then, once it's tall enough, she brings it down right on the side of the Halberd with such strength that a small hole is formed.

When she retracts her staff, Meta Knight is left in the hole, not moving.

Using her staff like a cane, she turns her head to look at Dedede and the others, smiling in victory. Everyone in Team Dedede screams their victory over Team Meta Knight who just look in shock at their unconscious boss, not believing he has lost.

And Sweetie Belle loses consciousness.

Author's Notes:

The king and the knight have been defeated. Now, all that remain is...

The hero.

But first, we still have three games left to go.

The Dark Crafter sub-saga to finish.

An alien invasion to repel.

A Dark God to defeat.

And some new friends to make... and to fight.... Or to fight and to make?

Chapter 79: Another Colorful Adventure Begins

Waking up back in her chamber in Dedede's castle? Check!

Waking up half turned into a mummy? Check!

Maxi Tomato ready for her to eat and heal? Check!

Grunting in pain, she slowly reaches out to the fruit on the nightstand beside her bed, and eats it. Just as she finishes it, she hears a party horn right beside her ear, making her bounce in surprise as the responsible, Dissy, starts laughing. Calming her breath, she glares at him.

Dissy then puts a party hat on his head and shouts "Good job in becoming the strongest warrior of Popstar -without counting Kirby-!"

Yin and Yarn are also here, standing on their pointy end, the two of them with a hat and Yin having a party horn too.

"Yeah! You totally got him!" says Yin.

"Even if he got you really bad too," adds Yarn.

Sadly, Spiky is still in his doll form, so he's not here with them. With all that happened yesterday, and the preparations for the fight against Meta Knight, she has preferred to leave him in this form.

Smiling, she says "Thank you guys." She then glares at Dissy again. "But could you not do that anymore?"

"No promise!"

"Thought so..."

"The others are already partying," informs Dissy. "For reasons that you will quickly discover, they couldn't wait." He blows in the horn before continuing. "And gosh! What a party it is! You should quickly join them!"

Now that he says it, she can hear music coming through the window. Surprised that Dedede has started partying without her, Sweetie Belle puts her clothes back, turns the doll back into his Spiky form, takes Yin and Yarn, and goes out of her chamber followed by the little dragon of yarn.

While walking in the hallways of the castle, she smiles thinking about actually winning a duel against Meta Knight. Well, it was a very close call, but she still won! She remembers when she first encountered Meta Knight all those months ago, he seemed invincible to her. He had that mask and cape and that sword and that seriousness... Dedede telling her that he fought Meta Knight in the past only to be defeated only strengthened this illusion. Then, they heard about Meta Knight's defeat against Kirby, totally breaking it. And later, she ended up fighting him with Kirby, and they won thanks to Kirby's experience and their teamwork, but it was still a tough fight. But the knight clearly wasn't invincible.

But he was still easily out of Sweetie Belle's league, made it worse by him constantly getting stronger, like Kirby, Dedede, and herself.

But now, she has been able to catch up to him, and she has won a duel! She can't believe it! She has won a duel against the strongest warrior of Popstar, making her the strongest warrior of Popstar!

She's closer than ever to defeat Kirby!

But now, the question: How long will it take for her to reach Kirby's level? The thing with Kirby is that it's hard to see if someone has gotten strong enough to defeat him, because he's so... versatile! Everyone is easily ten times more powerful than him, because Kirby is stuck with only one ability at a time while others like her can use the equivalent of many abilities without having to switch, and yet, Kirby is always able to adapt, and surpass anyone that get against him because he just knows how to dodge and attack at the right time, no matter what ability he uses. And if he can't dodge an attack, then he resists, analyses the attack, and learns how to dodge or counter it and even how to find an opening to strike his opponent.

To win against Kirby, she'll have to send EVERYTHING she has. And the more attacks she possesses, the better.

So she'll wait at least to master everything she's currently learning, giving life to paintings, gathering energy from the environment for her attacks, using all kind of weapons, self levitating, before she'll judge that she's ready.

It would be nice if they could deal with the Dark God before that. All that tension because of his shadow constantly planning over their heads would disappear, and they would be more lighthearted while fighting.

As she approaches the hall where Dedede usually holds his parties, she hears more and more the music as well as the voices of everyone. Wanting to join them, even if she knows that she will regret it, like each times Dedede does a banquet/party, she starts running, until she enters the hall, and gasps at what she's seeing.

Not only Dedede and his army are partying, but the Meta Knights are here too! The two armies that were booing each other this very morning are now having fun together, eating, drinking, exchanging jokes, singing, dancing, playing, and pretty much doing everything else that you can do in a party as if they were best friends since years! Dedede and Meta Knight are together, laughing around a drink, Dedede patting Meta Knight's back in fun. Vul and Cape Knight are talking together, probably exchanging words about their sword techniques she guesses, or about their roles as subleaders. Bandana Dee and Sailor Waddle Dee are on stage doing a rather ridiculous dance together, much to the amusement of the members of both armies watching them. And like always, she spots Kirby eating a whole buffet by himself. Count on him to be present when Dedede holds a banquet, even if he wasn't here to watch the fight. And...

Wait, is that Dark Meta Knight that she sees sitting near a corner of the room looking like he's pouting?

Oh, and Marx is also here, hidden behind a table, probably preparing some mischief.

"Hey! Sweetie!" She hears Dedede shout then. "Finally awake? Sorry, but we couldn't wait for you! As you can see, things just led to this with the Meta Knights!"

Broom Sunglasses walks to her. "They accepted their defeat, and they proposed to celebrate your victory over Meta Knight together. Fearing that telling them to wait for you to wake up would lead to a missed opportunity, Dedede accepted directly." He then tells her as quietly as he can with the music "He still hopes to recruit them under his banner."

She giggles. "Fat chance. They love their independence."

"Well, since you defeated their boss, he expects to get them to join him ahem with your help."

She sighs. "Dedede..." She then smirks. "Tell him that I can't help him."

"Oh? And why not?"

"Since he made me queen of Floralia, I'm not his second in command anymore. If I 'help' him recruit the Meta Knights the way he thinks, then they would join my army." Her smirk becomes evil. "And if he insists, then I will make sure to not only recruit Meta Knight, but I will also recruit him. At least, this way, they would work together like he desires. Mmh... And I suppose that this means that I would annex Dreamland, and that Dedede wouldn't be king anymore. Oh well, I would still assign him as... Uh... I think that it's a duke... Yes. Duke of Dreamland." She then lowers her voice, giggling. "Of course, I'm joking, but don't tell him that."

Broom Sunglasses burst into laughter before he starts to walk away. "I'll tell him! Oh, I already see his face!"

Sweetie Belle watches him go before she decides to solve one mystery: Dark Meta Knight's presence. She doubts greatly that he's the kind of guy that would want to go in a party. And looking at him, it's easy to guess that he's not enjoying himself. So, maybe she should go talk to him... Or try.

While she walks toward him, she takes the occasion to look through a window to see how late it is, and how much what she sees in this hall is just the tip of the iceberg, not thinking to do this in her chamber. First, the sun has not yet reached the horizon, but is about to. Second, both the Halberd and the Warhammer are here, at both sides of the mountain, and countless members of both armies are visible on them partying, turning the two battleships into party clubs.

Too bad Pinkie isn't here, she's missing something. To think that this last since noon...

Stopping looking, she continues walking toward Dark Meta Knight, who has spotted her approaching.

"Go away!" he shouts at her.

"Sorry. I'm just curious. Why are you here?"

Dark Meta Knight growls. "That clown dragged me here."

Following his gaze, Sweetie Belle looks at the stage, where a bunch of knights are in a triangle formation doing some really sick moves under Stayin' Alive, under the cheers of the others watching them. Suddenly, a giant ball comes from the front and strikes all of them.

"STRIKE!!!" shouts Marx, bouncing victoriously.

One of the knights, a Sword Knight, enraged, gets back up, takes his weapon, pointed it at the jester and yells "Get him!"

Thus starts a chase, Marx walking on a ball as he tries to escape the knights while laughing. Soon, they exit the hall, Marx' laughter and the shouts of the knights eventually disappearing in the hallways of the castle.

"And you don't try to escape?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"I've tried ten times, and ten times he dragged me back here," answers Dark Meta Knight before he groans, hitting his head against the table. "And I can't even resist against him... He's too powerful."

She giggles. "You tried to fight him and you lost."

Dark Meta Knight's groan confirms it.

"Sorry for you," she continues with another giggle.

"I don't need your pity."

Sweetie Belle sits beside the dark knight, deciding to leave an empty place between her and him just in case.

"Marx is easily one of the most powerful beings of this planet," she informs him. "His powers were boosted by the clockwork star Nova, and he could probably rivalise with Dedede, or even Meta Knight. Unless he trained himself since our fight all those months ago, but he's not the type to train. All he wants is to have fun and for others to have fun."

"I can't believe that I'm outmatched by a clown of all things..." says Dark Meta Knight before he looks at Sweetie Belle. "You can be sure that I will do everything to surpass him, as well as Meta Knight, and you."

"Good luck, I'm training hard to surpass Kirby, and also to face all those bad guys that appear every now and then. By the way, will you join us in protecting Popstar?"

"I will join nobody, and I have no reason to protect this planet."

"Then, how about to protect yourself?" they suddenly hear Meta Knight say. Turning their heads, they see that the knight is now at the other side of the table, in front of them. "If someone threatens to plunge Popstar in darkness, or to destroy it, or the whole universe, this means that everyone, you included, will be threatened."

"Then I will go fight those guys myself. I don't need your help."

Meta Knight slams a hand on the table. "The last two villains that threatened Popstar were so powerful that facing them alone would be suicidal! If you ended up fighting by yourself the Master Crown, or Flowered Sectonia, you would have been killed in a few minutes! You CAN'T face every threat by yourself! Even Kirby sometimes need our help! If a bad guy too powerful appears to destroy everything, and you want to save yourself, then you won't have any other choice but to ally yourself with us, or to stay alone not doing anything and hope that we will be enough to destroy them!"

"And this is what may happen one day," continues Sweetie Belle. "A being that we call the Dark God may appear anytime to destroy the whole universe. Do you see yourself facing a God alone? And I mean a real God, the kind that can create and destroy whole universes."

"Uh..."

"Think about this, at least," says Sweetie Belle before she leaves her chair and walks away to participate in the fun of the party.

The two knights look at her for a moment before Meta Knight says "Us teaming up to fight bad guys and save Popstar is the reason why you even exist today." And as he walks away, he continues. "There's nothing bad in teaming up to fight a common threat. And it certainly doesn't mean that you're weak."

With this, Dark Meta Knight is left alone in his corner, with his thoughts.

As the hours pass, and the sun disappears beyond the horizon, the party continues, and when the night falls, it even gains in intensity, spreading to the whole castle. Colored lights are turned on, doing circles in the sky as the music becomes louder. It's only when the sun rises again that the calm reappears in the castle, with the Halberd returning to the Meta Knights' base, and the Warhammer returning to its hangar in the mountain.

And so, peace really returns to Dreamland, the days passing.

Magolor rapidly pays a visit to talk about the advancement of his project. Learning about what happened, he congratulates Sweetie about becoming a queen and defeating Meta Knight before he modifies the training room to include Sectonia, Kirby's new abilities that he discovered in this last adventure, which are Archer, Beetle, Bell, Circus, and Axe, Sweetie Belle's new moves, and even a new button for Taranza and Dark Meta Knight, just in case. For the fun, he has also added a fight against Sweetie Belle manipulated by Taranza.

After that, the dark knight would pass whole days in this room.

---

Sweetie Belle focus on the canvas in front of her, painting carefully a Blipper. With one last swing of the brush, she finishes the Blipper's orange belly. Almost as soon, the painted fish jumps out of the canvas and into the water of the lake at her right. Looking at the fish now swimming in the lake, the filly smiles before starting to paint another Blipper.

"You're getting really good at it!" says Bandana Dee from behind her. Waddle Dee is currently passing some good time fishing in the small lake beside which they are, using his spear like a fishing rod. When Bandana Dee has told her about what he was about to do, Sweetie Belle has decided to accompany him and take the occasion to train her painting.

Thanks to Adeleine, the filly has now become almost as good as her. Of course, her creations are still a little... weird compared to Adeleine's, but they are good enough that they can take life. However, they aren't as durable as Adeleine's. One advantage that Sweetie Belle possesses over the girl is that she has more magic, and so, she has less problems giving life to more powerful creations. Not as powerful as the time she was using the Magic Paintbrush, she certainly CAN'T paint Zero Two, but she can at least paint the majority of the powerful beings she has fought until now, from Whispy Woods to the Grand Doomer, passing by Kracko (a more powerful version than Adeleine's), Mr Bright and Mr Shine, or that apes that could fire energy beams with his hands. A good amount of them are not as powerful as the originals, but in a fight, they can do their job.

Thanks to the scrolls and books discovered in the Great Artist's house, it has been much easier to learn, both about giving life to her paintings, make sure they are strong enough to not be destroyed in one hit, or also to invoke paint and an easel anytime like Adeleine. She has also started to learn how to do the same with sculptures, but she has still a long way to go for this. First, she still has to learn to sculpt...

She finishes painting the Blipper, who jumps out to join the other in the lake. She's getting better and better at painting them.

"Maybe I should start training painting more complex things. Blippers are all round, so they're rather easy." With this, Sweetie Belle starts painty a Squishy. Those things are certainly harder to paint with all their tentacles, and it takes her longer to finish one, and the result is not as good as the Blippers. "If only my special talent was painting."

"Eheh. It's not as bad as my painting," replies Bandana with a chuckle.

At this moment, an apple falls in the lake, and before the two of them can wonder from where it comes from, Bandana is knocked from behind by Kirby, causing his bucket full of fish to fall in the lake along with the string attached to the spear fishing.

"Oh, hello Kirby," says Sweetie Belle, waving at the puffball.

"Poyo!" he replies with a wave.

Using her magic, Sweetie Belle levitates the apple from the lake and gives it back at Kirby while Bandana gets up.

And then, Bandana spots something in the sky.

A hole is appearing, and before his eyes, it shoots a ray of lights that start draining all the colors, even of the sky. To his horror, any living beings whose colors are drained become lifeless. And now, it comes right toward them!

He turns back to Sweetie Belle and Kirby, panicked. "Guys! We must run! Quick!"

The filly and the puffball, who haven't remarked what's going on because it has been happening behind their backs, only have time to look at him before the ray of light reaches them, draining everyone of their colors and making them as immobile as statues.

The holes continues draining all the colors of Popstar until nothing remains. The ray of light disappears, and the hole starts closing.

Only for a strange paintbrush to come out of it, followed by two giant pale gloved hands with a purple eye in their palm trying to catch it. The paintbrush tries to escape them, but the hands continue trying to grab it, not giving up, until they almost caught it, making it fall right between Sweetie Belle, Kirby, and Bandana Dee. Here, the paintbrush slightly changes form, now looking like a cross between a fairy and a paintbrush. Looking around in panic as the hands charge toward her, the fairy turns back into her paintbrush form and uses it to recolor the three heroes.

And just as the hands are about to catch her, Kirby jumps and catches her. Without asking questions about what's going on, Sweetie Belle and Bandana then attack the hands with their respective weapons, forcing them to retreat back toward the hole.

Once they're sure that the hands won't come back, the trio look around in sadness at the state of Dreamland.

"What happened?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"I'm sorry..." they then hear. They look back at the fairy who looked down in sadness. "I could do nothing to stop her..."

Kirby pats her on the back to comfort her while Bandana asks "Who are you?"

"My name is Elline. I... I'm so sorry for what happened! I don't understand why she did that! I tried talking to her but she wouldn't listen to me! And when I tried to stop her, she tried to capture me! But why?! She wasn't like that! Why did she become mean?! Why take all the colors?! Why-"

She's suddenly hugged by Sweetie Belle. "Hey. Shh. Calm down. Breathe." Elline follows what she says, taking big, slow breathes. Once she feels that the fairy has calmed down, Sweetie Belle stops hugging her. "Better?"

Elline nods. "Mmhmmh."

"Now, what happened?"

Elline takes one last breath before she starts talking. "Claycia... She was my friend..."

"Wait? Cousin Claycia?"

"She's a great sculptor! She would sculpt things and I would paint them! We were even starting to create a whole world with this! We were actually planning to create seven worlds, each for each colors of the rainbow, and we would have named them Seventopia! But... But then... I don't know... Claycia suddenly became all mean and left me. And when I saw she was about to take this world's colors for her worlds, I tried to stop her. I failed..." she finishes, looking down in sadness again. But then, she looks at them again, determined as she points at the hole still visible in the sky. "Claycia is probably using the colors of this world to create Seventopia as we talk! We have to stop her and restore the colors! Will you help me?"

The three heroes nod in determination, Bandana and Sweetie Belle both saying "Of course!" while Kirby says "Poyo!"

"Yay! Thank you! Here, let me help you join the hole!"

As she said this, Elline turns into a paintbrush and starts painting a rainbow colored rope in the sky leading toward the hole, remaining both Sweetie Belle and Kirby of the Magic Paintbrush. Not needing to be told what to do, the three heroes jump on the rope and run on it, soon enough reaching the hole.

Dissy looks at this, rubbing his head in relief. "Thank me that I saw that ray of light coming...! Welp! Time to warn the ponies!"

Chapter 80: Green Valley

In Equestria, a certain draconequus is peacefully having his tea party with his best friend.

"Would you like some more tea, my dear?" Discord asks, proposing a big multicolored T.

Fluttershy giggles at his pun before answering "Yes, please."

So Discord starts pouring tea from the T. "And will you want a U? It always comes after the tea." But before Fluttershy can answer him, Discord's head suddenly starts vibrating. "Oh, excuse me, I have a call." Discord then takes his left horn and puts its base near his mouth and its end near his heart. "Yes? Oh, Dissy! No, let me guess. Sweetie has started a new adventure? Oh really? BWAHAHAHAHA! And you almost got caught in it?! Yes, I suppose that everybody would be less lively if they turn pale, even me. Well then, I leave you back to your job. Meanwhile, I will warn the ponies. Tata!" And Discord finishes by putting his horn back at its place.

"Oh dear... Another one?" asks Fluttershy, worried.

"Let's just hope that it won't be as tragic as last time. Everyone loves some drama, but I prefer comedies. With some luck, this time, the bad guy will be a goof. However, the situation is rather problematic for Popstar. The bad guy somehow managed to take all the colors, leaving everything really bland. And everyone touched has become as still as a statue. Goof or not, that's strong level of magic here. Even Dissy almost became a victim."

This makes Fluttershy gasp in horror. "Do... Does this mean that everyp... everyone in Popstar is...?"

"Everyone! Thankfully, Sweetie Belle, Kirby, and Bandana Dee were saved by some cross between a fairy and a paintbrush. And now, they are on their way to kick butts and chew bubble gum, and they're all out of gum! Popstar will regain its colors before we can say 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious'!"

"Supercar... Supercali... What?"

"Exactly. Now let's go Fluttershy!" shouts Discord as he places an arm around the pegasus. Snapping his fingers, Discord finds himself in a bat-like superhero suit while Fluttershy now wears a red and green suit with a small mask hiding her eyes and a black circle with a yellow F on it on her chest, as well as a yellow cape. "To the Discordmobile!"

"But... You don't need any transports. You can teleport."

"Oh. This is why you are my sidekick. You are so smart."

---

"Wait. Can you repeat that?" asks Twilight.

"The bad guy took all the colors of Popstar. The whole planet is now as white as a paper," says Discord.

"But... How..." She takes a big breath. "No, I will not go down this path again."

Discord, now wearing 3D glasses and lying down on a lounge chair along with Fluttershy, Spike, and Starlight, stops eating his popcorn and starts booing along with a dozen clones of himself, some of them throwing the popcorn or the glasses in anger. "Booo! We want a refund! We wanted to see a meltdown!"

Twilight gives a deadpanning look at Discord. "I will send a note to the others."

"Yes, do so. They will want to see this. It's not everyday that a hero has to recolor a whole world."

A few minutes later, everypony is gathered and ready.

"I can't believe it! A villain that steals the colors of everything! My worst nightmare!" shouts Rarity.

"I thought that your worst nightmare would be for your clothes to be hated by great fashion ponies, or to be booed on stage, or to be super ugly" says Rainbow.

"Those are worst nightmares two, three, and four."

"Woowee, Princess Luna must be busy with you," comments Applejack with a laugh.

Rarity just huffs in answer.

"I sent a note to Sweetie's filly friends," informs then Discord. "Since school is almost over, I thought that they would be interested to see their friend."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking," says Rainbow.

At this, Discord opens the portal, showing them Sweetie, Kirby, and Bandana Dee running on a rainbow rope in space, the rope created by some paintbrush not far in front of them. Changing the point of view of the portal so they can see where the heroes are going, they see in that they're approaching an island-looking world entirely made of clay representing glasslands and a forest. Behind this world, they can barely see other worlds, for a total of seven worlds, each seemingly representing a color of the rainbow, starting with the green. Also, each of the worlds, except the first, seem to be surrounded by some forcefield*.

"Well, this will be interesting," comments Discord.

---

A little earlier.

The hero's pass through the hole in the sky, finding themselves in space. Not too far in front of them, they can already see the seven worlds of Seventopia, all already colored, and all made of clay.

"That Claycia didn't lost time," says Sweetie Belle.

They can perfectly identify each of the seven worlds. First is a green world made mainly of grasslands and forests, then comes a yellow world made desert with some ruins. After is a world made mainly of water with a few islands, then is a world representing a blue sky with clouds and even a floating palace. The last three worlds are a world with a sun setting on a forest with giant mushrooms and some swamps, a volcanic world, and a world that is actually a giant paintbrush with many colors turning around purple.

"Alright!" shouts Bandana Dee determined. "I'm betting that Claycia is in that purple castle! Let's go beat her!"

"Not so fast, Bandana," says Sweetie Belle before pointing at the worlds beside the green one. "Look, they all have a forcefield."

"Uh?" Bandana focus more on those worlds, and can indeed see multicolored force fields surrounding them, but barely. "Aww... Really?"

"I bet that we will have to explore all those worlds one by one to find and destroy the seals that keep those force fields and pass to the next."

"And I bet that those seals will be protected by powerful guardians."

"Poyo..." sighs Kirby.

"You seem already used to that kind of thing," they hear Elline say still in her paintbrush form.

"We are," confirms Sweetie Belle. "Me and Kirby already saved Popstar many times, and Bandana helped us a few times." She then rolls her eyes. "And almost every time, we end up having to traverse a succession of areas each ending with a fight against a powerful being."

"So you are actual heroes?" asks Elline excitedly.

"You bet they are!" shouts Bandana Dee. "Kirby and Sweetie Belle are heroes, and the most powerful warriors of Popstar! You couldn't have found better people to stop Claycia! As for me..." He rubs his head. "I may be a hero too, but I'm far from reaching the level of those two."

"Don't sell yourself short, Bandana. You're still very strong, and you were of great help each time that you participated in one of our adventures," says Sweetie Belle.

"Poyo!"

Bandana just blushes and rubs his head again without replying.

"So, Elline, what do you think we will have to face, since you helped a little creating those worlds?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"First of all, everything is made of clay, even the creatures that you will encounter, and they have all been created by Claycia, so she has probably taken control of all of them."

"Which means many fights in perspective," comments Bandana.

"The most common that we will encounter are Cottas. You will recognize them easily, they look like upside down jars on feet with a face. Normally, they are defenceless, but who knows what Claycia has done with them. After, you will find some of the creatures that we can easily find in any other worlds, like Bronto Burts, or Hot Heads, or Gordos..."

At this, the three heroes groan. "Not Gordos..." says Bandana.

"Not a fan?" asks Elline.

"They can be nice to be around when they are friends, but any other time they go in the way and are annoying because they are invincible!" complains Sweetie Belle.

"Oh... But I'm sure this won't be too problematic for you!"

"Just annoying."

"As for this first world, Green Valley, there shouldn't be too many problems. Well, I would say the same things to all the worlds expected maybe for Red Volcano, but I fear that Claycia will create more difficult paths for us once she learns about you. But this first one should be a walk. All there are are grasslands, forests, and some caves. And charming little houses."

"So it should be quick," says Sweetie Belle.

Not long after, they reach Green Valley, and it is as peaceful looking as Elline said, pretty much like Dreamland, but with everything made of clay. Too bad it has been colored using the colors of Popstar. However, the clouds and rainbows visible in the sky seem to be real ones, or somehow, Claycia is able to make very realistic clouds and rainbows with clay.

Speaking of...

As the party starts exploring this world helped by Elline's rainbow ropes, Sweetie Belle asks "Is Claycia a clay statue given life?"

Elline looks at her in surprise. "Yes! Exactly! But how do you know?"

"Well... Do you know anything about potential little sisters she may have?"

Elline nods. "She didn't tell me much about them, but I know she has two little sisters. But each time she talked about them, she was sad, so I avoided this."

"We encountered them..."

"Really?"

"Yes, but... Something bad happened in the past, and they were turned evil. One of them, Drawcia, even tried to turn Popstar into a giant crazy painting. We were forced to kill them. Nothing else could be done."

Elline gasps in horror.

"They were corrupted by an abomination called Dark Crafter..." She looks at Elline with sad eyes. "And I fear that this thing may have corrupted your friend too. It's the only explanation that I can find to explain why she was so friendly, only to suddenly turn evil."

"Or maybe she was possessed by some Dark Matter wannabe!" quickly says Bandana. "Many of the Dark God's creations possess this power! If that's the case, then all we have to do is to knock her out, force the thing out of her, and destroy it!"

"Let's hope, Bandana. But if it's Dark Crafter, I don't know if he can take possession of something. Until now, he has just corrupted things." She starts thinking. "But... If this is Dark Crafter, and he has just corrupted Claycia not long ago, then maybe if we find him, and destroy him, we could save her. Like Meta Knight said, if the object hasn't been too much corrupted, then it's alright." Her expression becomes somber. "But if it's too much corrupted..."

"Like the Mirror..."

Sweetie Belle looks at Elline again. "We will do what we can for your friend, but I don't know if we will be able to save her..." She sighs. "Not everyone can be saved..." As tears appear in Elline's eyes, Sweetie Belle hugs her, saying "But if we can save her, then we will save her! I promise."

"But first, we have to find out if she has been corrupted, or possessed," says Bandana.

"But if she's corrupted, then why not simply do what you did to us?" they then hear.

Looking at her belt, she Sweetie Belle answers to Yarn "Because I don't think that she would be as weak as you. Claycia created seven worlds of clay and took the colors of a whole planet. I won't be able to force her to be nice like I did to you."

"Hey! We created a whole world too! We aren't weak!" yells both Yin and Yarn indignantly.

"Your creator used you to create Patch Land. And she used those glowing strings of yarn. Without those strings, and by yourself, your powers are limited."

As if they have been stabbed, the needles scream "Arg!" at this.

"After all, contrary to Claycia, Drawcia, and Paintra who are creations, you are tools. You need someone to use you to access your full power, and this power depends of this person's quantity of magic."

"Arg!!!"

"So even if you are corrupted, you barely pose a threat, not like Claycia. Heck, Bandana Dee was able to face you even when you were boosted by Taranza."

"ARG!!!"

"TKO!" yells Bandana with an arm raised.

This makes Elline giggle. "So, who are they?"

"Oh yeah. They are Claycia's cousins, Yin and Yarn. They were also corrupted by Dark Crafter, but as you just heard, those guys are just too weak to be a threat, so instead, they serve me."

"I didn't know that Claycia had cousins."

"Really? She didn't say anything about us?" asks Yarn.

"Uhuh," answers Elline with a shake of her head, which causes the needle to become depressed.

"No wonder... We barely saw each other before we were separated to go create Patch Land..." informs Yin.

Elline looks back at her new friends. "Thank you, for trying to save Claycia."

"You're welcome/Poyo poyo!"

Just at this moment, they reach a small cave inside a mountain with platforms coming from the wall directly at their left as the floor go down into a small gap. For some reason, there are springs on some of the areas, some bubble blocks, and they also end up fighting their firsts Cottas. Searching for the exit, they destroy some normal looking blocks, use some springs, and find a black door directly behind more blocks.

Funny enough, even the black doors are made of clay, and yet, they perfectly act as real door.

Maybe those clouds and rainbows are really made of clay after all.

Exiting the black door, they are still inside a tunnel where Sweetie has to use a boosted punch to destroy some iron blocks blocking the way. Soon after, they discover some blue clay that is not fully solidified, so they can destroy it to reveal a potential secret passage, only to end up in a dead end. But now, they know that they have to keep an eye for those walls made of non-solidified clay just in case. After destroying more iron blocks, and fighting over half a dozen Cotta, they find another black door that leads them outside.

But barely they come out that they are attacked by one of the giant one-eyed hands from earlier still trying to catch Elline.

"Eep!" screams the fairy as she barely avoids the hand.

"Poyopoyopoyo!" shouts Kirby, making signs for her to come behind him.

Elline does so, and the three heroes face the hand, Sweetie Belle and Bandana readying their weapons. As the hand approaches, Sweetie wraps her whip around it and throws it right toward Bandana's spear as he makes it twirl, cutting it badly. Kirby finishes with a headbutt, and the hand retreats toward the sky.

"Do we chase it?" asks Bandana.

"We would lose time," says Sweetie Belle. "And those hands are easy to defeat, so if it comes back, it won't be a problem."

At this moment, they spot above them that the sky has some area exactly like the 'no paint zones' from Sweetie and Kirby's adventure against Drawcia. With the help of Elline, they confirm that they are indeed no paint zones, to the heroes' annoyance. Well, now that they all can fly or air jump, it's not much of a problem, but it means that Elline can't help them while they are in those areas.

After passing through another small tunnel, they pass another door and appear at the base of a HUGE tree with another black door waiting for them.

"We will climb it?" asks Bandana Dee as he looks up, and up, and up.

"The seal could be hidden at the top," says Sweetie Belle.

"It would be a good place to hide it," confirms Elline as she starts writing in a purplish book.

"Poyo?" asks Kirby.

"It's my diary. I love writing and drawing stuff in it."

"You're drawing me?" asks Bandana. "If yes..." He takes a pose, flexing his arms. "Go on. You should also draw a cape for me."

Elline giggles.

Entering the black door, they enter the tree where they have to fly or use Elline's rope to climb, breaking many star blocks in the way. Further up, they encounter a Shotzo equivalent of the Cottas, thankfully not invincible contrary to the real Shotzos.

"I swear I didn't help creating them!" says then Elline. "I would never create a cannon firing harming projectiles! Together, we only created the ones that would propel people!" But then, she looks at Kirby. "But maybe..."

"Poyo?"

They pass some no paint zones, then reach a small area with many blocks that they have to destroy to progress, with a bumper among them.

Seeing the bumper, the three heroes look at Elline with a raised eyebrow.

"We really like bouncing," says the fairy with a sheepish laugh.

After the bumper, they have to use cannons to continue, and they are propelled out of the tree, at the top, where they are stopped by a bumper.

Looking around, Bandana sighs. "No seal here..."

"Poyo," says Kirby as he points a path made by the top of more trees linked by giant vines. Taking it, they eventually encounter an armored type of Cotta much harder to punch, including a giant one forcing Sweetie to turn into metal before attacking him.

Just after, the giant hand returns for another attempt at grabbing Elline, but it is easily defeated like before. After that, they take a succession of cannons propelling them further up in the sky, reaching the top of trees that are so high that they are surrounded by clouds. And it's confirmed, they're real clouds, not made of clay.

Having to fight a few Bouncys while passing rotating wooden wheels, they find an Invincibility Candy that they use to easily pass a great number of star blocks along with some armored Cottas before reaching another cannon propelling them further up in the sky, far beyond the tallest trees, until they reach a large wooden platform surrounded by vines.

And despite reaching this high, no trace of the seal. Annoyed, they take the black door that is just beside, and they appear beside a cannon that propels them back toward the surface, right into a cave with waterfalls and giant flowers... and Gordos. Taking another cannon propels them more deeply in it, where one of the paths is blocked and they have to take the other and continue their way through more waterfalls until they reach another cannons that gets them through the indestructible blocks blocking the first path earlier. They end up stuck against a wall by a sticky green slimy stuff, and they have to struggle to escape it.

"Yuck! What is it?" asks Sweetie Belle as she tries to get the green slime out of her fur.

"Claycia's weird sense of humor," answers Elline. "She thought that it would be funny to use this green slime to cushion anyone propelled by this cannon."

Leaving the slime behind, they destroy some bubble blocks to find another cannon, going even deeper into the cave. They then encounter what Elline calls Carpas, red fish that seem to love swimming up waterfalls. Leaving the fish alone, they continue exploring the cave, eventually encountering more of the green slime.

"This slime... wasn't here before," says Elline.

"Probably obstacles created by Evil Claycia to make the life of anyone passing by here impossible," says Bandana.

After another encounter with a hand, they have to go up to destroy a bomb block and free a waterfall that free the way for them to continue, and after more cannons, they have to move through a tunnel full of Gordos, Elline's rainbow rope being very useful for Bandana Dee here. After another cannon, they reach the exit of the cave just in front of a forest, still not finding the seal.

They enter the forest, where vines with flowers blooming into spiky balls hinder their progression.

And after passing a door, they find themselves in front of a clay version of Whispy Woods, which is clearly at the origin of those vines.

"Eep!" screams Elline, scared as the tree roars at them.

"Why the heck is there a clone of clay of Whispy Woods?!" asks a very surprised Sweetie Belle.

"W-well..." answers Elline, still scared and shaking. "Living trees are really common, so maybe Claycia simply wanted to use one for this world..."

"At least, we found the guardian of the seal of this world!" says Bandana Dee, pointing his spear at the tree.

Clay Whispy smirks at them before using some vines to create spiky balls in the way, covering a small part of the ground with them and making the approach by feet difficult. Then, shaking his leaves, he drops, not apples, but spiked mines that bounce on the ground toward them.

"Okay, this will be very different from the normal Whispy," comments Sweetie Belle.

"Let me help," says Elline, still scared but determined.

Elline then turns into her paintbrush form and paints her rainbow rope, passing between the spiky balls and going toward Whispy. The heroes immediately jump on the rope, avoiding the mines about to roll on them, and use it to get closer to Whispy really easily. Frowning, the tree changes the positions of the spiky balls, but the heroes still avoid them and are able to reach him, and he is immediately assaulted by the three of them before he blows a big gust of wind to push them back, almost getting them impaled on some of the balls behind them.

They quickly come back to the charge, but Whispy quickly blows more wind, pushing them again in the air, and he places his spiky balls in their trajectories as they are pushed back. Luckily for them they can air-jump/fly to avoid them. They charge again at the tree, only for him to do it again, and again, and again, not letting them approach.

Looking at the fake Whispy in annoyance, Sweetie turns her whip into cannons and starts firing beams from them and her horn at him, surprising him. Meanwhile, Kirby and Bandana Dee run respectively to the left and the right, going around the tree to attack him from opposite directions. With this tree seemingly not knowing how to jump or to use his roots to fly, he can't avoid the projectiles of the filly, and has a hard time defending himself against the heroes attacking from three directions. He multiplies the number of mine dropped by his leaves, and the number of spiky balls in their ways, but the heroes are easily able to dodge all of this, and before long, he gives up, looking down and crying before letting the seal, a rainbow colored ball, dropping from his leaves.

With one simple magical beam from her horn, Sweetie Belle destroys it, the ball exploding in an explosion of colors.

"That was amazing!" shouts excitedly Elline. "You really are heroes! You defeated that mean tree so easily, it was like he was nothing to you!"

"And again, we were going easy. No need to go all out for a Whispy look alike," says Bandana proudly, taking a pose. "This adventure will be a piece of cake! Right guys?"

"Yay/Poyo!" answer his friends before the three of them put their hands and hoof together. With a sign of her head, Sweetie tell Elline to put her hand with theirs, and with a smile, the fairy joins them.

Author's Notes:

*I had to find a reason for the heroes to not directly go to the last world to fight Claycia.

Chapter 81: Yellow Dunes

After a small run on the rainbow rope, the heroes reach the second world: Yellow Dunes, a desert world with some ruins. Desertic areas with ruins are nothing new for them, so they expect to quickly finish this world and pass to the next. The only problem is that they have to find the guardian and destroy the seal it protects, and the guardian can be anywhere, so the time passed in this world will depend on their luck, not of the difficulty.

The exploration is rather uneventful at first, simply consisting of walking in the desert under the hot sun like always, but they eventually find a cannon that propels them in some underground ruins.

"Question!" suddenly shouts Sweetie Belle as she rises a hoof like in school. "Should we expect traps? Ruins are generally full of traps."

"Me and Claycia only put some harmless traps for the fun," answers Elline, before sighing. "But I wouldn't be surprised if Claycia placed some harmful ones..."

"So we must be ready for anything," says Bandana.

While they talk, Kirby approaches some clay in the floor that can be dug in, seeing that it's the only way to continue, only to almost get drilled by a Cotta fused with a drill coming from more clay in the ceiling. He jumps back to avoid him, then looks at him as he starts drilling the clay blocking the way and gets an idea. He quickly grabs the Cotta by the head (the jar), before using him like a drill to dig through the clay and open the way. As he starts, he waves at the others with a "Poyo!" to gain their attention.

"Hey! Smart!" comments Bandana.

Thanks to the Drill Cotta, the party easily pass its way through the many clay blocking the way, but they still have to watch out the other Drill Cottas coming from below and above as they pass. Not long after, they find a locked trapdoor, forcing them to continue further to find the key, hidden in a dead end full of clay that they have to dig through.

Opening the trapdoor lets them go deeper into the ruins, where they encounter clay versions of those living block-things trying to crush them that Sweetie and Kirby had first seen in the Popopo Islands which are actually named Grindarrs. Thankfully, those ones doesn't possess chains like the ones in the Popopo Islands, so when they fall, they can't go back up. So, to get rid of them, all they have to do is to destroy the floor under them and to let them fall, when it's possible. A Grindarr falling through the clay in the ceiling lets a hole from which a cannon comes, and the heroes us it to propel themselves back up a little.

They end in a room where they have another encounter with a Hand that tries to ambush them, only to get a violent smackdown from Kirby using the Drill Cotta to almost pierce its eye. With the Hand gone, they dig through more clay, and destroy a bomb block to let a Mega Grindarr open the way for them before they enter a succession of not paint zones. Here, they have to take two opposite paths to find two key and open two locked doors so they can reach another bomb block and destroy again the ground under the Mega Grindarr and open the way again. They jump after it, and have to destroy more bombs so it can continue to fall, so they can continue following the path that it blocks constantly, before they finally reach the end of this section and can continue without the Mega Gringarr.

After passing a black door, they appear in a place where they are surrounded by clay, and big Drill Cottas dig from above to drill them without leaving any space to escape. To avoid having to run away, Sweetie Belle eliminates them with energy beams, and they can continue digging in peace. A succession of cannons further down propels them through more rooms filled with clay, until they are expelled out of the ruins without finding any seal.

Not giving up, Kirby dropping the Drill Cotta, they continue exploring the desert, however, the number of enemies getting in the way suddenly climbs more and more.

"Seems like Claycia decided to get more serious," says Bandana.

Annoyed, Elline says "If only I had an easel! I could do something to help with all those enemies!"

"Really?" asks Sweetie Belle before she makes an easel appear beside her. "For you!"

Elline gasps. "You can materialize easels? Does this mean that you know how to give life to what you paint?"

The filly smiles. "Yes! Thanks to a friend named Adeleine, I learned this magic!"

"IIIIHH!!! Oh my gosh! So there are users of the Life Giving Artist Magic in Popstar?! I thought they had all disappeared and I was the last one!"

"Then I will present you to Adeleine once this is over. She wants to start a school to teach this magic, and she would love your help." She looks at the easel. "So, what will you do with it?"

"Oh, right! Let me do, you will see."

At this, Elline takes her paintbrush form, and in just one swing, she paints a tank on the canvas of the easel. Then, with another swing, she transfers the paint from the canvas to Kirby, turning his legs into orange tracks while a red cannon comes out of his mouth.

"And I present to you... Kirby Tank!"

Excited, Kirby fires a few bullets from his mouth cannon.

With a gasp, Bandana shouts "Do me! Do me! Please!"

Two swings later, and the Waddle Dee is also turned into a tank, also with orange tracks and a red cannon, but his spear disappears. Excited, he does like Kirby while rolling around.

"What about you Sweetie Belle?" asks Elline.

The filly looks at her two friends turned tanks in thought before smiling. "Alright. Why not. I don't need to be turned into a tank, but this may be fun."

And so, two swings later, Sweetie Belle is turned into a tank too with her clothes adapting to this new form, making the tracks golden, and since her body isn't round, she has the advantage to have a head that can be used like the turret of a real tank to better target the enemies.

The three friends turned tanks look at each other, and with a nod and some laughs, they start rolling in the desert, facing the many waves of enemies coming at them only to get destroyed, because there's no way for them to survive against three tanks.

---

"Can somepony pinch me? I must be dreaming," asks Twilight.

Spikes pinches her, painfully proving to her that she isn't dreaming.

"Well darn... That there fairy is more dangerous than we thought," comments Applejack. "You imagine if she was a bad guy? She would just have to turn her minions into those tank thingies, and we would all be in trouble."

"Not me," says Discord.

It's at this moment that Apple Bloom and Scootaloo enter the room.

"Oh, finally we found them!" shouts Scootaloo.

"Hey Scoot! Took your time!" says Rainbow.

"We didn't know in which room your were! We searched through at least half the castle!"

"Oops, maybe I should have put some signs," says Discord.

The two fillies sigh before placing their saddlebags beside the door.

"So, what's going on?" asks Apple bloom as they approach them.

"Woah! Is that Sweetie Belle?!" shouts Scootaloo upon seeing her friend through the portal.

"What happened to her?" asks Apple Bloom.

"Yeah! How did she take this awesome form?!"

"You see that paintbrush fairy?" asks Discord as he points at Elline. "She's the one that turned our sweet filly into a sweet tank."

They look at him blankly, their brain seemingly shutting down.

"Boy... They barely arrived, and they're already broken."

"How..." then starts Apple Bloom. "How could a fairy paintbrush turn somepony into a tank? It makes even less sense than the rest of this universe!"

"That's exactly what I was asking myself just before you came..." says dejectedly Twilight.

"Maybe you should simply stop thinking about the 'How?' or 'Why?' and accept it," advises Starlight. "Isn't this what you do with Pinkie? Why not do it with this universe?"

"I try, Starlight..., I try... But each time that I seem to get used to the craziness of this universe, something happens to make it even more crazy. And I thought that I was done with Kirby using that fish to cut a volcano!"

Then, before their eyes, as a particularly big wave of enemies come at them, Kirby suddenly becomes taller, his mouth filling with eight cannons while four more cannons and two rocket launchers appear at his sides. Nothing remains of the wave of enemies after his passage. However, Kirby quickly returns to his previous appearance, seemingly a little tired. Seeing what he has done, Sweetie Belle and Bandana Dee are able to do the same, turning into real war machines spreading death and destruction where they pass.

Twilight looks blankly at the portal, eye twitching, until she hears the distinctive sound of something being cooked in a pan. Looking up, she sees that a pan is placed just above her head, an egg cooking in it.

"Somepony wants an omelet?" asks Discord.

The next instant, he's hit on the head by the pan.

---

As they approach some ruins that look different from the others, more futuristic, Elline decides to give the heroes back to their normal appearance, judging that this tank form will not be adapted to explore them.

She has judged well.

Inside those ruins, they have to avoid lasers and watch out for the green slime hindering them, and they even encounter a Blado.

As they climb a room full of those lasers, Elline says "We never wanted to do futuristic ruins full of lasers in this world! We just wanted simple ruins fun to explore! Whatever possessed her is twisting our creations! Ooh... What has she done to the other worlds?

"We will see soon enough..." replies Sweetie Belle before they pass a black door at the top of the room.

In the following hallway, brick walls collapse on them, forcing them to run until they enter a room where the exit is locked, with the key floating just above. As they get near it, the key suddenly grows in size, a malicious grin appearing in it as it starts to fly around the room, avoiding them. Not wanting to play cat and mouse with a key, Sweetie Belle simply uses her magic to catch it and bring it to them, where the three of them punch it until it returns to its previous form, letting them use it to open the door.. After passing a round room with two more Blados, they pass a black door, and appear in a room with three weird smiling faces on the wall, one of them glowing.

Jumping in front of them causes them to glow or stop glowing, and when the three faces glow, a trap door opens, and they continue down. After a small cannon, they arrive in a room missing a wall, letting them see the exterior, and again, a Hand tries to ambush them, only to fly away with a couple dozens bumps, cuts, and burns. Sweetie can swear she has heard it whimper.

Why do those hands still try to capture Elline?

They find a black door behind some clay just after, and appear in a room where they find themselves face to face against a giant mechanised Cotta. But despite its slightly more threatening appearance, it isn't a problem to fight. It's very slow, and doesn't possess any weapons or attacks. All it does is charging at them at the speed of a snail.

So in less than ten seconds, it's turned into a pile of scraps.

Passing another black door the heroes pass a series of lasers, then climb a few levels while avoiding collapsing walls before exiting the ruins.

"Really? Those ruins were the perfect place for the seal! How could it not be here?" asks Bandana.

"Maybe it was too obvious?" proposes Sweetie.

"Poyo!" shouts Kirby before pointing at a nearby ruin that look less grand.

They all nod, and enter the designed ruin. Inside, they have to dig their way through clay before reaching a black door. They enter a room without any exit, and without anything actually. They sigh.

"Another bust," says Bandana.

But then, one of the designs in the wall starts shaking before coming out of it, changing color to become brown with yellow rims. Whatever has come out of the wall is some kind of floating ball with two squinting eyes surrounded by four armored plates, including a metallic one. Between the plates, four blue cones come out, and the thing stares at them.

"Or not," continues Bandana.

The ball's plates and cones start rotating while it starts slowly bouncing around the room, and the cones suddenly start firing lasers.

They are so painfully easy to avoid...

"Come on. Even the attacks of Clay Whispy were harder to dodge," says Sweetie Belle. An easel appear beside her, and she paints a Birdon on it. When the Birdon comes to life, she grabs it and throws it at Kirby. Understanding, Kirby inhales the painted bird, and gains the Wing ability.

The three heroes then start flying or air-jumping around the ball, and quickly destroy a first plate, revealing that it is actually a robot. With the destruction of one of its plates, the robot gets angry and somehow grows bigger, but this doesn't pose problems for Sweetie and the others who easily destroy a second plate.

The robot, in return, grows even bigger, starting to take more place in the room, and suddenly, it surrounds itself in electricity like the Mecha Kracko from Doc, which actually surprises Bandana and gets him to be shocked. But this doesn't stop Sweetie and Kirby to attack from a distance and destroy a third plate, leaving only the metallic one.

The robot grows again bigger, now taking half of the room, and surrounds itself in electricity again. It would be problematic, if it was faster. Sweetie Belle gets Bandana on her back, and they can easily fly around the robot as it bounces from wall to wall. When the metal plate pass in front of her, Sweetie Belle charges a big energy beam, and fires, destroying it.

With its four plates destroyed, the robot explodes, dropping the seal that Bandana destroys.

"If this continues like that, we will be back at home for dinner," comments Bandana.

"You forget that nobody is moving anymore. They aren't preparing dinner," replies Sweetie.

"Drat..."

"But if we finish early enough, they could have time to prepare for it."

"But we still have five worlds to explore," says Elline. "Don't you think it's a little early to talk about this?"

"Right. Who knows. The next world could surprise us," says Sweetie Belle.

Chapter 82: Indigo Ocean

As they run toward the next world, Indigo Ocean, Sweetie Belle looks at Elline creating the rainbow rope that they use to go from world to world. Since she has encountered Elline, there's something that Sweetie Belle is wondering, but hasn't taken time to ask.

"Elline? Do you know the Magical Paintbrush?"

"The what?"

"The Magical Paintbrush. It's the paintbrush that Claycia's father used to give her life, at her and her sisters, and it's from this paintbrush that comes the Life Giving Artist Magic."

Elline shakes her head. "Claycia never told me anything about this paintbrush, or her father. She avoided talking about her past because it always hurt her."

"It's no wonder," says Bandana. "Because of Dark Crafter, she lost her family. Drawcia and Paintra were corrupted when they were barely paint, Yin and Yarn too. The only one that she was still seeing, maybe, was her father. Nothing says if she was forced to separate from him or not."

"Maybe she was forced to hide to avoid being corrupted too," says Sweetie Belle. "And because of this, she couldn't see him. Or at least, not too much. Only Claycia knows, but if it hurts her to tell, then we will not ask."

"We would have to save her first..."

"Anyway, back to the paintbrush. I asked this to you Elline because your powers really look like the ones of the Magical Paintbrush. You can give life to anything you paint, you can create a rainbow rope for others to run or glide on, you can use the paint to transform someone... However, I don't know if you can turn a land into a painting like it. And you don't seem to know how to invoke an easel like it could."

"Uh, for that last one, it's because I was born before the discovery of a means to invoke easels, and because I was with Claycia who could sculpt anything for me to paint, I didn't bother learning how to," replies Elline. She then sees her three friends looking at her in surprise, making her giggle. "Yes, I'm older than I look. However, I can't tell why my powers are so similar to that paintbrush. And no, I can't turn lands into paintings. I'm not that powerful....... Or... Maybe I can and I just never tried?"

"Well, I will certainly not ask you to try. I don't think Claycia, if we save her, would be happy to see her worlds of clay turned into paintings. But since I can invoke easels anytime, maybe you could use your powers to do more than turning us into tanks or give colors to Claycia's clay?" Sweetie Belle then grins. "We can make this adventure more interesting." She then looks sheepishly at Elline. "I just hope that you will not mind if I use you like a real paintbrush to paint what I have in mind."

"Oh boy..." says Bandana Dee with dread.

Remembering how Sweetie Belle turned him into the equivalent of a nuclear bomb with the Magical Paintbrush, Kirby also can't help himself but gulp at the thought of what the filly would be able to do with the power of Elline added to the power of Yin and Yarn.

---

They land on the beach of an island, and immediately, they jump in a tube that leads them underground, in a succession of submerged caves with a few tubes. Since it's an aquatic world, there are high chances that the guardian is deep in the ocean. Seeing the strong currents that are very present in those caves, Sweetie Belle quickly invokes an easel and with Elline's help, paints a fish on the canvas. Elline then uses her power like earlier, turning the three heroes into half fish half pony/Waddle Dee/puff ball, making their lives much easier. Now able to fight the currents, they have no problems avoiding the many obstacles in the way, mainly Gordos.

They encounter another Hand after passing a black door. Rather than attacking it, Sweetie Belle smirks, invokes an easel, and uses Elline to paint Acro. When the painted Acro comes out of the canvas, he eyes the Hand hungrily, licking his lips, showing by the same occasion his very sharp teeth. The Hand doesn't wait to turn back, flying as fast as it can in the water while being chased by the hungry painted orca.

When the Hand disappears with the orca out of sight, the heroes continue their way, laughing at what happened, and Sweetie and Elline high-fiving each other. With caution, they swim through a room full of Gordos, then pass a long tunnel with many more Gordos before they reach the surface, that exploration through those underwater caves revealing to be a bust.

Returning to their normal appearance, they look around to decide where they would search next, until they spot in a small distance nothing else than a pirate ship! However, they can also spot some weird skull-head ghost-things flying around it.

A haunted pirate ship. Neat.

And if the guardian, and so the seal, is in it...

"Kirby, let's do our old trick," says Sweetie Belle with a smirk.

"Poyo?"

Giggling, Sweetie Belle looks at Elline, who raises an eyebrow in curiosity before taking her paintbrush form. The filly then swings her once at Kirby, and the puffball sees himself covered in pink paint, which makes him grow in size.

Oh... That trick.

Invoking an easel, Sweetie Belle then paints a bomber that she gives to Kirby, giving him the Crash ability. The filly immediately follows it by painting a cannon, creating a cannon big enough for Kirby to enter. She then paints a pirate outfit for her, and puts it above her normal clothes.

"Oh boy..." says Bandana in fear as he jumps behind a rock.

Kirby jumps in the cannon, and Sweetie Belle goes behind it, grabbing the string. "Yarr! Let's sink those scallywags, matey! Fire!" She then pulls the string, and the cannon fires Kirby right at the haunted pirate ship while the filly jumps behind a rock too.

The next instant, before the shocked eyes of everyone (excepted Sweetie Belle), the ship disappears in a huge explosion.

What? Aren't cannons used to sink pirate ships?

---

"And she did it again!" shouts Discord with a laugh. "Your sister must have something with explosions! Maybe at her next birthday, you should give her some dynamite, I'm sure it will make her day!"

Rarity huffs. "She doesn't have a thing for explosions! She just used the most rapid and effective way to deal with this ship without having to face a whole crew of pirate ghosts!"

"You can say that, but I'm sure she did it because she loves when things go boom."

"If she loved that, then she would do the same thing to every enemy she encounters. She could do it, she has the power, but she doesn't!"

"Of course she doesn't. Blowing everything would get old really quick. Like if you decide to eat your favorite food everyday."

"But I eat my favorite food everyday, and it doesn't get old!" says Pinkie.

"Because, my dear, you are an exception," replies Discord.

"My sister doesn't love explosions!"

"She loves them."

"She doesn't!"

"She does."

"She doesn't!"

"She doesn't."

"She does!... Wait..."

As Discord falls from his chair in laughter, quickly followed by Rainbow and Pinkie, Rarity glares at him. She can't believe she has fallen for that trick!

---

Discovering that blowing the ship hasn't destroyed the forcefield around the next world, and not seeing any other special place that could be worth exploring in priority, the heroes decide to go in the ocean itself and to explore it. For this, Elline transforms everyone into submarines, giving them the possibility to fire torpedoes from their mouths which makes it weird for Bandana Dee because since he doesn't have any visible mouth, it looks like the torpedoes appear out of nowhere in front of his face-. Thanks to this, they have no problems facing the many fish-like enemies attacking them in the ocean, as well as clearing the obstacles like metal blocks.

Passing a black door lets them appear in the deeper part of the ocean where light barely reaches them. They explore a succession of tunnels where they encounters large blue fishes possessing saws for noses, making them hard to hit from the front, which doesn't cause any problem to them. However, the crabs with a small volcano on their back from which they fire mines are a little more annoying, because they fill their path with those mines, slowing them.

When they enter a room only half filled with water where a big weird green and yellow sea anemone on the back of some blue crustacean attacks them by firing its own torpedoes while the crustacean moves on the ceiling, Elline doesn't lose time to turn them back to normal so they can better counterattack. When Sweetie returns to her filly form, she quickly fires a charged energy beam at the sea anemone, disintegrating it and the crustacean. With their enemy gone, the heroes pass the next door and enter another partially submerged tunnel, where they have to leave the water to continue.

It doesn't take long for them to pass another door, entering another tunnel where they return in the water, going more deeply. They pass a group of those sawfishes before they enter yet another door and appear in a huge cave with a hole in the floor at the center.

From the hole comes a huge blue squid whose head looks like a captain hat, with yellow rims and even a yellow skull looking like a squid. Taking a pipe out from his mouth with one of his tentacles, the squid chuckles before he covers one of his tentacles in spikes.

"You know," starts Sweetie as she looks at Bandana. "It's too bad this squid is made of clay. He would have been perfect for dinner tonight for you and the others."

If they weren't underwater, she would see drool coming from Bandana and Kirby. "Ooooh yeah... Okonomiyaki..." He looks at Elline. "Isn't there a way to turn that squid into a real squid?" Kirby also looks at her pleadingly.

The poor fairy finds herself sweating. "Uh... Sorry, but I don't know. I can't turn things made of clay into real things..."

Enraged at not only not being taken seriously, but at them discussing about the idea of cooking him, the squid sends his spiked tentacle at them, only for Sweetie Belle to cut it with a beam sword without even looking as she says "Too bad. Because of what happened, the cooks won't have much time to prepare dinner. It would have helped them."

"We could go hunt once we return to Popstar," proposes Bandana. "Maybe we can find one or two giant squids in the ocean."

"If we go hunt, it will be easier to catch a shoal of Blippers."

"True..."

Enraged and hurt, the squid sends all his tentacles at them, all of them now covered in spikes too, but again, Sweetie Belle cuts all of them with her ten beam swords. "Or I could simply use my painting to paint food like Adeleine did."

"You? Painting food for everyone in the castle? When you are still learning to paint correctly complex stuff?"

"Yeah, right, stupid idea. Oh! I know! I could ask Taranza to send some food from Lollipop Island."

"Good idea!"

Absolutely blinded by rage, the squid propels himself toward the heroes, using his ink to move.

"IIIIIHH!!! It's coming at us!" yells Elline in fear.

Only for the squid to be slapped by Sweetie Belle with such force that he's sent back in the hole, where he stops moving. Elline just blinks in disbelief at this with a small "Uh?"

"But the problem is that there are only desserts in Lollipop Island, so we will still go hunt so the guys don't end up just eating cakes. I will also go ask Whispy if he can give some of his apples."

"Alright. But first..." Bandana looks at the KOed squid before he asks "Where's the seal? This squid hasn't dropped it like the fake Whispy or the robot."

"Probably in the hole."

As the heroes approach the hole to find and destroy the seal, they don't spot the two Hands looking at them near the ceiling.

---

Somewhere...

"Hum... Maybe I should send Bastron..."

Chapter 83: Blue Sky Palace

"Bwahahahahahaha! Did you see that?! She smacked that giant octopus like it was nothing without even looking at it! I would have SO loved seeing its reaction to that!" shouts Rainbow Dash as she bends in laughter, not caring about Twilight correcting her about the 'octopus' being actually a squid.

"I know right!" replies Pinkie. "It was all 'MWA HA HA! I'm stronger than you!" and then SLAP! 'Go in your room and let the adults talk!'"

"Yeah! I would love to see her do that to Tirek!" says Scootaloo.

"Oh Celestia! His face if it were to happen!" shouts Rainbow as she falls off her chair from the laughter.

"I can't believe that this filly is now strong enough to slap something so big and knock it just with that," says Applejack in disbelief.

"Her slap was boosted by her soul energy," informs Discord. "She's not that physically strong."

"But that's still impressive," says Starlight. "When you can knock out a squid this size with just one slap, almost nothing can resist you."

"And I think we haven't seen the end of her progress yet," says the draconequus.

Everypony shudders at this. That filly could probably fight a hydra by now, so to think that she can still become stronger...

---

Blue Sky Palace. That's the next world. And as its name indicates, it's a sky world full of clouds with a big palace surrounded by smaller ones, floating planetoid-like rocks, and other structures. Upon entering it, it's not hard for the heroes to guess that the big palace is where they have the highest chance to find the guardian of this world, so with the help of Elline and her rainbow rope, they slide in the sky between the clouds and many enemies, either flying, walking on the clouds, or hanging from balloons, toward it, while still doing some exploration just in case. They're often helped by strong updrafts, easing their ascension toward the top of the palace which is very high, and nothing slows it, not even a brief encounter with a Hand on some structure.

Frankly, why do they even still try?

Then, explosive bullets suddenly comes from behind, the bullets bursting into flames when impacting with something. One of the bullets manage to hit, and badly burn Sweetie Belle while the others are barely missed, but this causes the rainbow ropes on which they are to be destroyed, and everyone quickly flies/jump to the nearest clouds to recover and look at where the bullets came from.

Approaching from behind is a colossal pink and purple bell-shaped flying battleship with a neck and a head wearing, of all things, a blue beret. An actual living battleship with a total of seventeen cannons, one big at the head to make a mouth, and sixteen at the body's sides by rows of four.

When seeing the battleship, Elline gasps, but before she can say anything, it fires from its mouth cannon a barrage of bullets at them, and the heroes quickly go out of the way toward whatever can be used as platform, Sweetie Belle grabbing the fairy with her magic before she's hit by one of the bullets.

"Claycia sent a battleship? We must be scaring her," comments Sweetie Belle.

"That's Bastron!" shouts Elline. "But... But... We designed it to be for pleasure cruise!"

"Well, seems like Claycia did some redesign just for us," replies Bandana.

The ship fires another barrage, and as the heroes do their best to avoid it again, Sweetie Belle shouts "I will destroy it!" before she flies toward it on a shield.

"Poyo!" screams Kirby after.

"She's crazy! How can she expect to face this battleship?!" shouts Elline in fear.

Bandana sighs. "With lasers, more lasers, and bigger lasers."

"But... It's a battleship!"

"Yeah, but believe it or not, this is not Sweetie's first battleship. The Halberd was much bigger, better armed, and protected by a strong crew. Compared to it, this battleship is a joke. Well, she didn't face directly the Halberd, she destroyed it from inside helped by Kirby, but after that, and with how powerful she has become since, she has no reason to be scared." The Waddle Dee then looks in determination toward his friend now circling the head of the ship while firing a barrage of attacks, mainly lasers, at it. He gulps and says "But it would be nice to, somehow, help her!"

"Poyo!" agrees Kirby.

"I know how! Wait here!"

Elline quickly leaves the two and flies to Sweetie Belle. The filly charges a big laser beam and fires it, destroying one of Bastron's cannons at its sides, before dropping to avoid the following rain of bullets that Bastron sends at her in retaliation. The ships tries to ram her, and the filly surrounds herself in a shield before she charges at the ship while spinning, doing a bigger version of the Fire ability's comet attack. She succeeds in damaging Bastron's hull, but her shield gets destroyed, and Sweetie Belle is projected as a result. But she quickly recovers with an air-jump, then uses a shield to rapidly ascend to avoid another barrage.

She is then joined by Elline. "Sweetie Belle!"

"Watch out!"

Sweetie Belle jumps at her just in time for the both of them to avoid more bullets. The filly quickly puts the fairy on her back before she starts circling the ship again while firing back. "Rest on my back!"

"I can't! I have to return to Kirby and Bandana Dee! But I need your easel!"

"I see. Wait a moment."

Sweetie Belle materializes a shield, then gives it the form of a giant fist that she uses to punch the ship on the face. Creating such a big fist drain her quite a big, but at least, this destabilizes the ship enough for her to quickly return to Kirby and Bandana. There, she invokes an easel, and Elline rapidly starts painting something on it while she returns fighting the ship just in time to avoid it firing at her friends with another Giant Fiery Comet at the neck, followed by a Giga Shield Uppercut at the chin and an Explosive Balls Rain at its side, only to be rammed again by the ship.

And Bastron is then rammed on the head by two rockets, which are none other than Kirby and Bandana turned into rockets by Elline. The two then start flying around the ship, avoiding its bullets while ramming it again and again. Taking this, Sweetie Belle surrounds her horn with her ten cannons like she did in her fight against Sectonia, charging her (for now) ultimate attack that she calls Ultimate Doom Laser, and sweeps the surface of the Bastron with it, badly damaging its hull and destroying many cannons. Meanwhile, both Kirby and Bandana manage to destroy Bastron's right eye.

Another Ultimate Doom Laser destroys the remaining cannons as well as some important part causing the ship to start to drop. The heroes stop attacking it and simply look as Bastron eventually disappears among the clouds below, ramming one of the smaller sky palaces in its fall, causing more damage. Since this world doesn't have any ground, one can wonder where this ship will fall.

They land on a structure where Elline gives Kirby and Bandana their normal appearance while Sweetie Belle recovers her breath. Firing two Ultimate Doom Lasers one after another is definitely not something she will do everyday.

"That was AWESOME Sweetie Belle!" suddenly shouts Elline. "You were able to fight Bastron all by yourself! But this was so scary! I thought that you would be killed! But you were all voush and voush and VLAM and it could barely hit you and you were firing hundreds of lasers and bombs and that big fireball-thingy was amazing and-"

"And you were awesome too," Sweetie cuts her friend with a giggle. "Good idea turning Kirby and Bandana into rockets to attack it." She turns to her aforementioned friends. "Thanks to you, I could fire my most powerful laser and almost destroy it. Thank you."

"Poyo!"

"Yeah, that was nothing. Battleships don't scare us anymore. We could face an armada of Halberds without problems," says proudly Bandana.

Sweetie Belle taps him on the side with a giggle. "Stop it. You're becoming like Rainbow Dash. You know perfectly well that an armada of Halberds would be too much."

"Come on. Knowing you and Kirby, you would find a way to win."

She rolls her eyes without replying.

---

The party eventually reaches the top of the big sky palace, one of the most beautiful palace Sweetie Belle has ever seen. Upon landing, they look around, and not spotting anything, they start exploring, taking in a few of the various structures forming the palace suspended on pillars. The exploration doesn't last long, as they quickly spot who they guess is the guardian, and recognizing who he is, they can't help but groan.

"Ugh... Again?" almost shouts Bandana.

In front of them is... Clay Whispy Woods, patiently waiting for them to approach to start the fight, seemingly assured of his victory.

"What is he doing here?" asks Sweetie Belle to nobody in particular.

"Poyo," answers Kirby with a shrug.

As they approach the tree, Clay Whispy suddenly becomes metallic... somehow, much to everyone's surprise before Sweetie gives a deadpan look.

"That's it?"

The Clay Whispy's jaw drop.

Bandana looks at her in surprise. "What do you mean 'that's it'? How will we be able to attack him with his metallic trunk?!"

In answer, Sweetie Belle looks at him with a raised eyebrow without saying anything.

"Oh, right, that's no problem for you. But what about us?"

"I'm sure Elline can find a way. Maybe with the Tank transformation? But wait, I know something that will be more fun. Elline?" says Sweetie as she rises a hoof at the fairy with a smirk.

Understanding, Elline takes her paintbrush form as an easel appear beside Sweetie Belle, her smirk growing.

"Let's show this fake how much he's inferior," continues the filly before she starts painting.

The Clay Whispy starts sweating.

Rapidly, Sweetie Belle finishes her painting, then shows the result to him, showing that she has painted Whispy Woods. The painted tree then comes out of the canvas in his full glory, with an expression of superiority.

"Whispy, shows this fake what the real you can do."

At her command, Painted Whispy doubles in size before he smirks at Clay Whispy, his roots menacingly coming out of the floor around him.

Despite this, Clay Whispy drops a few dozens mines, only for Painted Whispy to huff before inhaling all the mines. It's at this moment that Clay Whispy knows he's screwed.

Painted Whispy spits the mines at the other tree, their explosion enough to hurt him despite his metallic body. Without losing time, Painted Whispy jumps and starts spinning in the air with his roots, making him fly. Clay Whispy spawn a few spiked ball in front of him, but Painted Whispy's roots are able to get them out of the way before the tree of clay finds himself continuously slapped in the face by those same roots until Painted Whispy decides to do something else. So Painted Whispy does a few turns until he goes just above Clay Whispy before he stops spinning. Rapidly, he places his roots below him to make them form a spike before he falls on the tree of clay, almost piercing and crushing him, but his metallic body is able to force Painted Whispy to bounce away. The tree of paint then lands just in front of his clay counterpart, raises his roots, and starts using them to do a series of fast jabs on his face, punching again and again without stopping to the point that Clay Whispy's face becomes deformed. Painted Whispy eventually assembles some of his roots and uses them to finish this series of jab with a big uppercut strong enough to send Clay Whispy flying. This causes the rainbow seal to drop from his branches, and Sweetie Belle destroys it.

The filly then shouts at Painted Whispy "Finish him!"

Grinning, Painted Whispy sends his roots at his fallen counterpart and grabs him from the base and the top before he starts pulling in opposite direction with all his strength. More and more roots wrap around Clay Whispy until...

Rrriiiiiip!

The tree is ripped in two. Victorious, Painted Whispy throws the two pieces beyond the edge of the palace before he roars.
Sweetie Belle pats him, saying "Good job. I knew he was nothing to you."

"Poyo poyo poyo!"

"Yeah! You're the best!"

"You were amazing!"

Painted Whispy smiles at them before disappearing.

"Best idea ever!" shouts Bandana. "Watching Whispy destroy that fake was fun!"

"Poyopo!"

Sweetie Belle nods at them in thanks with a giggle. "And it let us rest a little before we continue. After Bastron, I needed that. But really, bringing back that fake Whispy was a terrible idea. What was Claycia thinking?"

They all shrug. "Claycia probably thought that the metallic body would surprise us and work," says Elline.

"Or, if she's possessed, the thing possessing her is an idiot," says Bandana.

---

"I'LL SHOW THEM IF I AM AN IDIOT!!!"

Author's Notes:

Sweetie Belle, the filly who punched a battleship. You know a story is crazy when you read something like that.

Also, a tree just did a ORA ORA ORA.

This story is awesome to write.

Also, Crafty, dude, of course you are an idiot. If you were smart, you would know by now that you should run.

Chapter 84: Orange Woodland

The next world, Orange Woodland, is by far the most original area Sweetie has ended up exploring since many months. Yes, this isn't the first time she explores a forest, but a forest partially made of giant mushrooms? Never! Also, it's one of those forests where the trees are the size of small mountains, giving the filly the impression that she's the size of an insect.

And it's full of enemies and obstacles. Seems like Claycia, or the thing possessing her if there's one, hasn't liked being called an idiot. Barely they arrive in this world that they're swarmed by various enemies of the Cotta family including many of the metal ones, those weird insects that drop mines at them, or some weird giant one eyed spores,the red ones dividing into two smaller yellow one when they are destroyed, and the black ones exploding like bomb when hit. At this, they can add an armada worth of Bronto Burts.

Yeah, Claycia is an idiot. Hasn't she learned that swarming them doesn't work? One invocation of easel and a few paintbrush swings later, and the three heroes are back in their tank form, rampaging through the many enemies and obstacles while they follow the path literally traced by Elline. Some genius among the enemies has gotten the idea to drop giant logs on their path to crush them, but some quick shots are enough to push those logs back until they fall beyond the edge of whatever they are on. And because bigger is better, they eventually decide to drop behind them a truly huge log, too big to be shot back, forcing the heroes to roll as fast as they can. Bad luck for the enemies, the slope on which they are on ends with a bridge made of star blocks, and while the heroes can roll on them without problems, the log reveals to be too heavy, and the blocks are destroyed under it, the log quickly disappearing in the gap below. The enemies responsible pay their bad luck with their life.

But the rampage has to end, because they eventually pass a black door leading in a room where the only exit is through the roof, through a no paint zone, so no way for them to continue with their tank form. However, they find a gondola attached to a long rope, and it doesn't take long for Elline to guess that she can use her rainbow rope to transport the gondola from rope to rope. One of those ropes pass the no paint zone, so it's one of the ways for them to continue. They could also fly, but why using energy to air-jump or create a shield when you can rest a little while riding calmly a gondola?

And so, using the gondola, they ride from room to room, passing more no paint zones and destroying a few blocks in the way, until they get out. Outside, there is more riding, and even if they aren't forced to take them, each occasion to rest a little is good to take for when they will face Claycia. Just a few magical beams from Sweetie here and there to eliminate enemies and destroy blocks is all they need to do while riding those gondolas, until they pass a black that leads them back inside a room.

Having to go up, they are first forced to take a cannon to continue before they have to either air-jump, fly, or use Elline's rainbow rope., only having to watch out for what Elline calls Bzztbulbs, which are some kind of lightbulb-like enemies that project electricity around them like Sparkys. One of them riding a gondola could even electrify the rope attached to it!

After passing this last Bzztbulb, the party reaches the next black door and exit this room. Back outside, they find another gondola, and seeing the absolute absence of platforms from there, they have no choice but to either take it, use the rainbow rope, or fly/air-jump. Again, the gondola is the best choice, but Elline still has to use her rainbow rope to protect them against saws also riding those ropes or lasers blocking the way.

After a long ride, they reach a small bridge where a Hand ambushes them, only for Sweetie to take the gondola they have been riding and slam it on the back of the Hand. She then traps the Hand inside the gondola, spins, and throws the gondola far away in the mushroom forest.

With the Hand gone, they pass the door at the end of the bridge and reappear in another room. The activation of a switch causes some logs blocking the way to fall, revealing a gondola to use to pass a no paint zone. At the end of the ride, they have to use a cannon to pass some solid blocks and enter a tunnel where they have to escape, not from a boulder for once, but from a giant saw.

"Woah! Claycia really wants us dead now!" shouts Sweetie Belle as they run away, destroying many blocks slowing them.

"I should have kept my mouth shut!" shouts Bandana.

Escaping the saw doesn't take long before they reach a smaller tunnel with another gondola that get them in a second part of the bigger tunnel, getting away from the threat. Or so they thought, until the saw cuts the wall behind them and continues its way, Thankfully, in this second tunnel, there is more space to avoid it, and those are not the no paint zones above and below that will cause any problems. So they let the saw pass until it reaches the end of its course and ends up falling in the gap below. It's not long after that they pass another black door that transport them to a river, constating that they have reached the swamp part of this world.

So, to help them explore those green waters, Elline turns all of them into submarines. But while it makes it easier for them to explore the river, it forces them to move up waterfalls to reach some places inaccessible by remaining in the water. Yellow sloth-like creatures that Elline names Dangle Sloth come hanging from vines above them to drop bombs, but they are quickly eliminated by well fired torpedoes. More problematic however are Gordos dropping from above, forcing the party to maneuver to dodge them.

They are able to get a reprieve from them when they have to move in a deeper part of the river, only to enter a room where they are ambushed by a small army of Blippers attacking them from all sides. The torpedoes do short work of them, but the heroes are still forced to quickly move between the fish to avoid being rammed while continuously firing. When the last Blipper explodes, the party is able to pass the next door to exit the room to enter a new part of the river.

They appear at the bottom, and they are forced to move up, passing many levels of blocks that they have to be destroyed by firing at bomb blocks, only to cause many Gordos to fall on them, leaving not much space to dodge. When they reach the surface, they have to destroy one last bomb, freeing a waterfall that lets them reach a door once it stops raining Gordos and once the Dangle Sloths finally leave them alone.

They appear on a lake where they dive and steer through Gordos and currents to reach a door, and enter a room, where they encounter an old enemy, again. The robot from Yellow Dunes is there waiting for them, and it has gotten quite the upgrade. Now, it is fully covered in plaques all metallic, and the cones are everywhere between them, turning the robot into some kind of metallic spiky ball that can fire lasers at all directions at the same time while rotating and bouncing around.

Smart, dangerous... Too bad for it, the battle happens underwater, and they are in their submarine form. Dodging those lasers and attacking aren't as problematic as it would have been in a room without water. With their continuous firing of torpedoes, it doesn't take long for the first plaque to be destroyed, and like the previous time, the robot grows bigger, and its rotating gains in speed. The robot also starts changing the direction of the rotation, and while at first it isn't problematic since it starts doing that in a fluid way, the more plaques are destroyed, the more it's movements become erratic, catching the heroes off guard more than once. Thankfully, since it grows at the same time, the space between the lasers also grows, making it easier to dodge them, so the robot eventually decides to simply stop firing its lasers to use its electric shield, it's size by then making it more dangerous as the robot now takes half of the room.

But all it takes is a few more torpedoes to destroy the last plaque, and the robot. Another torpedo deals with the seal left behind.

After Elline gives them back their normal appearance, Bandana sighs in relief. "By the stars, Claycia is now going all out."

"Yeah... She really didn't like being called an idiot," replies Sweetie Belle. "But at least, it's making this adventure more challenging. This guardian is the first one that actually gave us a challenge. Until now, she was just playing with us."

"You mean... This may become worst?" asks Elline.

"Well... Now that she's being serious, who knows what she will do? So, we got the tree, and now the robot. Next time should be the squid. What do you think she will do with him?"

"Uh... No idea," answers Bandana. "But what scares me is what she will do with Bastron. I mean, we didn't destroy it."

"Oh boy..."

"You should be scared of Claycia!" suddenly shouts Yin.

"After all, if you are already scared of what she may create next time, then what do you think will happen when you will face the creator?" continues Yarn.

"And don't think that this time will be a dud like against us! Like Sweetie stated earlier, we are just a tool. Claycia isn't. Once you fight her, prepare to face the mighty power of creation."

"Whether or not she is possessed or corrupted, this will be a hard fight."

"Well then..." starts Sweetie Belle as she looks at the needles. "Lucky us, we also have the power of creation at our side..." She then looks at Elline. "Twice."

Chapter 85: Red Volcano

The party is as worried about exploring Red Volcano that it has been about exploring Green Valley. Despite the many dangers, they are by now very used to them. Avoiding lava has become second nature, and since they can all fly or air-jump, and Elline can use her rainbow rope if the worst was to happen, then falling to a burning death is almost impossible.

So without worry, barely they land, the heroes start exploring, only Elline looking at the lava with some apprehension. Well, Bandana still tries to avoid getting too close to the lava. Too bad for him, the lava is everywhere, and solid land is rather rare, so they often have to jump or use the rainbow rope above the lava to continue, some no paint zones not helping. To make things more annoying, the green slime is back, and in great numbers both on the ground and on the walls, and many Bronto Burts are assaulting them.

They have some respite when they enter a tunnel without any lava and enemies, where they find a door that leads them to a section with many Hot Heads, many of them firing fireballs at them while standing on blocks above the lava. Kirby, now Fire Kirby, counters with his own fireballs, but in the end, Sweetie Belle is the one eliminating the majority of them with her cannons. When the last Hot Head falls in the lava, they pass another door and appear in a small room beside a lava fall blocking the only way out.

So Sweetie uses a shield to block the lavafall and free the way, and they all exited the room, which is just above a large lake of lava, leaving them no choice but to fly or use the rainbow rope until they reach a bridge of stone. On this bridge, they are attacked by two Hands, but despite their number and the presence of a no paint zone, they are still easily defeated. With the hands gone, they enter another small tunnel, pass another lavafall, and take another door.

They appear in a room not very large but more verticale with a big lava fall in the center, and like previously, Sweetie uses a shield to block it as they climb the room until they find another door. In the next room, the ceiling falls on them piece by piece before those same pieces slowly sink in the lava below, so the heroes doesn't lose time and use the rainbow rope to quickly move around the falling pieces. When there are no more falling pieces, before they can breathe a sigh of relief, they are attacked again by two Hands who are rapidly crushed against a wall by a very annoyed filly.

After two no paint zones, they pass a door that gets them in front of a gondola, and they use it to move while focusing on dealing with the obstacles, mainly lava falls, while Elline uses her rainbow rope to get them from rope to rope, which is not always easy because of some no paint zones on the way.

Then, as they pass and exit a small tunnel, they get a surprise bombing from none other than Bastron, back for a second round. The battleship has been fully repaired, but for some reason, it has a metallic eyepatch on its right eye. It has even been upgraded with two rocket launchers on its back, two more rows of cannons, spikes all over its body, and the face cannon has been replaced by a laser cannon. But the most dangerous of all are two arms ending with sharp mechanical claws added near the front, showing that the ship is ready to be attacked from the front like last time. There are even two more laser cannons in the palm of the claws!

"As you told, Bandana," says Sweetie Belle. "Bastron is back, and it's ready for a fight."

"Will you still face it?" asks Bandana.

Before Sweetie Belle can answer, Bastron restarts attacking with all the cannons that can fire at them, both on its side, and the three laser ones, as well as the rockets homing in the group. Elline quickly draws a rainbow rope, and the heroes use it to glide, avoiding the bullets, rockets and lasers. But Bastron intercepts her path, and fire all its projectiles on it. So Sweetie grabs everyone with her magic and jumps from the rainbow rope, then surrounds all of then in a spherical shield before they plunge in the lava, the shield protecting them.

After moving a little in the lava to trick the battleship, Sweetie Belle answers Bandana with an innocent smile. "Of course!... But, and you?"

"Uh..."

"Poyo!" shouts Kirby in determination.

"Wait, are you sure Kirby? Our rocket form isn't as adapted to fight this upgraded Bastron!"

"Poyo!"

"I may have an idea!" shouts then Elline. "If Claycia used the plans to build Bastron like I think, then there is probably a conduit near the engines that we could use to enter it and destroy it from inside!"

"Oooh! Like Sweetie and Kirby did to the Halberd!"

"Excepted that with its arms, approaching Bastron will be too dangerous for you. It will not let you reach the conduit," says Sweetie Belle.

"Yeah..."

"Poyo..."

"And that's why I will be facing it. And while its attention will be on me, you will discreetly fly to its conduit."

"You're crazy!" shout Yin and Yarn.

"Are you sure you will be able to face it alone with all those upgrades?" asks Bandana.

"Yes, but I will not try to destroy it this time, so I will essentially focus on dodging everything it throws at me while you deal with it from inside. Of course, I will also attack it when I can to weaken it, so prepare for some shaking while you are inside."

"Eh. Don't worry about us. It's us who should be worried about you. You will have the most dangerous job. But I suppose it's the best we can do. Alright! Let's do it!"

At this, they exit the lava and Sweetie rapidly lands them on a nearby rock before she invokes an easel. And before Elline even starts painting on it, she goes fight Bastron who has just spotted them. She moves away to avoid that one of his projectiles targeting her reaches her friends, surrounds herself with another shield, and rams its head right between the eyes. Then she flies away, Bastron now chasing her, meaning that her friends are now safe.

Once she judge they are far enough, she turns around, facing the battleship.

"Alright! Bring it on!"

Bastron rises its claws, palms facing the filly, and fires lasers at her that she easily dodges. With her cannons, she counters with her own lasers and other projectiles that don't do much to the battleship, but at least it's something. Rockets are fired at her while Bastron sweeps from the left and right with the lasers of its claws, and she ascends thanks to a shield to avoid those lasts one while she destroys the rockets with her magic beams. As she ascends, Bastron targets her with the laser cannon of his head, and fires a charged laser, and she makes the shield under her disappear, letting herself drop to avoid it before she creates another to land on.

Bastron decides to approach her, and he starts using its claws to try to slash or slap her, so she starts circling the battleship while firing at the cannons at its side. To her surprise, Bastron then raises its head and fires from the laser cannon here a few lasers, smaller, homing in her. Using mirrors, she does all she can to protect herself from them, and while she is able to reflect some of them, her mirrors are eventually destroyed, and one of the lasers successfully hits her. But she quickly recovers to dodge the bullets and rockets that follow as she charges a Giga Force Blast that she throws at one of the rocket launchers just as it fires a rocket, creating a huge explosion that destroy it and badly damage the area of the ship around it.

From the corner of her eye, she spots Kirby, Bandana Dee, and Elline, the first two as rockets, approaching the ship from behind before disappearing in it, probably entering the conduit.

Ok, now she just has to continue fighting this ship for a few minutes. No problem.

With one of the rocket launchers destroyed, less rockets are coming at her. Already, she prepares another Giga Force Blast to do the same at the other, only for the left claw to grab her before it starts crushing her. Surrounding her whole body in soul energy, she resists it as best as she can and slowly raises her head to spot Bastron's remaining eye looking at her. Seeing that the filly doesn't let herself being crushed that easily, it starts charging a laser from the cannon on its head, and Sweetie Belle herself starts charging her Ultimate Doom Laser that she hoped not to use for this fight. They both fire, and the lasers clash, but Bastron's laser slowly overpowering Sweetie's. Thinking quickly, regretting not knowing how to teleport, Sweetie Belle turns herself into metal to better resistor the constricting strength of the claw, and starts gathering energy in her mouth. Opening it, she fires another laser, smaller, then uses mirrors to redirect the laser at Bastron's eye.

When the laser hits, it causes Bastron to unintentionally move its head, and so its cannon, stopping the clash between the lasers. With no opposition, Sweetie's Ultimate Doom Laser reaches Bastron's head and destroys a part of it, including the facial cannon. Sweetie Belle then separates her cannons into two groups of five to form two staffs, then connects the two staffs with her the green physical magic to form one giant staff above the arm holding her. She then suddenly lowers it, and the magic of the staff cuts through the arm, sectioning it from Bastron. With the claw stopping constricting her, she uses her soul energy to boost her strength and free herself, and before the claw falls in the lava below, she grabs it with her magic and thrusts it at Bastron's face, punching it. Bastron grabs it with its other claw, and throws it at the filly who moves out of the way before she restarts circling the ship, and fires a Giga Force Blast at the second rocket Launcher, creating a second explosion like with the first one.

She could actually destroy it, given some time.

One by one, she starts destroying the cannons at its sides, each one's destroyed making the fight easier. There's a time where Bastron tries to ram her like it did in the first fight, but Sweetie Belle has prepared for that and creates a drill around her body with a shield before spinning, drilling a small hole in Bastron's hull, making it understand that it shouldn't try to ram her anymore.

And then, as she is bust having a fist fight between her fist shield and Bastron's remaining claw, she spots her friends exiting the ship, and she quickly flies away from it. Three seconds later, Bastron explodes.

They all land on a small bridge of stone as they watch Bastron's pieces fall into the lava. When the last piece disappears, they exchange high fives.

"Good job you three! You did it!"

"Good job to you too! It must have not been easy fighting Bastron alone!"

"Poypoyo! Poyo!"

"It must have been intense! The ship didn't stop shaking and we could hear explosions almost all the time!"

"You have no idea!"

"Ahahah! Claycia must be red now!"

"Yeah/Poyo!"

When the excitement mostly disappears, the party restarts exploring the volcanic world, approaching a volcano as they recount what happened in the fight. Apparently, Kirby and the others also got their share of problems inside Bastron. It was full of enemies and obstacles like giant saws and crushing walls, without forgetting that they had to escape the ship before it exploded. When she recounts the moment she fired a laser from her mouth, Sweetie swears she has seen Bandana and Elline's eyes turn into stars.

After taking a succession of cannons, they enter the volcano, only to discover that the volcano is about to erupt as the lava is rising below them, so they quickly start climbing the inside, passing many blocks and Gordos before reaching a door that get them in a safe area outside the volcano, the two Hands ambushing them here not counting before they aren't a threat at all. But it doesn't last long, because after a small climbing, they find another door that gets them back inside the volcano, where they have again to escape the rising lava. They have to pass many weird spiked totem-like enemies, Blados, and various blocks including many metal ones before they reach cannons that propel them out by the chimney of the volcano. They quickly run away on the stone bridge connected to it before the volcano erupts.

While they haven't found anything, they are now high enough to have a good view, and they spot a huge lake of lava with a small island with a hole at the center.

It's not hard to guess that this is the lair where the squid is waiting for them.

It doesn't take long for the heroes to reach it by walking on a bridge that looks like a long spine, and as expected, the squid comes out of the hole, now sporting an eyepatch on his left eye. Also, his ten limbs have been replaced with metallic prostheses.

And he looks absolutely pissed at Sweetie Belle.

Smiling innocently, the filly waves at him. "Hello!"

The squid becomes red and roars in rage before he points all ten of his limbs at her, revealing that they are now like Bastron's claws, but smaller. He then fires a laser from each of them at Sweetie Belle, only for the filly to use mirrors to deflect all of them back at the squid.

Growling, the squid plunges two tentacles in the lava, and they come out under the bridge, grabbing it at both sides of the group, before breaking it and bringing it in the lava. The heroes all rapidly fly to avoid a forced lava bath, only to watch in awe as the squid uses his eight legs as thrusters to fly too! He then starts spitting balls of ink at them, and they use a rainbow rope to get out of the way. So the squid decides to thrust his two tentacles at them, which are parried by two beam swords from Sweetie Belle. One of the squid's legs then attacks too, revealing a giant beam sword about to slash at her. As she readies one of her own beam sword to parry it too, Kirby suddenly comes and uses his comet-like attack to ram the leg and deviate its slash while Bandana jumps on one of the two tentacles still clashing with Sweetie's beam swords and runs on it toward the squid.

Three more of the squid's legs rise to create beam swords, letting four of them to continue propelling him, and Bandana immediately returns on the rainbow rope, not wanting to attack alone anymore with such a defense ready. The squid stops his clash with Sweetie Belle to attack her again with a total of six beam swords, and the filly is able to parry all of them with her own double beam swords. With the four remaining swords, she attacks directly the squid while approaching it on a shield. Risky move, because the squid tries to ram her like a torpedo, his thrusters adding power and speed to his attack, and Sweetie Belle counters it with her Drill Shield that she used earlier against Bastron. The two clash in a violent shower of sparks under a deafening high-pitched sound, until the squid flies back and lands back on the small island, rising his ten limbs to ready ten beam swords. Ten beam swords and ten double beam swords start clashing in an exchange of slashes, parries, and counters hard to follow for everyone else.

Too bad for the squid, Sweetie can attack separately from her swords, so while his limbs are busy dealing with the double swords, he can't protect himself against the projectiles of the filly, and Bandana and Kirby join her in the assault. The squid eventually rises all his limbs and rapidly spin to force everyone away, Elline creating another rainbow rope for her friends to land on as the squid continues spinning while firing lasers from his ten limbs that are moving up and down, becoming like a deadly carousel. But as the heroes do all they can to avoid the lasers, Sweetie moves her double swords around him, and...

Slashslashslashslashslashslashslashslashslashslashslashslashslashslashslashslashslashslashslashslashslashslash!

She cuts him into little cubes, the protheses being the only parts that aren't cut.

"Aww... Too bad it's clay, those pieces are ready to be cooked," says Bandana.

"Sorry for you," says Sweetie. "But really, a flying squid cyborg. This adventure is full of weird enemies."

"This is what happens when your enemies are created by a mad artist. Speaking of, let's destroy the seal so we can kick her butt."

Chapter 86: Purple Fortress

The final world, Purple Fortress, which serves as Claycia's HQ, looks weird. From afar, it looks like a huge multicolored paintbrush surrounded by flows of paint and what seems to be gears. From close, it's a huge junkyard with many futuristic buildings. But somewhere, hidden, is Claycia's palace. but first, they have to find it. Thankfully, Elline knows where it is, so she makes them land in one of the junkyard near what seems to be a factory, and asks them to follow her.

They use a cannon to enter and pass a wall in front of the factory, discovering a new kind of door that they have to open by activating a Sensor Field, a blue field that they have to enter to activate it (making it turn pink). Entering the courtyard behind the wall, they have to explore it to find three keys, some of them hidden behind more Sensor Field Doors, to open the three locked doors blocking the way to the inside of the building.

Once inside, they find another Sensor Field Door, this one not remain open very long. This forces them to wait for some formless purple electrical goo to enter the Sensor Field to be able to pass the door before it closes. After it, they enter one of those suction pipes that gets them to a different room with more Sensor Field Doors and more of those purple goo. This time, not wanting to wait, Sweetie grabs one of the goo in her magic and tosses it inside the field opening the doors, and they enter another pipe.

In the next room, the Censor Fields don't open doors, but walls that start closing as soon as they leave them, so they have to make sure that the walls are wide open before they continue, unless they take the risk to be crushed, which isn't easy become the second field is on spikes. Thankfully, Elline and her rainbow rope are here. After a black door, they enter a big room with more goo, and at the top, they take another pipe that leads them to a different part of the factory.

After passing another moving wall, they are ambushed again by the two Hands who haven't learned their lesson, and after a quick beat down, they pass a black door that gets them outside the factory, in another courtyard where they pass a few more moving walls before passing yet another black door, returning inside the building.

They traverse a small hallway, and take a pipe that makes them pass through a weird machine before they exit in a room where one of the walls is a mirror.

Wait, no, the room reflected by the mirror isn't identical. This isn't a mirror but a big glass separating the room in two.

But then, who are those guys that look exactly like them at the other side?

The Sweetie at the left side rises her left forehoof. The Sweetie at the right side rises her left forehoof.

If the second Sweetie was a reflection, she should have raised the right forehoof...

...

What the bucking heck?

"This machine cloned us?!" shout both Bandana Dees at the same time.

Both Ellines giggle before saying "This was one of our little project to have fun. A cloning machine that would split us, and the two formed teams would have to work together through a series of obstacles. Imagine how much fun we could have with such an idea?"

"You mean Claycia can create machines to clone?" ask the Sweeties.

"She can create anything!"

"Darn... That's impressive!" shout the Bandanas. "But we should find a way to make them stop saying everything we say, this is starting to be annoying! Yes, stop saying what I say! No, you stop! Stop I said! STOP! SHUT-"

"Hey! Destroy those blocks in front of you! There's a pink switch just behind it that should open this door in front of us!" suddenly shouts the Sweetie at the left side.

"Alright!" shouts back the Sweetie at the right side.

"Woah... Good job Sweetie," says Left Bandana.

"Thanks."

As told, the group at the right side destroys the wall of blocks in front and activates a pink switch, opening a door at the left side. Left team passes it, and destroy a bomb block, destroy a wall of blocks at both sides and revealing a black door for the two teams.

Right Sweetie giggles. "Elline is right, this will be fun, even if there will probably be many dangers."

"This will be no problems!" shout both Bandana before they glare at each other. "I told you, stop saying what I say! Stop, darn it!"

Rolling their eyes, the two Sweeties push the Bandanas through the black doors, followed by the laughing Kirbys and Ellines.

And the two teams start traversing a long hallway separated by another glass, starting by Right Team destroying a wall blocking its way, followed by Left Team also destroying one blocking both sides. Right Team then has to destroy a wall of blocks to reach a switch to open a door for Left Team. Further, Left Team has to do the same to open a trap door above Right Team, letting it reach another switch so Left Team can continue and activate three switches for Right Team. Another bomb block later, and both teams reach the end of the hallway and take the black doors here, appearing in an elevator.

The two Sweeties do a high five from both sides of the glass.

"Best obstacle from a bad guy ever!" they both shout.

"Poyo!" say the two Kirby as they point up, showing enemies coming at them from both sides.

"The calvary is coming!" shout the Bandanas.

So the ride in the elevator mostly consists of fighting enemies coming at them from above until Left Team sees a trap door approaching. Right Team quickly flies up to reach a switch and open it. At this moment, they reach a section of the ride where the glass stops, and all the two teams have to do is destroying a wall of blocks to join each others as they are about to reach a no paint zone.

"Hey, me!" say the Sweeties as they hoof bump each other.

"This is so weird..." say the Bandana before they growl in annoyance.

The Kirbys roll their eyes. "Poyopoyo..." Tell me about this...

More enemies come at them, but now that the two teams are together, they easily destroy them as well as the many blocks on the way. Nothing resists them. And before long, they reach the end of the ride, and the black door, without a scratch.

And sadly, the fun has to end there. In the next room are two pipes, and it's not hard to guess what it means.
"Well, goodbye, me. It was fun," say the Sweeties.

"I wonder how it is to be put back as one," ask the Bandanas.

"Poyo poyo poyo." You will discover soon enough.

"It's a little weird..." says one of the Ellines

"But nothing bad," finishes the other before they both giggle.

"I love how you talk," say the Sweeties.

"Force of habit," reply the two fairies.

The two teams enter the pipes, and as they have thought,they enter a machine similar to the first, and out of it comes only one exemplary of everyone. When they exit the pipe, Sweetie and Bandana rub their head.

"Woah... Is it what it feels like to fuse? Now I have two sets of memories to sort through. It's so weird."

"Like Elline said."

"Is it what you felt Kirby after Dark Mind and Necrodeus? I can't think how it was to have four set of memories, and even less ten sets. And you were splitten much longer in both cases."

Kirby shrugs. "Poyo poyopo."

Bandana then looks up and see where they are. "Woah! Are we back in space? What is it about those swirls of clay? Are those trees that I see on one of them?"

"This one has a sun!" shouts Sweetie as she points to another swirl.

Elline looks at all the swirls in worry. "I... I think those are future worlds that Claycia is creating. But... How could she become so powerful? Just creating one world took years, but here, she's creating dozens at the same time!"

"What is this place?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"This is Claycia's home, a small dimension connected to ours where she creates everything she wants. We started from here to create Seventopia."

"So that random factory was actually a door to this dimension? Thank the stars you are here, it would have taken us forever to find it!" says Bandana.

"And now, let me guide you to her house."

They take a nearby black door, and enter a room where they encounter a weird creature that seems to be just a green floating squared head with a single big eye and a giant mouth. Abome them is also a green thing coming out of the ceiling and ending in a disk with a hole, like a funnel.

"This is a Warpspace," infoms Elline. "Don't worry, they are harmless. They eat us, and we come out by this hole, which is its tail. We may need to use them to continue at some points."

"Weird idea," comments Bandana.

"They are a security system. Who would think to let themselves being eaten to continue? And even if they are harmless, their tail can spit you at bad places, or make you lose time."

"Still weird."

They pass the Warpspace, and use a cannon to pass some blocks and continue and enter another room with two red Warpspaces, those ones having two eyes. Weirdly enough, the two seem to have the same tail. They pass those two too and take the next cannon to reach a third room with three eyed blue Warpspaces also partaging the same tail. In this room, the cannon is just between the two of them, making reaching it annoying because one wrong move and they get eaten and sent back at the start.

After successfully taking the cannon, they reach a new room where they face a new big enemy devoid of colors possessing a big spiked shield defending the path. The most annoying with those enemies is that if they aren't absolutely destroyed, they simply lose shape before reforming a few seconds later. After passing two of them, they passa black door.

The next room has more Warpspaces as well as those grey shield wielders charging with those shields to not only hurt them but also to push them toward the Warpspaces and make them restart. However, further up, they have to let themselves get eaten by a red one to be propelled toward some blocks blocking the way and destroy them. A blue one then propels them further up toward another room where they have to choose between three Warpspaces to be propelled back down to a different place.

Here, they get a new ride on a gondola, but they first have to get eaten by a green Warpspace to destroy the blocks preventing it to advance. From there, it's a simple climbing through many Warpspaces and no paint zones while avoiding Gordos before they reach a point where the gondola suddenly accelerates, making avoiding the obstacles harder until it reaches the end.

That's okay, it was fun. It was like a roller coaster, but without loops.

At the end, the Hands try again their chance, but like always, they are easily dispatched before the heroes take the next door. They enter a room where they have to fight a key to obtain it while avoiding being eaten by two Warpspaces here, unless they want to be propelled toward spikes. It's not hard for them to get the key like the previous time, and they use it to open a trapdoor above and continue. Here, they let themselves being eaten by a green Warpspace to be propelled up until reaching a windy area with giant Warpspaces. They have to let themselves being pushed by the wind while avoiding the Warpspaces to not restart.

At the end of this path, they take a door, and appear in a different part of the dimension where they can see many small planets of clay, just in front of Claycia's... palace?

"But... It was a small and cute house last time I was here," says Elline.

"Seems like Claycia has gotten an ego," says Bandana.

"After her reaction when you treated her of idiot, that's not a surprise," says Sweetie Belle.

They enter the palace, and let an elevator ride them to the top, where they can see many non-finished clay statues of the various enemies they have encountered in this adventure. At the top, after a small hallway, they punch a living grey spiked ball toward a non-finished statue of Claycia blocking the way, destroying both of them before they continue. At the end of this path, they enter a door.

They enter a room where the Hands are awaiting them, but instead of attacking, they do a small movement, and a cyan haired girl of clay appear behind them, the Hands now at both ends of a giant lilac scarf, acting like a second pair of hands added to her disembodied normal white hands. She wears a magenta beret, magenta shoes, and a large purple coat with magenta dots.

But they can't see her face, because it is covered by a weird sunglasses with white pupils.

With a giggle, she waves at Elline. "Hello Elline. Nice seeing you again."

"Claycia!"

"So, those are your new friends?" says Claycia as she turns to the others, fixing Yin and Yarn for a small moment. "The friends of my friends are my friends! Too bad for you, she is now my enemy. What friend would oppose me like she did?"

At Claycia's words, Elline gets tears in her eyes, irritating her friends.

"Stop talking as if you were really Claycia! We are certain that it's you, Dark Crafter! Drop your masquerade!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

"Oh my... It seems I'm unmasked. Why am I not surprised?" asks rhetorically the revealed Dark Crafter as she stares again at Yin and Yarn, making the two of them gulp. "And you, you are the little thorns in my side that stopped my dear toys one after another." She puts one of the Hands on her forehead like a drama queen. "I just wanted some creativity! Why so much destruction? Wouldn't the universe have been more interesting if it was a giant painting that we could have painted and repainted like we wanted? What was so bad about everything being turned into soft yarn? It's a universe of dreams! A universe born from creativity! So why can't I create what I want?"

"Because you have a sick vision of creation! Who knows what kind of disgusting painting Drawcia would have made of Popstar if we had left her? And Yin and Yarn were not only turning Popstar into a world of yarn, but they tried to conquer it!"

"Of course they would want to conquer it. We possess what we create after all. And I don't care what you think of my vision."

"In other terms, you want to conquer the universe and turn it into your artistic sandbox without a care for others! You want to become an absolute God!"

"Uhuhuhuhuhuh! Exactly! And those two's creations were so perfect to reach this dream! A clay statue that can create worlds of clay! Two paintings that possessed the power to create things from paint, ink, or anything else to draw! Two knitting needles that could make wonders with yarn! That Life Giving Artist Magic they developed was the best thing ever for me!" She then growls. "But that fool just had to hide her little girl in a different dimension that he created himself to protect her! I lost countless years trying to find her! And then the needles got sealed, and the paintings were separated! It's only by luck that I found the elder painting and the needles and unleashed them! Because of a game of hide and seek that lasted centuries, I couldn't reach my dream! My power grows when my toys create, but how could they create when they were trapped?!" She laughs. "But thanks to Drawcia and Yin and Yarn's action, I gained some powers and was able to find this little dimension. Claycia's powers are the strongest of all! With them as mine, my goal is within reach!" Using the two Hands, she takes some clay and starts sculpting it. "And those are certainly not some little destructors like you that will stop me!"

Sweetie Belle looks at Elline, and they nod before the fairy takes her paintbrush that starts floating in the filly's magic. Sweetie Belle then grabs Yin and Yarn, readying them.

"I agree, we destroy a lot to save the universe. But I also can create!"

"Oooooh! Then may the best creator win!"

At this, Dark Crafter throws the clay in the ceiling, and out of it come dozens of cannons, not leaving any space. Without losing time, Sweetie Belle uses Yin and Yarn to knit a shield that she turns into metal, like in the fight against Magolor, and uses it to protect everyone from the following rain of lasers. Dark Crafter then does a circle with the Hands, surrounding herself in a no paint zone, rendering null all attacks with paint. She follows this by throwing more clay, this time in one of the walls, and Sweetie Belle immediately invokes an easel before painting some mirror on the canvas. It comes out, revealing it to be a mirror shield big enough for everyone to shelter behind, and when the cannons come out of the wall and fire their lasers, the mirror deflects the lasers and destroy the cannons. Once all the cannons of the wall firing at them are destroyed, Sweetie then places the mirror shield under the metal shield, then moves the metal shield so the mirror can also destroy the cannons of the ceiling. Feeling that it may be very useful, Sweetie then paints a smaller mirror, breaks it, and gives the shards to Kirby to give him the Mirror ability.

The lasers not working, Dark Crafter destroys all the remaining cannons, and uses their clay to create... an organ? She then uses more clay to create a new metal Clay Whispy to protect her as she sits in front of the organ and starts playing. Suddenly, at the rhythm of the music played, the floor separates into square columns that rise and lower, and with the Clay Whispy spawning his spiked balls while blowing his wind, it's a redoubtable combo.

"A musician is also an artist!" says Dark Crafter with a cackle.

Sweetie Belle throws a shield at one of the spiked balls and sends it at one of the Clay Whispy's eyes. Screaming in pain, the Clay Whispy stops blowing air, and Kirby and Bandana take the occasion to run around him, with difficulty because of the moving floor, and attack Dark Crafter, interrupting her song. Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle paints and knits a small army of Knuckle Joes who all start pummeling the Clay Whispy with hundreds of jabs to the point that he loses his form and becomes just a pile of clay.

Dark Crafter slaps away Kirby and Bandana, then grabs the organ and throws it at them. The two heroes rapidly jump out of the way of the instrument before they return to attack, along with Sweetie's Knuckle Joes. Before they can reach her, Dark Crafter creates more laser cannons in the ceiling, and they fire a barrage of lasers that destroy all the Knuckle Joes, but the heroes are able to protect themselves with the mirrors like previously, and Sweetie takes the occasion to fire her own projectiles to attack.

Enveloping herself in her scarf, Dark Crafter teleports, then throws again clay in the ceiling and the walls, and out of them come giant fists of clay trying to punch the heroes. While Kirby and Bandana do all they can to avoid them, Sweetie opts to use her own hooves metallified and boosted by soul energy to punch them and destroy them before she knits a clone of Dedede and paints a clone of Meta Knight. The two clones immediately join Kirby and Bandana in attacking Dark Crafter, Paint Meta Knight using sword beams to attack from a distance and avoid approaching the no paint zone around her. Dark Crafter then quickly teleports again and starts flying near the ceiling, poking it at different place. The following instant, the places of the ceiling she has poked morph into columns that drop on the floor to crush the heroes and the clones. Yarn Dedede then grabs Kirby and hits him with his hammer, sending him right at Dark Crafter's face, stopping her attack as she drops on the floor dazed. They all take the occasion to attack her with all they have until Dark Crafter recovers, slaps everyone too close, and teleports. She then creates a no paint zone covering the whole room, having for effect to destroy Paint Meta Knight.

Kirby, Bandana, and Yarn Dedede still attack her, so she creates two swords to defend herself, handling them with Claycia's hands rather than the big one eyed Hands of the scarf. As she uses her swords to attack the three of them, she uses the Hands to sculpt more clay and create various enemies they have encountered in their adventure, from Cottas to the shield wielders, until she suddenly takes a shell in the face. Once she recovers from the explosion caused by it, she looks at the origin of the shell, and discovers Sweetie Belle now inside a tank made of yarn with a main cannon and ten turrets formed by the filly's ten cannons.

Smirking, Sweetie fires another shell that hits Dark Matter in the face while the turrets start firing their own projectiles. At this moment, the no paint zone disappears, and she paints mini tanks that surround her bigger one and immediately fire at their enemy. Avoiding another shell, Claycia throws two balls of clay at the walls at the opposite side of the tanks, and they start closing on them. Seeing this, Sweetie gives up the tank and flies away, avoiding being crushed, covers herself in a shield, and does her Giant Fiery Comet attack, hitting Dark Crafter and slamming her against the wall.

Now more angry than ever, Dark Crafter sinks in the floor, to everyone's wonder. The room then starts shaking, and it suddenly triples in size, before a giant arm of clay comes out of the floor and crush Yarn Dedede, destroying him. Another arm comes out, then a head, and finally, the torso. Dark Crafter, now a giant living clay statue of Claycia half immersed in the floor, roars at the heroes.

Immediately, Sweetie Belle turns Kirby and Bandana into their tank form before she moves as far away from the statue that she can as it starts pounding the floor to send shockwaves. Once she is near the opposite wall, the filly starts painting and knitting like never before, and the statue starts sculpting like crazy. The two creator then send at each others everything they can create, projectiles like rockets, small beings like Knuckle Joes, Knights, or Cottas, and stronger beings like the guardians, Kracko, Mr Bright and Mr Shine, and much more. The two formed armies, in one side of paint and yarn, and in the other of clay, clash in the middle of the room, with Kirby and Bandana not stopping firing at the giant statue who has formed a second pair of arms to continue pounding the floor.

In the chaos of elemental attacks, explosions, and weapons clashing, Dark Crafter starts talking.

"You are fighting well. Your creation skills are impressive, even if you are greatly helped by those toys. But..." She puts two hands on the ceiling and opens it, revealing the dark sky of space around the palace. She then starts twirling the hands, and swirls of clay appear in the sky. "You seem to forget... I AM THE MASTER OF CREATION!!!"

The swirls divide to form hundreds of meteors raining all over the palace. What she didn't think in her pride or anger is that those meteors would also rain on her and her creations... Thinking quickly, she makes herself rise toward the sky in a giant mountain of clay until she goes beyond the meteors.

Avoiding as best they can the meteors, the heroes, Kirby and Bandana now back to normal, use Elline's rainbow rope to follow Dark Crafter, around who a new swirl of clay is forming. When they reach her, Elline doesn't stop painting the rainbow rope so they can circle Dark Crafter without stopping, moving up and down, accelerating or slowing down to avoid the many projectiles that she throws at them. Meanwhile, on the rope, as the whole universe seems to fall on them, Sweetie has knitted three cannons that the heroes start using to pummel the statue with dozens and dozens of explosive bullets, damaging it more and more. Dark Crafter sends all the power of creation, meteors rains, weapon rains, laser rains, thrown clay boulders, sculpted minions of various forms, sizes and powers, everything, to stop them, and Elline has a more and moe hard time to draw a path for her friends to remain unharmed, to the point that more than once, they are forced to jump to avoid something or Elline is forced to start a new rope.

But then, from the sky, a familiar paintbrush suddenly comes flying toward Sweetie Belle, and the filly, when spotting it, immediately recognizes it with a gasp of surprise.

The Magical Paintbrush!

"You are back!" shouts Sweetie in joy as she catches the paintbrush. Immediately, she feels herself filled with its power. "Back to finish the job? Alright! Let's show Dark Crafter who is the real master of creation!"

She swings the paintbrush, and the universe around them distords before becoming a giant painting.

"What?" shouts Dark Crafter. With everything becoming a painting, she has lost control of the clay, now turned into paint. She immediately starts forming new clay. "I will not let you-" She is suddenly punched in the face by a giant painted fist.

Dozens of canvas appear around Sweetie Belle, a paintbrush painting fists on all of them, and Dark Crafter finds herself punched again and again while still being bombarded by Bandana and kirby's cannons. Dark Crafter surrounds herself in a no paint zone, destroying all of them, but them, Sweetie Belle uses her magic to grab all the clay that has been formed, and shapes it into a giant ball. She then uses another giant painted fist to punch the ball and slam it on Dark Crafter, breaking the no paint zone and opening her to more paint attack.

Using Yin and Yarn to knit more giant fist to continue punching their enemy, Sweetie then twirls the paintbrush, and the whole painting universe around starts swirling. Out of the swirl of paint, balls of paint start raining on the statue from all side until it almost reaches its breaking point. Sweetie then stops the barrage, and rises the paintbrush, and all the paint starts gathering in a planet sized ball of paint above them. Once all the paint has been gathered, Sweetie Belle brings down the paintbrush, and the ball starts falling. Again, Dark Crafter creates a no paint zone to protect herself, and the ball of paint clashes against it, only for the no paint zone to break, and the ball slams against the statue, destroying it. The statue destroyed, the ball explodes too, the paint returning to form the universe around.

Now, all that remains is Claycia's body floating above the surface of the mountain of paint/clay. Purple energy start escaping her body as she grasped her head in pain. With one last explosion, she falls on the surface of the mountain on her face, and the sunglasses bounce away, the big one eyed Hands disappearing from her scarf which becomes smaller.

"Claycia!" shouts Elline in panic as everyone joins the fallen statue girl of clay.

The little fairy starts crying against her friend's hair, asking for Claycia to wake up, hoping that the fight hasn't killed her.

And with a groan, Claycia slowly goes up, rubbing her head. Now that the sunglasses aren't covering her face, they can see it, but now, her eyes are covered by her hair.

As Claycia barely starts to recover from what happened, Elline screams "Claycia!" in joy before hugging her. Despite her surprise, Claycia catches catches Elline in her hands and hugs her.

"Elline! You are alright! Oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean anything that I said and did!"

"I know! You were possessed! But now, Dark Crafter is gone, and you are safe!" With a big, happy smile, Elline turns to Sweetie and the others. "Thank you!"

Claycia turns toward them, and upon spotting the Magical Paintbrush, gasps. "Is that...?"

Before they can continue, the sunglasses restart bouncing, then they float, and out of them comes a black smoke. Blobs of darkness start appearing, forming some kind of cloud. And before the heroes, Dark Crafter's true form appear, with the sunglasses, two Hands, and one big smiling mouth. It grows, and grows, then roars, revealing that the smiling mouth is also an angry eye.

What is it with smiling mouths having angry eyes in them?

Whatever, the heroes prepare themselves to fight, and destroy for good, their enemy. But to their surprise, Dark Crafter starts by absorbing the colors of the universe around them, becoming a cloud of colors, before flying away, opening a portal and passing it.

That coward just ran away!

We must go after it!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

Elline and Claycia look at each other, nod, and the clay girl sculpts an easel. Once she's done, Elline paints on it and transformed Kirby into his rocket form. Before she can continue to do the same to Sweetie and Bandana, the filly stops her.

"Wait, Elline, I have an idea."

She grabs the paintbrush and Yin and Yarn, and approaches Elline and Claycia before she starts whispering something to all of them, sometimes one of them nodding.

"Poyo?"

"I don't know what she's preparing, but they should hurry," says Bandana.

Sweetie and the others then turn toward Kirby. After some painting, sculpting, and knitting, a whole little spaceship has been created around him, the rocket puffball at the nose. The main body of the spaceship is made of clay painted pink with a star symbol at the sides, while there are two turrets on the back that are made of yarn. Below Kirby, just in case, is a painted bow cutter.

Their job done, Sweetie Belle looks at Bandana and points at the turrets. Understanding, Bandana jumps in one of them, and Sweetie jumps in the other. As the spaceship takes off, Elline joins Kirby and remains at his side, wanting to be here in case she may be useful. With everyone ready, Kirby flies through the portal, returning in the Dream Universe, where they appear not far above Purple Fortress, which has lost all colors, as well as all the worlds of Seventopia.

After flying a little, they spot Dark Crafter, and quickly catch up to it, or him, or whatever. Dark Crafter seems surprised to see them coming, and immediately doubles his speed to try to escape them, only for this to be in vain as Sweetie and Bandana start to fire at him, each hit causing him to lose some color and reveal his black, Dark Matter-like body.

Seeing he can't escape them with speed, Dark Crafter throws mines at them, and Sweetie and Bandana have to destroy them. Kirby decides then to accelerate, and successfully rams into Dark Crafter, impaling him with the bow cutter. In return, Dark Crafter punches the spaceship, damaging it, and forcing the heroes back. He continues throwing mines, while he starts using the colors of his body to create various obstacles, mainly minions like Bronto Burts, but also projectiles, like creating fireballs from the red and the orange, or ice spikes from the blue. Yellow goes for lightning bolts, and brown goes for the creation of boulders. He uses green to create a whip-like vine and uses it to attack the heroes, while he gathers some purple to create a cloud of poisonous gas.

Kirby does his best to avoid the most obstacles and projectiles possible while Elline uses her rainbow ropes to protect him, and Sweetie and Bandana destroy the ones that can be destroyed, and once they have an occasion they attack Dark Crafter, turning his body more and more black. The more his body becomes black, the more Dark Crafter becomes desperate, and he multiplies the number of mines and other attacks and obstacles his throws at the spaceship damaging it more and more. One of the wings is destroyed, but Kirby remains in control and is even able to ram Dark Crafter again to impale him. Sweetie Belle and Bandana Dee fire at the Hands to avoid the ship being punched again, until the Hands are finally destroyed, making Dark Crafter panic. By now, the majority of his body is black.

They then target his mouth-eye, and fire.

A dozen shots later, Dark Crafter yells in pain as the dark energy starts escaping his body.

And finally, he explodes.

Chapter 87: Peace Again... Or Not

As soon as Dark Crafter explodes, all the colors he had absorbed are expelled into space. Elline collects them immediately with her paintbrush form so she can give them back to Popstar.

"We did it!" shouts Sweetie Belle. "Finally, this whole artistic nightmare should end!"

"Unless we learn that Dark Crafter had a twin brother," says Bandana with a laugh.

"Poyo poyo!"

"Yes! Don't jinx us!"

Having finished collecting the colors, Elline returns to them. "Let's return to Claycia. She must be worried."

They nod, and turn back to fly toward the portal to Claycia's universe.

---

"Yes! YES! They did it! They got it! It's finally gone!" celebrates Rainbow Dash.

"It's about time they got that Dark guy. It's probably the one that gave them the most troubles," says Applejack

"It's a draw with Zero. They got three adventures because of Crafty, and three adventures because of Zero. Mindy doesn't count!" says Pinkie Pie.

"Mindy?" asks Applejack.

"Dark Mind," explains Discord. "Zero's counterpart from the Mirror World which, while we are at it, we can thanks for two adventures."

"But the big boss remains the Dark God. He's behind EVERYTHING! Or almost," says Pinkie.

"I still dread the day they will fight him," says Rarity.

"I really wonder how they will be able to defeat a God," says Starlight.

"With the power of friendship of course!" shouts Pinkie.

Starlight raises an eyebrow. "I understand that friendship is a powerful magic, but would this be enough to surpass the power of a God?"

"Friendship defeated Discord."

"As much as it pains me to say it, I'm not a real God. I'm just a more powerful than average spirit incarnating chaos. If I was to fight a real God face to face, I would be crushed in a few seconds."

"But in each adventure, Sweetie Belle becomes stronger, and makes new powerful friends," says Twilight. "If the day of the fight against the Dark God comes, I don't doubt they will be ready to face him."

---

The heroes return where they have left Claycia, and as Eline has said, the poor girl has been floating back and forth in worry. But as soon as she sees them coming back, her worry turns into joy. When they leave the ship, she hugs Elline, then thanks and congratulates one by one the heroes.

"I can't thank you enough! Dark Crafter was the cause of so much suffering for me and my family! Now that he's gone, I will be able to live my life like I desire without having to hide." Claycia then looks at Yin and Yarn. "And I'm so glad that you two are still alive."

"Trust us..."

"We are glad too."

Claycia then grabs the Magical Paintbrush and hugs it. "I'm glad to see you too. Thank you."

"What now?" asks Bandana Dee.

"Now, we return to Popstar so I can give it back all its colors," says Elline.

"Let me help for that," says Claycia.

The clay girl takes some clay and sculpts it into a star. Understanding what she wants to do, Elline paints it yellow, thus creating a Warp Star big enough for the three heroes to ride on.

So Sweetie Belle, Kirby, and Bandana Dee jump on it, and they fly toward Dark Crafter's portal, followed by Elline and Claycia. As soon as they pass it, the Magical Paintbrush closes the portal.

In the ride back to the hole to Popstar, Claycia explains everything. The Great Artist was an Ancient of the Mage Clan survivor of the Great War who decided to left the folly of the others to live his dream: create. So he came to Popstar alongside his sister, where he built his home in Floralia, and created the Life Giving Artist Magic. So he created the Magical Paintbrush, and with it, first created Claycia while his sister created Yin and Yarn and used them to knit Patch Land. But then, as he painted Paintra and Drawcia, Dark Crafter came, and corrupted the two paintings before corrupting Yin and Yarn. The Great Artist was able to use the Magical Paintbrush to force him to run away, and used the occasion to hide the paintings while his sister sealed Yin and Yarn in Patch Land. As for Claycia, to protect her, the Great Artist used all his powers to create a small universe just for her, where she would hide, and create whatever she wanted.

But when the Great Artist died of old age, Claycia was feeling very alone despite all her and the artist's creations populating her universe, so the Magical Paintbrush used all his creation power to create a friend for her: Elline. It then started to explore the universe to find a way to get rid of Dark Crafter.

But eventually, Dark Crafter found Drawcia, then Yin and Yarn, and used them to gain enough power that he could open holes in space and find Claycia's dimension, and possess her to use her powers to eventually become a new God. He would create more, and more, and more, and gain more powers, until he would reach the level of the Dark God, and maybe even surpass him. And the whole Dream Universe would have become his sandbox.

It's terrifying to think that the Dark God's own creations could become that powerful if left to do what they want...

Before long, they pass all the worlds of Seventopia, and reach the hole to Popstar. Now back in the star-shaped world, Elline turns into her paintbrush form, Claycia grabs her, and in a few swings, colors are restored, and life comes back.

"I missed Popstar so much," says then Claycia. "I wonder if dad's home is still here."

"It's still here," says Sweetie Belle. She turns to the Magical Paintbrush. "Now, one of my friends lives there. She's the one who helped me learn the Life Giving Artist Magic after our fight against Drawcia. She wants to turn the Great Artist's home into a school to teach this magic."

"That's wonderful! I would like to meet your friend!" says Claycia happily.

"And I'm sure she will be happy to meet you and Elline. She will probably ask you to help her run the school, because while she's getting very good with painting, she doesn't know much about sculpting."

"If you go to Floralia, could you first drop me at King Dedede's castle? I will tell him what happened," asks Bandana Dee.

"Ok, what about you Kirby?"

Kirby answers her by yawning, making her giggle.

"Understood. Ok!" She turns to the Magical Paintbrush. "Will you come? This would make Adeleine's day."

The paintbrush moves up and down to say yes.

So they drop Kirby at his house for a well deserved nap, and Bandana Dee at the castle to report to Dedede. Once done, they fly to the Dreamstalk, then ascend toward the sky until reaching Lollipop Land where they fly to the Great Artist's house.

Inside it, they find Adeleine reading one of the scrolls.

"Adeleine!" calls Sweetie Belle, gaining the attention of her friend.

"Is that you, Swee...tie?" Hearing her, Adeleine turns her head towards her as she starts speaking, only to stare in shock at the floating paintbrush, then at Claycia.

"Hey, Adeleine! I present to you the Magical Paintbrush, Elline, and Claycia! Claycia is the clay statue you told me about."

Adeleine faints.

---

"How can I repay you?"

"You don't need."

"I insist! I must repay you! Thanks to you, I finally got to see THE MAGICAL PAINTBRUSH!"

"Then just continue teaching me. It will be enough. Or, if you really want to do something, then learn everything you can about the Great Artist from Claycia and create the best school ever."

"I will!"

Claycia giggles. "She is really devoted, uh? I will gladly help teaching the art of my father."

At this moment, the Magical Paintbrush approaches the human girl. When Adeleine looks at it with a questioning expression, the paintbrush points at her hand, then pokes it. Adeleine understands what it means, but because she can't believe it, or because her brain just freezes at this moment, all she says in return is "Uh?" with a dumb look.

"It wants you to become its new user!" shouts Sweetie Belle in joy. "Your dream comes true!"

Adeleine faints, again.

"Stop it! You are becoming like my sister!"

---

"I just can't believe it. You three saved the world, and nobody would have known it if Bandana hadn't told me," says Dedede as he drops a plate of food in his mouth. "Mmmh! That okonomiyaki is perfect! That was a good idea!"

"Thank you. The best with this adventure is that we finally got to kill Dark Crafter. Hopefully, it is the last time that Popstar gets artistically changed," says Sweetie Belle.

"I wouldn't mind if a bad guy comes and changes everything into food."

"Please, no. There's already an island entirely made of food above our heads, that's enough. And don't forget Cookie Country, and the food randomly popping everywhere, and those ice trees in White Wafers... We don't need more food."

"Don't care. I want more food."

"Anyway. There are not many bad guys remaining among the ones we know. There's the Dark God himself, but also that cylinder-shaped machine and that Child of the God who exterminated the others. I wonder who will be next."

"I hope this is not the God. I don't know if we are ready. We may need more time."

Sweetie Belle nods. "I agree, but I don't know who I would prefer to fight first among the two others. The machine is apparently an evil Clockwork Star, but weaker."

"Weaker or not, fighting a wish-granting machine would be a pain," agrees Dedede.

"But the Child of the God is said to be powerful enough to destroy whole worlds. You imagine? A Meta Knight who could maybe cut the whole planet in two with a single swing of his sword!"

"Yeah. Whoever comes next, this will be hard. Unless we get some unknown bad guy like Necrodeus, then we may have an easier time."

"We should still ready for the worse."

"This is what we already do. You train hard everyday. And the others train a lot too."

"And yet, today, if that wasn't for Elline, Popstar would have been doomed."

"As if anyone would expect some weird beam to suddenly appear from a hole in the sky to steal all the colors of Popstar."

She giggles. "True."

"Even when we prepare for the worst, something even worst can happen. We can't be prepared for everything. We just have to ready ourselves, and when something happens, we adapt to whatever happens, and we act. This is the best we can do. But can you hurry and get those wings? It would help a lot against those bad guys!"

She laughs. "I will get them the day you will learn to really fly like a bird, by flapping your arms."

Dedede sighs before laughing.

---

The days pass in peace, and Dedede is pleased to see his army grow stronger each day. More species are joining it from all of Popstar. The kitchen staff now counts half of its members as Chef Kawasakis! Dedede may not be stronger than Meta Knight, but at least now, he can boast about having the strongest army of Popstar and even beyond. He is even thinking of building a second battleship! And a third! And a fourth. And a tenth... And by now, the Space Resort is almost finished!

Of course, Sweetie knows that most of the new recruits are there to join her army, but until she moves to Floralia's new castle, they're 'officially' part of Dedede's army. But gosh, the day she will really start her role as queen of Floralia, she will probably be the one with the most powerful army of Popstar. Maybe she should build her own battleship? Maybe in a few years.

And now, she and Dedede are having a peaceful time at Dedede's favorite spot on the castle's rampart, playing chess.

She moves her bishop to check Dedede, sacrificing it to Dedede's queen, she moves her pawn to turn it into her third queen and...

"Checkmate!"

"Rah... Come on! Again! I will win the next one!"

"You said that the previous time, and the previous previous time, and..."

"Yeah yeah. Let's just start the next party."

But as they place the pieces, the filly laughing, a big shadow suddenly covers them, and the whole castle. Looking up, what they see is... beyond anything they could imagine.

Up in the sky, a spherical, planet-sized ship approaches the surface of Popstar! Then, in a terrible din, and shaking the whole planet, some kind of giant pyramid-shaped foot plants itself in Dreamland's soil a few miles away, the thing towering over everything toward the sky! Four others can be spotted far away in the horizon, each planting at one of the branches of Popstar! The next instant, thousands of machines looking like giant bulbs on drill are raining everywhere, and any lands they plant themselves on are turned into some twisted mechanical version, while hundreds of round, grey armor are deployed!

It's an alien invasion!

"Aliens... Of course..." says Sweetie Belle.

Author's Notes:

Chapter 88: Invasion!

"Fire!"

"Do you really think those Shotzos will be able to do anything?"

"You have a better idea?"

Sweetie Belle spots the Halberd flying toward the ship and points at it. "We could do like them and send the Warhammer!"

Before Dedede could reply, giant lasers from the ship attack the castle and destroy a good part of the higher level above them, causing debris to rain on them. One of those debris falls on Dedede's head and knock him out right away, and Sweetie Belle quickly puts a shield around them and everyone else on the rampart to protect them. At this instant, she sees the Halberd being shot down with just one laser before crashing somewhere just under the entrance of the ship.

Just like that, the castle and the Halberd are down. Dedede is down. And Meta Knight... not sure. What about everyone else?

She has no time to think more. As the debris stop falling, she sees many of those grey robots coming toward the castle! She is then joined by Bandana Dee and Cape Knight.

"Everyone!" she shouts. "Be ready! They're coming." She points at Cape Knight. "We will send everyone to hide in the underground, in the hangar of the Warhammer and around it! Take King Dedede too, and try to give him something to heal!" She points at Bandana Dee. "Ready your elite and join me to defend the castle! I also want Poppy Bros and Bonkers ready on the ramparts pronto!"

"Yes your highness!" they both shout.

She then sees Spiky coming to her scared.

"Spiky! You are alright!" She takes Yin and Yarn and uses them to knit the doll. "Time to unleash Spikezilla!" Once the yarn dragon is ready, she shouts "Rampage like you want on the invaders!"

"ROAAAARRR!!!"

Using Yin and Yarn again, she then knits none other than the Yin Yarn Wizard! Two strings of yarn then wrap around the needles.

"Be ready to knit everything you can think of! Unleash Tartarus on them!"

"Gladly!"

Seeing the first of the robots approaching, she takes her whip and turns it into its ten cannons form. With the cannons and her horn, she starts firing at the robots and strikes them down. In reaction, much more robots are coming, hundreds of them! She also spots some giant green robot with red squared hands approaching behind them.

At this moment, Bandana comes back on the rampart followed by two dozens Spear Waddle Dees as well as many Poppy Bros both Jr and Sr, and Bonkers.

"We are ready!" shouts Bandana.

"Good! The Poppy Bros, I want you to throw your bombs at the Bonkers!"

"Uuh?!" shout the Bonkers in surprise.

"The Bonkers, I want you to hit those bombs with your hammers! Make sure to propel them toward the invaders! Use all your strength! Make those bombs real explosive bullets!"

"Yes!"

So the Poppy Bros and Bonkers start to do what they have been told, helping Sweetie Belle in destroying more of the coming robots.

"As for you the Waddle Dees, be ready to attack any robots that land!"

"Yes my queen!"

"I hope troops are ready to take on any robots that may enter the castle!"

"Everyone is ready to attack anything that point their metallic body! Of course, they have an order to not attack the Gims, Capsule J, and other robotic friends," says Bandana Dee.

"Good!"

The first of the robots land on the ramparts, and the Spear Waddle Dees immediately charge at them along with Spikezilla while Yin Yarn knits dozens of minions to help. The robots, which are actually armors piloted by small robotic beings with a black screen-like face and white head, start punching left and right at the defenders, and some of the nearby Poppy Bros and Bonkers are forced to come help them. Thankfully, those Spear Waddle Dees have been well trained by Bandana, some they are able to destroy many of the armor, and thanks to some healers with bags of food, if one of them is hurt, they just have to eat something before returning to the front.

But more and more robots are able to land on the ramparts, and Sweetie Belle and the remaining Poppys and Bonkers are forced to stop attacking the ones coming. The filly uses absolutely everything she has to destroy dozens of them, and when the green one lands beside the rampart, she destroys it with one well placed laser at the head, but more are coming, and many robots are able to enter the castle through holes caused by the lasers earlier. Little by little, the defenders are forced to retreat inside the castle as the attackers are coming seemingly endlessly.

A Waddle Doo then comes from inside the castle in panic.

"Help! Some of those things are attacking the king!"

"Drat!" shouts Sweetie Belle before turning to Bandana. "I must go!"

"Ok! Don't worry about us! Hurry to save the king!"

Sweetie Belle turns around and enters the castle. She has an idea of where the king may be by now, so she quickly runs through rooms and hallways to reach him, destroying a few armors on the way. The situation inside the castle is absolute chaos. Both armor and members of Dedede's army are fighting everywhere, causing untold damage to the inside. Rooms she's used to traverse everyday are now mere ruins unrecognisable, and everywhere she passes, Dedede's minions are retreating before the submerging number of enemies.

What can they do to turn the table?

She finally reaches Dedede near a stair to an inferior floor, surrounded by four armors as everyone defending him, including Cape Knight, has been knocked out. But the four armors are empty, as their pilots are now beside Dedede, one of them taking some sample. Before they can even spot them, she fires a magical beam at one of the pilotes, destroying it in one shot. The three others immediately climb in their armor, and the one who has taken the sample runs away while the others turn to fight her, only to be quickly destroyed by the filly.

Some soldiers of Dedede's army are following her, and quickly surround the king.

"Some of you take Dedede and the others to shelter!"

"Yes!"

Sweetie Belle then looks at the remaining armor now without pilote. From close, they just look like metallic grey balls on feet with two arms, some spikes, a red eye, and what looks like the tip of a screwdriver for shoulders. Nothing too dangerous. But... Maybe it could be useful. She approaches it in wonder, and eventually decides to climb to the cockpit.

As soon as she enters it, the armor suddenly starts glowing! Before everyone's eyes, the metallic grey becomes as white as her fur with some pink and purple like her mane, two green eyes appear above what looks like a muzzle, and a horn like hers appear above them! Some cask then appears on her head, with some ring around her horn linked to the armor!

Already, she can feel as if she was a part of the armor, and the armor was a part of her!

And already, she has the perfect name for it.

With a laugh, she faces some approaching armors, and smiles. "Invaders! Be ready to face... the Sweetie Bot Armor!"

Using the armor's jet pack to charge at the enemies, she readies a punch that she envelops with Soul Energy, and when coming close enough, unleashes it! Hitting the air, the punch creates a terrible shockwave that exterminates the enemies in front of her!

Smiling even more, she starts singing.

"I will fight the foes! It's time, here I go!"

And as an aura envelops the whole armor, she starts walking, searching for more foes.

"I've fought a king and met a knight,
I'll battle throughout the night!
Darkness and hate flee from my light,
you will not give me fright!"

Through a hole in a wall, she enters a hall where Dedede's soldiers are ferociously fighting the invaders. Turning the hands of the armor into swords, she cuts in two a good dozen of the enemies before destroys the remaining ones by turning the hands into laser guns and firing lasers from them. With the room clean of enemies, she exits it through another hole, entering a hallway where the allies are running away from a real wave of enemy armor.

"You should run away
Or be ready to become... my preys."

Well, she will answer a wave by a wave! With some magic allied to Dream Energy, the Sweetie Bot armor turns into blue with some darker blue forming waves, and the hands turn into water cannons. She targets the floor at her sides, and expels from the cannons a great quantity of water. The feet of the armor then turn into ski boards as the water forms a giant wave that starts to advance toward the enemies like a tsunami, the Sweetie Bot Armor riding it. All the enemies are swept by the water, and to finish them as they are trapped in the water, she turns the armor's hands into coils, jumps from the wave and uses them to electrify it, the electricity short-circuiting all the bots.

With all the enemies on the floor not moving anymore, she continues her advance. By now, Dedede's soldiers have stopped running, and seeing Sweetie Belle destroying the invaders, some of them follow her while others escape to the underground.

"As you invade, you hear the gears
Of the Sweetie Bot Armor
And very soon, you'll learn to fear
The Sweetie Bot Armor!"

Following some soldiers, she enters the kitchen where the Cook Waddle Dees and Chef Kawazakis are proving that they're not to be messed with. Sweetie Belle happily joins them to clean the room from enemy bots. As they see her coming, the cooks decide to step back and let her do her job. Smiling, she turns the arms of her armor into flamethrowers as it becomes red with fire patterns.

"The fire of my wrath
Will destroy my enemies... and will clean my path."

The enemy bots charge at her, some of them jumping to attack from above. Sweetie Belle makes Sweetie Bot spin with the flamethrowers pointing at the floor while firing, creating a terrifying column of powerful fire that turns all the enemies into piles of molten metal.

She exits the kitchen to enter the mess room which is also full of enemy bots, followed by the cooks and the soldiers.

"Dear invaders, you have messed with our beautiful world.
Dear invaders, you have made a joke of our dreamworld.
Dear invaders, you have taken a one-way ticket to the netherworld!
You chose the wrong world!
Let's go!"

While her army charges toward the enemies, she jumps and punches the floor in the middle of them, creating a huge shockwave that propels and destroys most of the bots. Following this charges to the nearest enemy still standing and punches a hole through it, then does the same to the armor next to it, before sweeping a part of the room where there are no allies with a huge laser. In the matter of a few seconds, all the enemies in the room have been destroyed, but more are coming from the hallway, so she charges at them, destroys the first few with some punches, then turns her armor into a giant speaker that start bombarding the enemies with music notes and sound waves as she advances.

"We will advance! You will step back!
We'll recuperate our home!
Until the end, we will attack!
So right now leave our home!"

By now, the enemies are coming from everywhere to try to stop her rampage, only to be destroyed in the blink of an eye. With the enemies focusing on her, Dedede's army is able to take back the castle room by room, pushing back the invaders. Broom Hatters sweep the hallways to the point that the armors slip on the floor, opening them to the assault of the rest. Phan Phans and Bugzzys throw Rockys like boulders. While everyone is assaulting the armors, Spynums, blue bipedal creatures wearing a purple cloak and a red hat, are raining their arrows from behind the line. Spear Waddle Dees are riding on Wheelies and on Nruffs while charging spear first at the bots. Bronto Burts and Birdons are dropping Bombers on them.

By now, Sweetie Belle has changed the arms of Sweetie Bot into giant energy whips that she uses to throw enemy armor into enemy armor. She then turns the arms into giant gears that she throws to cut some enemies facing a small group of soldiers.

The castle suddenly starts shaking. To see what's going on, Sweetie Belle creates a shield under the feet of her armor and uses it to ascend, passing through floors and ruin of floors before exiting the castle and see that it's now surrounded by those green giant robots. Eight in total!

"You are not the first
You will fail like the others... Vanish with a burst!"

She surround the horn of Sweetie Bot with her ten cannons, and fire while spinning her Ultimate Doom Laser, which is two times bigger than normal, destroying all the giant robots!

Then, as she stops firing the laser, a giant version of the armor, four times bigger than Sweetie Bot, drops from the sky and lands just in front of her on the ruins of the castle. This one is far better armed, with missile launchers on its shoulders, laser cannons as eyes, a flamethrower in the mouth, and some unknown giant cannon on its back, pointed at the sky. It also has a big H between the eyes and the mouth, along with what looks like a broken heart.

"So it's you who took down so much of our invader armors!" shouts the little bot piloting it. "With the Star Armor, I will teach you that primitive life-forms shouldn't oppose us, the Haltmann Works Company, and should remain in their place, under our feet!"

"Yeah, I'm a primitive life-form who just eradicated your 'advanced' army. I wonder who are the real primitives, here."

Steam visibly comes out from the head of the pilot as it becomes red. "You stole one of our armor and used it against us! It doesn't count!"

"Not really. I was just ONE armor against HUNDREDS, and I still won."

"Buuuurn!" she suddenly hears Yin Yarn shout. Looking at her right, she sees him floating at the edge of the ruins.

"Well, my SUPERIOR armor will crush you! You will see! There is no way for me to lose with my advantage!"

"Then will you shut up and start already? Or I will just destroy you before you start!"

More steam comes out from the pilot, and one of the feet of the Star Armor rises to crush her, but Sweetie Belle simply jumps back to avoid it before she fires a magical beam from Sweetie Bot's horn. The Star Armor then fires lasers from his eyes, only for a mirror to surround Sweetie Bot and deflect the lasers back to it. Enraged, the Star Armor shoots missiles, which are all destroyed by Sweetie's cannons while Sweetie Bot turns into Spark Mode and fires dozens of electric balls. Screaming in rage, Star Armor uses his flamethrower, only for Sweetie Bot to turn blue with giant fans and blow cold air to counter it. Again, while it continues using the flamethrower, Star Armor fires again its lasers, only for them to be deflected by a mirror. Sweetie Bot's horn then fires a more powerful beam that actually forces Star Armor to step back, which moves the fire stream and lets her ice stream reach its mouth and freeze it.

The pilot slams its hand on a button, and the cannon on the back of Star Armor charges a big ball of energy before firing it toward the sky and quickly using its jetpack to move away. The ball then explodes into hundreds of small energy beams that are raining everywhere. To protect herself, Sweetie Belle makes the armor pick a huge debris of the castle before lifting it above her, using it like a shield until the rain stops.

Sweetie Belle then sees the Star Armor charge toward her, and punches the debris she has used as a shield toward it, stopping it on its course. Immediately, she pushes a button she hasn't used until now, and causes the right arm to turn into a giant screwdriver. She then jumps toward Star Armor, activates the screwdriver, and drills a huge hole through it.

"Impossible!" shouts the pilot, before the Star Armor explodes.

Sweetie Belle sighs, then looks down at the armor. "You were incredible, Sweetie Bot."

"Sweetie Belle!" she hears. Looking around, she spots Bandana approaching her with Spikezilla and Yin Yarn. "You were awesome! Thanks to you, we were able to expel the invaders out of the castle!"

"I wonder what is their reaction," says Yin Yarn with a laugh.

"But now, what will you do? You'll go to attack that giant ship directly?"

Before she can answer, a huge explosion suddenly comes from the foot of the ship, and she spots a small light flying away from it before taking the direction of one of the other foot.

"Kirby did that?!" asks Yin Yarn.

"Yes! That was him!" says Bandana excitedly.

Sweetie Belle grins as she looks at the light. "I know what I will do. Kirby seems to have decided to take down the feet of the ship. He probably has an idea behind his mind. But now, I fear that he will be targeted by the invaders, the Haltmann Works Company, and he could get overwhelmed by their army." She looks at Bandana, smirking. "So I will make sure that they remain focused on me. I will go directly toward their ship. With what I just did, they will probably get scared and send everything to stop me, and leave Kirby mostly alone."

"Alright! But what about us?"

She sighs. "With Dedede KO, it should be best if you, all of you, remain here to protect him and the castle. Yes, I'm including you, Yin Yarn and Spikezilla. You should also ready the Warhammer, just in case. Don't try to attack the ship with it! It will just be shot down like the Halberd! Just, ready it."

"Ok, but then, you will be alone? You were never alone until now! Will you be alright?"

"What a question," says Yin Yarn. "Of course she will be alright! She just exterminated a whole army of robots almost by herself!"

She giggles. "Yes, don't worry. Also, I will try to find the Halberd and see if I can't help the Meta Knights."

They nod. "Good luck."

"Thank you." Saying those last words, Sweetie Belle turns toward the giant ship, and smirks. "Here I come."

Chapter 89: Encounter with a Secretary

Twilight trots in the hallways of Canterlot Castle, moving toward Princess Celestia's private quarters. The lavender princess has been invited for some tea with her ex-mentor, just to pass some good time away from all the political problems that their title asks them to participate in. Spike and Starlight are with her.

And then, Discord appears in front of them, bouncing like a Pinkie Pie who has just drank some coffee. Excitedly, he babbles incoherently while doing some gestures with his paw and claw, trying to say something without succeeding.

"What?" asks Twilight. "Discord, what are you trying to say?"

"I think he's trying to say something about... a big... round... thing and... I don't know," says Starlight.

"He said something about robots... I think," said Spike.

Discord then takes a big breath, his torso visibly inflating before he shouts "Aliens!"

...

"What?" ask the two ponies.

"Wait!" suddenly shouts Spike in horror. "Are we invaded by aliens?! Are they already among us?! Are they foalnapping ponies to experiment on them?!"

"Nononono!" rebuts Discord. "We aren't invaded by aliens! But... Let me show you!"

He opens a portal showing what they recognize as Popstar as it can be seen from space, with its star-like form and its two rings. Only, now, there's a giant round metallic thing above the planet, with five feet planted in it! However, one of the feet is smoking, and its lights are off.

Discord then changes the point of view to show the round thing... ship? The round ship from the surface of the planet, and gives the ponies and dragon an idea of how HUGE it is. He then shows Dedede's castle, now half in ruins, surrounded by the remains of countless robots. After that, he shows Dreamland, and their jaws drop at its new look. Almost entirely mechanized, with artificial trees and other things trapped inside glasses, water now mostly purple, pipes and screws and machines everywhere... And finally, he shows Sweetie Belle, now in some kind of bipedal mech looking like her, walking resolutely toward the ship.

"What...? What...?"

"So, how about we hurry to Sunbutt's chamber, call your friends, and watch Sweetie Belle kick some alien and robot butt? I feel like it will be quite the spectacle. Watching her destroying a whole army of mecha and robots was already extremely entertaining! And seeing her owning their leader was hilarious! Oh, you should have seen this. I will totally watch in loop this passage."

"But what happened?! How could Dreamland end up like that?!" shouts Twilight.

"Oh come on! It's easy to understand! Aliens came. Invasion. Aliens used weird technology to mechanise everything. And don't ask me how this works, I'm no expert in alien technology. Now..." He closes the portal and teleports everypony in Celestia's quarter with a snap. "Hello, Sunny!"

Celestia has been in the middle of preparing the tea when they appeared, so it's with some surprise that she looks at them, before she spots Discord and her surprise diminishes to curiosity. "Discord? May I know the reason of your visit?"

"Easy!" Discord teleports beside Celestia and puts an arm around her as if they were best pals. "I want to spend some time with my friends while watching Sweetie Belle fighting invading aliens!"

Celestia raises an eyebrow. "So, Popstar is invaded by aliens now?"

"You are in?"

She smiles. "Very well."

"Great! I'm sending invites to everypony! I will make sure to include Lulu, I'm sure she will love the explosions, without forgetting the whole 'filly facing an army of aliens and robots to save the world'." At this, he sends a few envelopes with a snaps, and in the following minutes, the room is filled with Luna, Twilight's friends, and Sweetie's friends.

"Oh my gosh! We're gonna see Sweetie fight aliens! This will be so awesome!" shouts Scootaloo excitedly.

"I know!" shouts Spike. "It will be like in a comic! But it will be real!"

"But how she can fight a whole army of aliens? She's become that strong?" asks Apple Bloom.

"Oh yes, I forgot to tell, she's using a mecha," informs Spike. "I saw it briefly when Discord showed us, it looks like her, but all round."

"Oh, now she has her own mecha?!" shouts Scootaloo. "I want a mecha too..."

When Fluttershy finally appears in the room, being the last, Discord claps his hands to gain everypony's attention.

"Ok! Everypony is here! Is everypony ready?"

"Yes!" shouts Luna excitedly.

Discord nods, and opens the portal, showing to everypony other than Twilight, Starlight, and Spike the new state of Popstar.

"That's the alien spaceship?! It's huge!" shouts Rainbow.

"What have they done to the lands?!" screams Applejack in anger.

"How will they destroy that monstrosity?" asks Rarity.

"What I wonder is: How will they repair everything that has been done to the planet?" asks Twilight. "They won't be able to get rid of all that mechanisation just like that. Even if they destroy the aliens, the planet will still be... like this."

"I'm sure they will find a way," says Discord.

"Maybe it will just disappear the moment the aliens are destroyed," proposes Pinkie.

"It would be too easy, even for this universe," says Twilight.

"She hasn't learned yet?" asks Starlight.

"She never learn totally. You remember her reaction to the tank, last time?" answers Spike.

"And what happened with the volcanoes before that?" adds Rainbow Dash.

"I'm hearing you, you know?" shouts the lavender mare, much to Discord's amusement.

Discord then finally shows Sweetie Belle just as she destroys an enemy mecha with her own mecha with one good punch. Seeing the ruins around her, it's not the first.

"So it's her mecha? Ok, I want one," says Rainbow Dash.

"But how does it look like Sweetie Belle?" asks Rarity.

"Dream Universe logic," simply answers Discord.

---

After fighting this small group of armors, Sweetie Belle takes a path among the artificial forest, where she passes some docking station with another armor in it, which she destroys, before passing through an artificial black door big enough for Sweetie Bot.

She appears on a path with many pipes that she doesn't hesitate to smash as she advances. And then, she encounters her first Waddle Dee outside of the castle, and to her horror, this one has a bionic eye. Another Waddle Dee behind him simply wears a hard hat, and above them is a Bronto Burt partially mechanized. Upon spotting her, the three immediately attack without asking questions despite her mecha.

She has no problems knocking them out, and once done, she gets out of Sweetie Bot and walks toward them to look closer. She touches the bio eye of the Waddle Dee, then does the same with the mechanical parts of the Bronto Burt. And she growls in anger.

It's not enough to mechanize Popstar, they also mechanize its inhabitants! Now, they've done it!

She climbs back inside Sweetie Bot, turns her whip into cannon mode, and does her Ultimate Doom Laser, sweeping the area all around her with it, destroying countless of those columns with trees trapped inside bulbs. She then looks up and fires a second laser right at the alien mothership.

"HEY! I AM HERE! COME! I WILL DESTROY ALL OF YOU!"

Immediately, she starts running, just in time as the mothership fires one of its lasers at her, and barely misses her. More of the armors also come at her from the sky, and she encounters more and more brainwashed cyborgized inhabitants of Popstar. As the mothership continues firing lasers behind her, she barely stops to deal with any enemies blocking her path, mainly using her magic and her cannons, as she jumps above gaps from platforms to platforms. She doesn't hesitate to go all out with her attacks, to cause the more damage possible to the mechanized area. At that moment, a purple version of the giant green robot lands in a gap in front of her, blocking her way, so she jumps toward its head and does a Giga Punch at it, destroying it. The back of the robot falls on the platform at the opposite side of the gap, and Sweetie uses its remains as a bridge to cross.

Arriving at a downhill slope, she jumps on an enemy armor and uses it to slide as the mothership multiplies the lasers to get her. At the bottom, the enemies have installed some kind of barricade, so she quickly places a big bomb on the enemy armor, jumps it, and kicks it toward the barricade, destroying it in one explosion. Just after the barricade, she enters a black door just before a laser reaches her.

She appears in front of a lake with a factory already polluting it at the other side. Frowning, she jumps in the lake, making the Sweetie Bot turns into a submarine to protect her from the bad water. The mechanized aquatic fauna obviously attacks her almost immediately, but some electric shocks from the horn of Sweetie Bot are generally enough to calm them. However, she also has to dodge boulders, the activity of the HWC causing some pieces of stone to fall.

Before long, she reaches the other side of the lake, and emerges near the factory. However, as soon as she gets out of the water, she is surrounded by two dozen of those giant green robots, some of them purple versions. Many armors also drop from the sky.

She first think to fight all of them normally, but then, a... thought... seemingly coming from Sweetie Bot enters her mind. Smirking, she turns toward the nearest giant purple robot, and readies their magic. The next instant, Sweetie Bot is surrounded in light, then its pieces fly one by one toward the purple robot, surrounding it before hooking themselves to it, some of them changing form to adapt. The purple bot is then surrounded in light too, and when the light disappears, it is now a white robot with some pink and purple, two green eyes, and a horn, and Sweetie Belle is now piloting it from inside its head, grinning like Pinkie Pie.

"Sweetie Bot, you are the best."

From the horn of the bot, she starts firing a laser, sweeping the ground with it and destroying many of the armors. The giant green robot closest tries to punch her, but she deviates its arm with her own before Giga punching it on the head, the punch exploding it into pieces. She then moves to the side to avoid the punch of another robot from behind, its arm passing above her shoulder, catches it, lifts the robot, and slams it on the others robots, destroying five of them before she spins and throws it at the factory, damaging it heavily. She turns the two hands into screwdrivers, and uses them to drill the other robots approaching too close. Finally, she turns them into giant firefists, and slams them on the ground, creating a huge fiery shockwave that destroys all the remaining robots excepted the ones still too far. Those ones are easily destroyed with a few lasers. With all the robots destroyed, she turns to the factory, and destroys it with an Ultimate Doom Laser even more powerful than when she fired it with just Sweetie Bot.

She looked up toward the mothership, then unfused with the purple robot just in time as a laser is fired at her, destroying it. More lasers are fired, and as the Sweetie Bot reforms, she quickly turns it into a car as lasers are literally raining around her.

"Well, I wanted their attention, I definitely got it! You will owe me this one, Kirby!"

Still approaching the mothership while rolling, she sees that she is approaching a mountain range in the distance. But first, she has to pass a forest of mechanized trees.

By the stars, seeing the state of the trees, she can't imagine what they have done to Whispy Woods.

But first, she has to reach it! Rolling without stopping, she passes another artificial door, escaping the bombardment of lasers. She appears on a path above a mechanized grassland, and with her armor still in car mode, she rolls on it, sometimes having to jump to reach other platforms. The path eventually leads her to a river, and she is able to roll on the water and reach the other side without any problems. The aliens seem to have spotted her again, because the armor return, and as she reaches a ravine, lasers start raining again.

Going max speed, she jumps on a stone pillar, then on another. A laser destroys one of the stone pillars at the side, and as it falls, Sweetie is able to reach it to continue. Another, much taller stone pillar just in front is falling toward the opposite side of the ravine, letting Sweetie use it as a bridge to roll on, not stopping as more pillars are falling on it, threatening to crush her if she hesitates. However, one of the falling stone pillars cause the one she's on to miss its mark, and she has to settle entering a cave instead, turning Sweetie Armor back into biped mode. Of course, the cave is a dead end, so she has no choice but to use the hand-screwdriver to drill her way back to the surface.

After a few minutes, she entered the forest, only to find an empty docking station in front of a door too small for Sweetie Bot. Sighing, Sweetie Belle puts Sweetie Bot in the station, and gets off.

"Sorry Sweetie Bot, but I must go."

Passing the door, she enters the deeper part of the mechanical forest, which is, of course, full of enemies. After Giga punching a cyborg Bonkers in the stomach, she passes a door that gets her on one of the branches of the trees. She jumps from branch to branch, avoiding a few Gordos, before she takes a series of cannon that leads her beside a poisonous river. Here, she encounters some green and brown slime-like Galboros that she knows is called a Miasmoros, a poisonous member of the Galboros family who essentially lives in swamps, junkyard, and sewers. Of course, with the aliens polluting everything, those guys would spread like rats.

The Miasmoros spits some poisonous blobs at her, the blobs sliding on the ground, but she has no problem avoiding them firing a stream of water that pushes the Miasmoros in the river. Before it could come back, Sweetie Belle traverses the river by jumping from platform to platform, avoiding falling in the water. However, at the other side, the Miasmoros comes back and spits a huge stream of poison. Rolling her eyes, Sweetie Belle creates a mirror that deflects the stream of poison back at it, and again the Miasmoros is pushed back in the river.

Suddenly, after advancing a little, some of the trees turn toward her, cannons coming out of mouths, and they start firing missiles and lasers at her. Continuing advancing, jumping, and fighting enemies on her path, Sweetie uses her mirrors to deflect the lasers, and her cannons to destroy the missiles and attack back the trees. After a quick fight against a Blocky, some enemy armors, and another Blocky allied with a King Doo, Sweetie Belle eventually reaches a clearing.

In this clearing, Sweetie Belle stops upon encountering a strange girl with a head rather disproportionate compared to her slender body. Despite her disembodied hands, she would almost look human, with pink hair and all, if that wasn't for the fact that her eyes are entirely blue, and she has no mouth and nose. And despite her skirt, she doesn't possess legs and feet either, her body floating. Her metallic suit and her overall... out of this world appearance easily indicate where she comes from.

And she is singing.

"Noble Haltmann, we adore him
Noble Haltmann, we adore him!
Every day we wish him glory!"

Then the girl spots her, and stops.

"Oh. You are there. I was waiting for you. Sorry, but I couldn't help myself singing our wonderful company's theme song, The Noble Haltmann, it's just so catchy!"

Sweetie Belle nods. "I agree. Too bad it's a hymn that clearly worships a jerk. But I wouldn't mind hearing the whole song so I could rework on the lyrics."

"Do not insult the Great Haltmann!" shouts the girl in anger. She then calm herself with a few breathes. "So, let me introduce myself. I am the Haltmann Works Company's executive assistant, Susie. I would gladly say that I am pleased to make your acquaintance, but..."

Sweetie Belle giggled. "I suppose that I must not be well seen by your boss after what I have done. Oh, but let me at least tell my name: it's Sweetie Belle." She then looks at Susie in rage. "Now, you know the name of the one you should fear."

"Why should we fear a native? Because you destroyed some of our armors and robots? Because you fired a laser at the Access Ark? Because you caused great damages that will be costly to repair?"

Sweetie Belle smiles. "Then, why did you attack me like I was a menace to be absolutely annihilated? Sending armies of robots, raining lasers that can destroy a battleship in one shot, wouldn't this be overkill if you didn't fear me?"

Susie huffs. "Because we couldn't let you spread havoc when we already have so much to deal with." She then takes some kind of holographic tablet, reading some text. "We still have the Mechanizing Occupation Program under way, and without counting you, many natives are causing problems a little everywhere. There is that pink ball who destroyed one of the Access Ark's feet and is on his way to destroy a second. There was that knight that I was, thankfully, able to stop." At this, Sweetie's fur stands on end. "There is that castle that you protected, a group of mouse thieves, two girls that can give life to what they paint and sculpt, a spider..." Susie gets chill at mentioning this. "a mad jester with a dark version of the knight, a weird blue blob... But of all of them, you are the worse! Really! For such a backwater planet, you are giving us more troubles than we thought!"

Sweetie laughs. "This is probably what Zero and all the other villains were thinking when they tried to invade Popstar! For your information, the majority of the ones who tried to conquer this world were destroyed." She smiles sweetly at Susie. "And your company seems to be the next. Destroying invaders is the speciality of this world."

Susie stares at Sweetie Belle for a few seconds before saying. "Like I said, you don't scare us. And as you can guess, I can't let you continue your rampage." She then takes some device and presses a button, and the next instant, she jumps as a purple and white armor that isn't round like the others and has screwdriver at the bottom appears, and she lands in the cockpit. A visor appears in front of her eyes, and the mech's floating arms turn around it.

Sweetie Belle takes her whip and turns it into staff mode.

The mech then charges at her, its arms still turning around it, only to be stopped by Sweetie's staff parrying them, causing the two to clash. The mech then deploys explosives that home in Sweetie Belle, and while still clashing with the armor, the filly quickly turns four parts of her staff into cannons and uses them to destroy the explosives. The two then stop the clash, both jumping back.

"What an interesting weapon," says Susie.

Sweetie Belle twirls her staff while making the four cannons float above her. "Thank you. Some friends did it with the help of the robots of the world called Shiver Star. And I'm the one who got the idea of the plan. And no, you can't have it, it only works with my magic."

"I still would like to study it once I'm done with you."

Susie jumps and to land on Sweetie Belle, and the filly jumps away. The mech continues jumping after her, deploying some more explosives that are all quickly destroyed.

Susie huffs. "I haven't chosen the best place to use the full potential of my Business Suit."

"Then you should have remained hidden and waited for when I would reach such a place."

"I couldn't, because in the path you have taken, there aren't such places, but I had to stop you."

Sweetie Belle rolls her eyes. "Then you should have sent something else to deal with me. I'm sure that there are many powerful robots and weapons in this ship. And that's all I'm asking, to face everything you have and make you regret invading Popstar."

Susie jumps and fires with her suit some explosive screwdriver heads that are also destroyed by the filly.

"Do you really think you can face the full power of the Haltmann Works Company? You shouldn't say such things. You would be vaporized in a few seconds."

"Then why don't you send that full power to stop me and my rampage?"

"Because you are not worth it."

"You will quickly regret thinking that," replied Sweetie Belle with a smirk.

As Susie charges at her again, Sweetie Belle turns her staff back into its whip mode, makes it fly, and jumps on it, like in her fight against Dedede. Surprised by this move, Susie stops moving for a few seconds to look in awe as the flying whip extends, letting appear the magical part between the metallic sections. Sweetie Belle then starts flying in circle above Susie, gaining speed. Understanding that she is preparing something, Susie fires more of her home in explosives, only for lightning bolts shot from the whip to destroy all of them. As the whip now forms a circle, electricity appears in the hole, and when Susie tries to move away, it follows her. Then, Sweetie jumps from the whip, passes it back into staff mode, and using her magic, throws it at the secretary. When the staff connects with the Business Suit, it creates a huge column of electricity that doesn't destroy it, but at least badly damages it and greatly burn the girl.

Before Susie could recover from the shock, Sweetie Belle creates a shield under her and uses it to send the mech in the sky. Here, the filly surrounds it with her ten cannons, and bombards it with an endless barrage of lasers. After one hundred or so lasers, she stops, air-jumps toward the suit, forms her staff again as she jumps above her enemy, and points it end toward her. The extremity of her staff then opens, turning it into some kind of long cannon, and fires from it a single beam that sends the mech back at the floor, then explodes.

Susie, out of her armor, escapes the explosion in the nick of time thanks to a propeller. She looks at the filly is horror before flying away. She takes a communicator and screams "Activate the meteorological tower! Create the biggest storm you can!" Suddenly, she sees the second foot of the Access Ark exploding. "If I can't stop this native, then I will stop that pink ball."

Sweetie Belle observes Susie flying away, not going after her. She will tell her boss how dangerous she is, and he will send more forces to fight her. It's what she wants.

Turning around, she starts walking toward the mountain range again.

But now, she can see clouds circling a huge tower in said mountain range.

She has a bad feeling.

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.

Chapter 91: Battle at the Halberd! Part 1

Everypony (or almost) yells in joy at Sweetie destroying the tower before flying away victorious on her Sweetie Kracko Armor. Discord has even materialized some Sweetie goodies as if he was a supporter in a hoofball match.

"Yeah! Show them!"

"Those aliens'll learn not t'mess with nature!"

"That's my sister!"

"Go Sweetie, go!"

"That filly is incredible!"

"Oh! Oh! Oh! Let's see the reaction of Miss Secretary!" shouts Discord before slapping his fingers.

The portal now shows Susie flying away from the third foot with her propeller, looking upset.

"What is it with this planet? How can I be defeated two times by two different primitives?"

"Oh, Kirby beat her," says Apple Bloom.

"Of course Kirby beat her!" replies Scootaloo.

A little Dililing! is heard from the portal, and Susie takes her little tablette thingy. She reads something, and her eyes suddenly grow wide.

"What?! How could she destroy the tower?! No no no no no! How is this possible? How can we suffer so many defeats despite our superiority?"

"Ah! That's because your technology is nothing!" shouts Rainbow Dash.

"Bwahahahahaha! Look at her panicking!" shouts Discord.

Susie starts looking back and forth between the fourth foot and the entrance of the alien mothership in worry, thinking what to do.

"The two of them must be stopped, but... No choice then, I will have to send him while I try to stop that pink ball."

"Him?" asks Fluttershy. "Who?"

"Probably someone or something really powerful," guesses Spike.

Celestia nods. "They are getting desperate, so they will certainly send the most powerful being in their company."

"Whatever it is, Sweetie Belle will destroy him like she destroyed everything else!" shouts Luna excitedly.

---

Sweetie Belle is soaring in the sky of Popstar, piloting her Sweetie Kracko Armor, approaching dangerously the entrance of the Access Ark.

As a result, countless flying enemies and cannons that can fire toward the sky are trying to stop her, only to be shot down by Kracko's laser or avoided/deflected.

This starts with some waves of Bronto Burts interspaced by waves of Birdons, but this quickly evolved into waves of propelled Invader Armors equipped with laser cannons supported by those giant green or purple robots. Waddle Dees piloting some kind of fighter jet also joined them. And like said, all kinds of Shotzos and other anti-air laser cannons regularly fire at them.

But Sweetie easily passes all those obstacles. Constantly moving up, down, left, and right to avoid the projectiles or being rammed, she fires non-stop her own projectiles, clearing the sky of all enemies in a matter of seconds, only for those enemies to quickly be replaced by new ones.

Things become a little more serious when the HWC starts sending robotic copies of Kabula heavily armed and armored. Well, compared to the rest. But against the Sweetie Kracko Armor, it doesn't mean much. It just forces Sweetie to be more cautious while dodging the huge lasers those robot Kabulas fire, and they last a little longer against Sweetie's projectiles, unless she decides to use the big guns.

But eventually, probably having enough to have their army being wiped and losing money uselessly, the HWC sends, of all things, a giant robotic version of her! It flies with reactors in her hooves, it fires lasers from its eyes, it also has a giant laser cannon inside its mouth, two rocket launchers on its back, and it is surrounded by ten cannons flying around.

Of course, classic of technologically advanced bad guys. They're threatened? They do a robotic copy of the threat to fight it!

And of course, copies are rarely at the level of the originals!

But at least, Sweetie must admit, they have done a good try. While the ten cannons are easily destroyed, the robot itself is really resistant. Maybe as resistant as Bastron. But it's visible that this robot has been created in desperation, in a hurry. It doesn't even use its hooves for anything else other than flying backward while firing at her! It could try to punch her with them, or to do maneuvers to avoid her projectiles and even surprise her, change tactic! But no, it just remains here, in front of her, taking damage while firing back.

So, after a couple of minutes of firing at it, the giant robot is destroyed.

Too bad, it could have been nice to fight a robotic Sweetie that could actually use all her moves, or at least the majority of them.

Oh well...

Not long after destroying the giant Sweetie Bot, Sweetie Belle finally spots the Halberd right between two cliffs, and to her surprise, she can spot the Meta Knights repairing it without being bothered by the aliens. Cautiously, she approaches them, hoping that they haven't been brainwashed too.

But when some of them eventually spot her approaching, they are at first scared by the Robot Kracko, but then, they see her piloting it, and they wave at her happily. Smiling, Sweetie lands on the ship in front of the Main Cannon 2 where she is quickly joined by some Meta Knights. She then demerges from Kracko, and as Sweetie hoped, it returns Kracko to his normal self.

Kracko looks around in confusion for a moment before remembering what happened. He then looks down at Sweetie Belle who smiles at him.

"You're free now. Go do whatever you want. You can go fight the aliens, or you can go hide, it's your choice."

Giving her a determined look, Kracko flies to the sky, thunder roaring inside him. Seems like he's ready to roast some aliens. The sound of lightning striking something a few seconds later confirms it.

"So, Her Majesty is joining us," she then hears. Looking at the origin of the voice, she sees Captain Vul approaching her followed by Sailor Waddle Dee.

She smiles at them. "I was worried about you after the Halberd was shot down, and even more after I heard that girl said that she was able to stop Meta Knight."

"Oh... Not good..." says Vul as he lowers his cap to cover his eyes. "So they've been able to stop him..." He then looks back at the filly. "Well, as you can see, we are alright. After we crashed, Lord Meta Knight let us repair the Halberd while he went to try and stop those aliens by himself. We haven't been attacked since then. Either the aliens think that we've all gone down with the ship, or they think we aren't a menace." He looks down again, depressed. "And with how they were able to sink us with just one shot, I wouldn't be surprised if they think that. And now that they probably captured Lord Meta Knight... Or worse..."

Sweetie Belle shakes her head. "No, I don't think they killed him. It is more likely that..." She bits her lips. "That he was robotized and brainwashed, like the majority of the inhabitants of Popstar."

"You think so?" asks Sailor Waddle Dee.

"Yes, I think so..." answers Sweetie with a nod.

At this, all the Meta Knights are invaded by pure rage. Their leader, made into a mindless robotic slave?

"Don't worry!" continues Sweetie Belle seeing their expressions. "We will save him! Either me or Kirby!"

"Speaking of, what is doing the pink ball? That's the first time I see you without him, without counting the time you fought Lord Meta Knight."

"He is destroying the feet of the alien mothership one by one. He must be in his way to destroy the fourth. As for me..." She smirks. "I made them understand that they invaded the wrong planet. I must have by now destroyed the majority of their army, beaten and traumatized their secretary, and destroyed many of their installations in my way to here, including a mine and a tower that manipulated the weather."

Vul bursts into laughter at this, slapping Sweetie on her back. "That's you alright! You're a real wrecking ball that nothing can stop!" He looks at the Sweetie Bot Armor. "And I suppose you were greatly helped by this thing. It looks like one of those robots they sent everywhere, but it looks like you."

Sweetie Belle gives a big smiles as she answers. "It's the Sweetie Bot Armor! Or Sweetie Bot for short! She's like an extension of me! She can do everything I can do, but more powerful! And she can even fuse with other robots!"

Sailor Waddle Dee raises an eyebrow. "But Kracko isn't a robot."

"He was robotized."

"Oh."

Vul takes a huge breathe. "Please, tell me we aren't the last non-robotized people of this world, besides Kirby."

"Nope, don't worry. There're the few ones that decided to follow the aliens' orders to not be robotized. And last I heard, Dedede and his army, Taranza, Adeleine, Claycia, Elline, Marx, Dark Meta Knight, the Squeak Squad, and Gooey were causing problems." She says that last part with a laugh. "Of course, I helped with Dedede."

Everyone around sighs in relief.

Sweetie Belle then continues, looking around. "So, it seems that everything is ok here. Do you need any help?"

"Unless you know how to repair a battleship, I doubt," answers Vul.

"Alright. Then I will go. You see, I'm doing diversion so they don't send everything against Kirby, and if I manage to enter the mothership before him, then I will go fight their leader. If I have to, I will send this giant metallic ball in space before destroying it. This is probably what Kirby is planning, which would explain why he's targeting the feet."

"Then good rampage. I'm saddened we can't help you."

Before Sweetie could reply, one of the knights suddenly shouts "A robot is approaching!" while pointing in the sky. Everyone looks up, spotting the robot in question.

Immediately, not wanting to start a potential fight on the Halberd, Sweetie Belle starts running toward the edge of the Battleship before she jumps down, landing in front of the Meta Knight-like head. She advances a little until the robot lands in front of her.

It is a rather tall robot, about two times the size of the armor, but not bulky at all, looking more lanky, its purple body wrapped in a blue cloak with the symbol of the HWC. The black head is simply cubic-shaped, with a single big eye that is black at the edge before transitioning to red with a yellow center.

And then, the robot speaks in a smooth voice. "Greetings, primitive organic lifeform identified as Sweetie Belle. I am HAL O.V.E.R.9000, but you can call me Hal. I have been sent here by executive assistant Susie to end your existence."

"You... are different from the other robots that tried to stop me."

"President Haltmann used a fortune to create a robot he calls 'his secret weapon'. That robot is me."

Sweetie Belle starts sweating. "So, you are more powerful than the others? You have weapons hidden all over your body? You can destroy a mountain with just one punch?"

"No," answers matter of factly Hal. "I have none of that. I, however, possess something else." Revealing a pincer-like hand, it takes some flask with a purple blob from inside its cloak, and shows it to Sweetie Belle. "We found this DNA on the Moon, at the center of a giant crater seemingly caused by an explosion of great proportions. Be ready to face a being who could give nightmares to anyone. A wizard of the night, who lived to terrorise people, and gained power from this. This power will be your downfall."

Sweetie Belle widens her eyes at who Hal is describing, understanding who he's talking about. No way... And then, Hal breaks the flask, and the purple blob starts shifting, slowly taking the shape of a being she recognizes rapidly. Only, last time, she had only seen his head and his hands coming out of a black mist, and some kind of ball form. But now, she could see his full body.

The dark blue head with the long chin, the flashing dark shades, the helmet with the gold jewels and the long, yellow horns, the hands with the long, sharp fingers. But now, she could see silver pauldrons on his shoulders, and his tornado-like body is surrounded by a dark purple robe with stars all over it, and the inside of it is literally the night sky.

Giving his familiar cackle, his hands as if he was about to grab her, Nightmare is now floating in front of Sweetie Belle.

Sweetie Belle looks at the dark wizard in shock with a "How...?" before quickly recovering. She then jumps back with Sweetie Bot, and climbs down from her before advancing back toward Nightmare, cracking her neck before taking her whip.

She stops thinking about the fact that if he's the real Nightmare, then she won't be able to hurt him unless she uses the power of Dream Matter like the Star Rod, and fires a magical beam at him.

Nightmare teleports, avoiding the beam. The beam almost reaches Hal who's just behind, but then the robot side steps, easily dodging it, before it decides to move back. Nightmare then wraps himself in his robe, the robe starting to spin like his body under it, and starts flying around above Sweetie Belle before he points a finger at her and fires a barrage of his infamous star-shaped blue projectiles.

Key word: projectiles. Sweetie Belle quickly puts a mirror shield to reflect them back, the empty stars actually hurting him. When the stars stop coming, Sweetie Belle then jumps at him and punches him in the face before firing a charged beam at close range.

So yes, she can actually hurt him without using Dream Matter, and this means that this guy is nothing more than an imperfect clone. But the fact that they have been able to actually clone him is impressive, and actually worries Sweetie Belle. If they cloned Nightmare, then who could they clone too? The list of all the villains who were killed on and around Popstar pops in her mind, as well as the list of powerful warriors like her, Dedede, or Meta Knight, and the list of beings that are simply powerful like Kracko or Whispy.

Ok, now those guys have gained at least ten levels of dangerousness. If they can create an army of powerful clones, even imperfect, made of the powerful warriors, villains, and other beings of Popstar, this would be the hardest battle so far.

Especially if they manage to clone her or, star forbid, Kirby. Hopefully, they haven't gotten their hands on their DNA.

Whatever DNA is. It seems to be advanced science stuff. Sweetie will have to ask Magolor next time. Is this what those guys took from Dedede?

And if this robot has more of those flasks in its cloak... Yeah, 'secret weapon' alright. A robot that can literally spawn a whole army if it wants. As soon as she defeats this Fake Nightmare, she will destroy it!

At least, it's Nightmare. Kirby's first real bad guy. Compared to the likes of Master Crowned Magolor, Flowered Sectonia, or Dark Claycrafter, he's small fry.

Nightmare's robe starts spinning around him like a saw, fully revealing his tornado body, and he charges toward her to cut her into shreds. The filly avoids him with one big jump to her right, waiting for him to pass beside her before she charges back at his body, giving a strong headbutt that seems to hurt him badly judging by his scream of pain.

Ah! His weak point is his body under the cloak!

But before she can do more, Nightmare teleports, then drops down on her with his robe spinning like a saw again. She jumps back to avoid him, only for him to fly back up and drop on her again. This time, Sweetie doesn't dodge, and directly does Soul powered uppercut on his face, propelling him back up, only for her to jump after him, grab his head, and piledrive him! And while he has his head planted in the ground, she jumps back and fires a beam charged with magic, Dream Matter, and Soul Matter at his body, causing huge damages to him!

Nightmare teleports around a few times, looking very angry, before he teleports just above her, finger pointed down. She immediately runs, avoiding a huge laser that he fires from it! While firing the laser, Nightmare follows her, sweeping the floor with it. He then teleports just in front of her and fires a laser from his other hand, leaving no time for Sweetie to dodge! So she puts a mirror shield between her and the laser, but it still manage to throw her backward. As she lands on her hooves, Nightmare teleports behind her, a huge quantity of energy charging in his hands. Sweetie rapidly ascends using a shield just under her, barely avoiding the huge laser that he fires! While he fires it, she jumps from the shield and stomps him on the head, turning her body into metal for more effect! While on his head, she grabs it, jumps, flips in the air, and slams him on the ground! She then jumps from his face, takes her whip, turns it into staff mode, and makes a single beam sword come from its extremity, turning it into a spear, before she pointes it down as she falls back toward Nightmare.

Panicked, Nightmare teleports, avoiding being impaled, appears beside her, and grabs her in his hand before slamming her. But as she is slammed, she uses her magic to create a shockwave around her and push back his hand, freeing herself, before she propels herself from the ground and headbutts Nightmare on the body. While headbutting him, she changes her spear into her ten cannons, places them right against his body, and turns the ten of them into beam swords, turning his body into a pincushion. Then, with a sharp pull of her magic at the ten swords, she moves them to the left or the right, slicing his body.

With a deafening scream of pain, Nightmare's body takes back its original purple blob-like appearance, loses shapes, twists, briefly takes his ball form, and explodes.

Sweetie Belle immediately turns to Hal as he starts speaking. "Impressive. You are stronger than you look."

Without giving it more time, Sweetie fires a beam at it, only for it to side step it like before. Annoyed, she charges energy into a ball until it explodes into a barrage of beams that home in at Hal. But a shield appears all around it, protecting it totally.

"You are smart too. You know that destroying me will stop me from sending more clones. But President Haltmann thought about this, and integrated me with the most powerful shield generator of the company beside the Mother Computer. This way, my enemies can't destroy me, and I can continue sending the clones until their existence finally ends."

Despite this, Sweetie continues trying to destroy the shield with her strongest attacks, failing each time. Meanwhile, Hal takes another flask from his cloak.

"The next one was found in the atmosphere of the planet. A mysterious being of darkness who was also a strong swordsman. He lived to spread pain and hate, because that was all he knew. Be ready to face his hate, and to suffer."

He breaks the flask, freeing the purple inside it which slowly takes the form of Sweetie's first villain: Dark Matter. The clone of the dark being appears in his swordsman form, with his speaky haired head and his knight-like clothes.

And when he spots Sweetie Belle, hate fills his eye!

Jumping back from Hal and Dark Matter, Sweetie Belle turns her ten cannons into her double beam swords.

"A little warning," then says Hal. "The clones have the memories of the originals. If you are the one who killed them, they will remember it, and will want to return the favor."

Sweetie Belle rolls her eyes. "Lucky me, I'm not the one who killed Dark Matter. But... I kinda helped, so I suppose it counts." She then stares at Dark Matter, readying herself. "So, Darky, remember me? I certainly remember you. After all, you are the one thanks to who I really started to become who I am today." She twirls the swords, smirking. "So, you want to see the result of your actions?"

Dark Matter points his sword at her and fires his dark beams from it. Sweetie Belle deflects them with her swords, then charges toward him with all of them. Dark Matter, in return, flies backward while withdrawing his eye back to his main body, and firing his black lightning bolts. Sweetie Belle jumps left and right, avoiding them, before jumping toward him, ready to do to him what she has done to Nightmare. But to her surprise, Dark Matter's sword takes into the colors of the rainbow, and with a rapid slash, manages to cut one of the swords about to slash him temporarily, the sword disappearing the time of one second as a result before it extends again. Using her shock, he thrusts the word at her, and she uses a shield to protect herself, only for the sword to pass through it like through butter! Thinking quickly, she jumps back, only getting a little cut on the muzzle thanks to this.

"Si... Since when can Dark Matter turn his sword into something similar to the Rainbow Sword?!"

The only explanation she could find in the following moments as she continues dodging Dark Matter's slashes while attacking him is that Dark Matter has somehow learned to use his Heart Matter, normally only limited to negative emotions to him, to form a rainbow around his sword to turn it like that. And since he's not the real Dark Matter, this doesn't hurt him like it should.

She really should start to better train using her Heart Matter! At her level right now, she can't hope to counter that! Not without a real sword! And she doesn't want to risk her weapon being destroyed!

At this moment, the fourth foot of the Access Ark explodes, but Sweetie Belle doesn't pay attention to this.

Dark Matter rises his swords and fires dark energy spheres at her that she easily deflects. She then decides to surprise him as she points her left forehoof at him. After some focus as the dark being charges at her, she fires a black lightning bolt from it at him, actually surprising him! Smirking, she continues firing more black lightning bolts, as well as dark beams from her cannons, all the while keeping her distance. However, Dark Matter answers this by sending his orange explosive spheres, not directly targeting her, but the ground around her, forcing her to away. Dark Matter doesn't stop throwing the orange balls, all the while charging at her with his sword, using their explosion to cut her way and force her to change direction or stop and leave her to the mercy of his sword.

As he approaches, Sweetie Belle grabs a chunk of ground and places it between her and him just as he thrusts his sword. The sword cuts through the chunk of ground, but then, Sweetie Belle places the chunk back where she has taken it, moving down the sword with it, opening Dark Matter's defense. The being of darkness then prepares himself to fire more lightning bolts, only for Sweetie to thrust her staff into his eye, stopping him. She follows it by separating her staff in two and doing a series of fast thrusts with both parts, all the while charging energy in them. She then assembles again the two parts, places the extremity right on Dark Matter's eye, opens it, and fires a huge beam that pierces him, leaving a big hole where the eye has been.

Like Nightmare, Dark Matter's body dissolves into a purple blob, briefly turns back into his true form, and explodes.

Hal immediately takes a new flask, seemingly getting annoyed. "You are very powerful, indeed. You have easily defeated those two clones. Too easily... But the next one is among the more powerful of the clones. Her DNA was found in a giant flower."

"Oh no... Not her..."

"A queen whose power rivals her beauty and cruelty. Skillful in both magic and swordplay, she will leave you no respite. Now, as it is her duty, she will personally execute you."

It breaks the flask, and soon, the purple blob inside it takes the form of Queen Sectonia herself.

"How many of them do you have?!" screams Sweetie Belle annoyed.

"Many," simply answers Hal.

Queen Sectonia immediately starts the fight by surrounding herself with a sharp ring before charging at Sweetie. The filly simply jumps above the ring to go directly punch her face, only for the queen to parry her with her rapiers. She pushes Sweetie back, and the filly land on a forming shield before the queen starts to thrust rapidly her rapiers at her. Sweetie quickly counter with her own barrage of thrusts by doing like she has done to Dark Matter just a few minutes ago, separating her staff into two, only this time, beam swords come from one of the extremities.

The two clash for a few seconds until the queen is able to pass one of her rapiers beyond Sweetie's weapons, only for Sweetie to move her head to the left, avoiding being impaled, before she pierces the bee in her right shoulder. Purple goo start flowing from the wound as the two separate, until it closes. With this, Sectonia grows the sharp ring still around her and throws it at Sweetie Belle.

As Sweetie easily avoids the ring by moving up, Sectonia teleports, and reappears directly behind Sweetie, ready to slash her. The filly quickly forms a shield, saving herself from being cut in the back. But Sectonia teleports again, this time appearing at her left, slashing again. this time, Sweetie parry her, only for the queen to teleport again behind her. Sweetie quickly moves forward to avoid the attack, but then, the queen teleports just in front of her. By reflex, Sweetie parries her again, but is pushed back from her floating shield and she lands on the ground, and Sectonia teleports another time, appearing right above the filly, rapiers turned back into her scepters, the bee ready to smash them on her like she smashed the giant crystal back then. So Sweetie rolls out of the way, and the queen smashes the ground instead. And to Sweetie's surprise, this creates a ring of crystals spreading out all around the queen, and Sweetie can't move in time to avoid being propelled in the air by the crystals coming out of the ground.

As she's in the air, Sectonia then creates two of her small sharp rings and throws them at the filly, only for her to send two mirror shields at them, sending them back at the queen bee, the rings slashing her and forming an X on her chest. Taking the occasion, Sweetie air-jumps toward the queen, forming her ten double beam swords. But then, despite the wound, Sectonia rises one of her scepters and fires a storm of black lightning at Sweetie Belle, electrifying her. Despite this, Sweetie continues through the lightning, forms two swords from the lightning around her, and cross-slashes the queen right on the X formed by the rings earlier. Her double swords follow quickly, cutting the queen all over her body. Sweetie Belle then finishes by impaling Sectonia in the chest with her two lightning swords, electrifying her badly by the same occasion.

And so, Sectonia's body turns back to the purple blob, then briefly takes her original appearance, the one she had before she was corrupted by the mirror, really looking like Taranza, before she explodes.

Sweetie Belle turns back toward Hal, all the beam swords pointed at it. "Send the next one! I will destroy all of them until I find a way to pass this shield, or until you don't have anymore clones under your cloak!"

Then, Hal grabs from under his cloak a dozen flasks and throws them all around. He then grabs another dozen and throws them. And again, and again, and again. Before Sweetie's eyes, and to her horror, what she feared is happening. In less than one minute, she finds herself facing clones of Nightmare, Dark Matter (swordsman form), Zero, Dark Mind*, Dark Nebula, Necrodeus, Sectonia, Dedede**, Meta Knight, Whispy Woods, and Kracko. And the worst is that there are five exemplaries of each of them, except Nightmare, Dark Matter, and Sectonia who are only four for obvious reasons. The Dedede clones too, but she doesn't know why. But she can guess that the HWC has prepared a Dedede clone to fight Kirby.

But it doesn't really matter, because she still has 51 more or less powerful clones in front of her, plus Hal.

She runs back to Sweetie Bot and climbs inside the cockpit. But even with Sweetie Bot, she isn't sure that she will be able to fight all those clones at the same time.

But then, something lands just beside her. When she looks, her jaw drops.

That something is none other than the Heavy Lobster! A modified version of the same color as Meta Knight, with a metallic colored head, and Meta Knight's symbol on the claws and under the now bat-like wings.

"SWEETIE BELLE!!!" she then hears. Looking at the Halberd, she sees the Meta Knights, all of them watching the fight, encouraging her the same way they encouraged Meta Knight in their fight. Vul is just at the edge above the head, in front of everyone else, using a megaphone to talk to her. "YOU SAID EARLIER THAT YOU CAN FUSE WITH THE ROBOTS, RIGHT?! THEN FUSE WITH THE HEAVY LOBSTER, AND USE ITS POWER TO KICK THEIR SORRY ASS INTO THE ABYSS!!! COME ON!! WE COUNT ON YOU!!!"

He's followed by all the Meta Knights giving her a big cheer.

Nodding, Sweetie Belle uses her magic, and the Sweetie Bot Armor flashes before she separates into pieces that merge with the now glowing Heavy Lobster. As the fusion process is happening, one of the Dark Matters charge, Rainbow Sword ready to slash, only for the Heavy Lobster to jump as the process finishes. The Lobster then lands right on the Dark Matter clone, crushing him under its feet as it stops glowing, revealing its new, white form with some pink and purple, two green eyes, and a white horn. Inside it, in a newly made cockpit, Sweetie belle looks through a screen as she raises one of the feet of the Lobster to watch at the purple goo that remains of the crushed Dark Matter Clone, a big smile forming on her muzzle.

She then looks at the army of clones, placing the foot back on the ground, in front of the other, spreading the Lobster's claws, before she screams "A machine of destruction originating from another world! Fused with a sentient mecha piloted by the most powerful warrior of this world! Armed from claws to feet, it will crush everything that stands in its way to do its duty: protect! Now, be ready to face..."

She makes the Lobster roar.

"THE SWEETIE LOBSTER ARMOR!!!"

Author's Notes:

*I imagine that the HWC would have no problems finding the mirror to the Mirror World, and so, finding Dark Mind's DNA.

**They look like normal Dedede because I thought "Why was the Dedede clone so special compared to the other clones?" then I got the idea that Susie probably modified it to make it more powerful and harder to destroy.

Thanks kelduo647 for the drawing of H.A.L.

Chapter 92: Battle at the Halberd! Part 2-Clone Wars

Sweetie Belle stares at the small army, waiting to see how they will act after her fusing with the Heavy Lobster. They have seen her crushing one of them as if it was a simple bug, so they certainly understand that the fight won't be as easy as they probably first thought. The Heavy Lobster is already dangerous by itself, but with her in the command, and adding her powers to its, it has truly become something to be feared. The Meta Knights, who know better than the others about this, are actually sweating as they have their wings ready to fly out of the way of whatever she will do if she decides to act first.

But in the end, the clones are the ones acting first, by moving all around her before firing their projectiles, sword beams for the Dark Matters and Meta Knights, blood for the Zeros, hollow stars for the Nightmares, Dark Minds, and Dark Nebulae, electric balls for the Necrodeus, and lightning bolts for the Krackos. The Dededes don't have any projectiles, so they remain behind with the Whispys, hammers ready, while the Whispys just look.

Sweetie Belle smirks before surrounding the Sweetie Lobster with a mirror shield, reflecting ALL the projectiles back at the clones, already giving great damages to the bigger ones. The Meta Knights are able to dodge most of them, while the ones that can teleport do so to get out of the way.

She laughs. "Wow! No matter what you decide to do, you are screwed!"

One of the Meta Knights decided to try his luck by approaching her, and starts flying around the Lobster rapidly while attacking, thinking to be too fast to be hit. But then, a shield materializes just in front of him, and he slams right on it. While he is sliding down the shield, he is grabbed by one of the claws of the Lobster. Trapped in the claw, he can't do anything as energy is charging in that same claw, and in just a couple of seconds, he disappears inside a huge laser fired by it.

While the Meta Knight is being disintegrated, one of the Sectonias teleports right behind the Lobster and performs multiple slashes before teleporting again, slashing and teleporting without stopping. But the Lobster resists, and eventually catches her in its left claw by the head before Sweetie quickly grabs her lower body with the right claw. Then, Sweetie pulls with both claws, and rips the clone in two before throwing the two pieces.

Before more clones could attack, Sweetie uses the reactor of the Lobster to charge in the mass, but hitting nobody as all the clones get out of the way, only for Sweetie to create a giant beam sword out of the left claw before turning to her left with a slash, cutting one of the Dark Nebulas in two while firing a laser from the right claw at a Kracko charging at her, piercing his eye.

One of the Dededes is able to bonk the Lobster on the head, only for spikes of metal to form out of the head and turn the fake penguin into cheese. Sweetie Belle then thrusts the right claw a little up to her right, not only stopping the charge of one of the Zeros, but also grabbing its eye, before she tears it from his white body and crushes it in the claw. A big bomb then pops beside her, and she quickly kicks it at the Dark Mind that has invoked it. The Dark Mind teleports, avoiding the bomb that explodes in the sky not long after.

The three remaining Dark Matters turn their swords into Rainbow Sword lookalikes before charging at the Lobster at the same time, quickly followed by the Meta Knights. Sweetie Belle is able to slap away one of the Dark Matters before she jumps up. When she lands back, she punches the ground with a claw covered in ice, creating a ring of spikes of ice all around her that manages to impale another Dark Matter. The remaining one as well as the Meta Knights are however able to avoid it and attack her, the Rainbow Sword doing huge damage to the hull of the Lobster, and the dark Matter that has been slapped away is coming back with the Sectonias.

Thinking quickly, Sweetie Belle expulses all around her a fiery shockwave, forcing the clones to fly back, excepted the Dark Matters that are able to slash the fire and pass through without damages. But she grabs the two of them before jumping just as one of the Nightmares fires a charged laser from behind her with his two hands, and she throws the Dark Matters right into the laser, disintegrating the two of them. She lands just as the laser finishes, and she charges at the Nightmare before grabbing him on the head and slamming him on a Sectonia who has appeared beside her ready to slash. She slams him again, this time on a Meta Knight, before using him as a shield to protect herself from the blood projectiles of one of the Zeros while crushing the slammed Meta Knight under a foot. Finished with him, she crushes the Nightmare's head inside the claw.

But before she could do anything to the Sectonia she slammed, she sees another Nightmare firing a laser in front of her... only for the laser to miss, passing above her. But as she spots the Dark Nebulas passing in Fire Mode and the Necrodeus charging their lasers from their mouths, she is suddenly it from behind by this same laser that just missed her. Acting quickly as the laser causes her to lose balance, she uses the Lobster's reactor to charge forward, avoiding the streams of fire and lasers from the other clones, ramming one of the Dark Nebulas and impaling him with the horn of the Sweetie Lobster. She then turns around and spots that one of the Dark Minds was behind her with his mirrors, and Sweetie understands that the Nightmare has fired at one of his mirrors to take her by surprise.

Then, the five Whispy Woods suddenly start spinning before they rise from the ground and charge one by one toward her with their sharp roots stretched. Sweetie Belle simply jumps above the roots of the first one before kicking him, sending him slamming on the one behind him, and causing the three others to crash on them, hurting each other because of the roots, before they all land in a pile. The filly then quickly goes in front of them before firing streams of fire from the claws until the pile of Whispy Woods is turned into a pile of burning wood. She then turns the left claw to the air and does a rocket punch toward the Dark Mind who used his mirrors to deflect the Nightmare's laser at her. But the Dark Mind teleports, annoying Sweetie Belle. Because of this, she doesn't see the Sectonia teleporting before firing black lightning bolts at her, followed by one of the Necrodeus punching her.

She grabs the hand and throws it at the Sectonia, only for her to teleport, before she jumps toward the Necrodeus, grabs his head, and as she lands back on the ground, she slams the skull on it, breaking it partially. She then punches it, destroying the rest and killing him. She then turns the claw into a screwdriver head and drills the eye of another Zero charging at her, only to be rammed from another direction by another Zero. Lucky her, the Zero actually propels her right toward one of the Dark Minds, and she takes him by surprise as she suddenly sends at him her ten cannons turned beam swords, impaling him all over his eyeball-chest-that-is-actually-his-true-form before finishing him by turning the beam swords into actual beams that pierce him, and replacing those beams by ice from which form multiple spikes that pierce him from the inside.

While she has been busy killing the Dark Mind, she has charged toward a Dark Nebula in ice mode to grab him and use him as a shield against a stream of fire of another Dark Nebula in fire mode. To make sure that he doesn't survive, she also fires her own stream of fire from the claw grabbing the black star, and once the clone explodes in purple goo inside the fire, she replaces the fire by a high pressured stream of water that hits and propels the other Dark Nebula to crash into a Necrodeus. She then fires electricity into the stream of water, electrifying the two of them. It's not enough to kill them, but it paralyses them for her to assemble energy around her before firing it under the form of dozens of small lasers that rain all over their bodies until nothing remains of them.

She covers one of the claws in energy, and with a swing, deflect a lightning bolt from one of the Krackos at a Dedede about to attack her. She then grabs the Dedede by the beak, and fires water in it, starting the process of inflating him. While it happens, she uses a giant beam sword from the other claw to parry a Sectonia, and sprouts a beam spike from the beam sword, impaling the queen bee in the head. Once Sweetie sees that the Dedede has inflated into a big ball, she freezes the ice, turning him into a giant ice ball from which she sprouts spikes of ice all over the surface. From the frozen water coming out of his beak, she then forms a spiked chain of ice, finishing to turn the penguin into a giant wrecking spiked ball that she immediately uses to slam and impale the Kracko who attacked earlier. Then, she pulls down on the ball, crushing a Dedede.

After doing some circles with the ball, forcing the Meta Knights, the Sectonias, and the remaining Dedede to remain away, she jumps to avoid the laser of a Necrodeus and the blood of a Zero, and in the air, she throws the ball and starts spinning, making the ball do large circles around her while hitting two Necrodeus, one Zero, and one Kracko. The Necrodeus' heads simply explode against the ball while the Kracko has his eye slashed by one of the spikes, cutting it in two and killing him, but the Zero survives with a big injury in his side. But the white ball is now stuck with the spiked ice ball, and Sweetie Belle uses the reactors of the Lobster to approach another Zero and slam the first one into him. Landing back on the ground, she then surrounds the horn of the Sweetie Lobster with her ten cannons and fires her Ultimate Doom Laser at them before doing a quick spin to also catch a Nightmare in it.

The four remaining Dark Mind suddenly surround her with their mirrors before they fire lasers from their eyeballs at them, the mirror deflecting the lasers between each other to catch Sweetie Belle off guard. But the filly surprises them by including her own mirrors into them, making sure that they look like the clones' mirrors, and in the chaos of mirrors and lasers that follow, the Dark Minds lose track of which mirrors are theirs and which ones are Sweetie's, and this technique turns against them when Sweetie starts randomly using her mirrors to deflect the lasers at them and the other clones, managing to hit a Meta Knight charging at her. Because of the hit, the Meta Knight couldn't avoid the spiked ice ball sent at him, and he finishes splattered against it despite Sweetie also getting hit by some star projectiles from a Nightmare, followed by some lightning from the remaining Dark Nebula.

She stomps on the ground, and a spike of stone emerges from it right under the Dark Nebula before impaling him, then does another stomp to create a crack and open the ground right under the last Dedede's feet. When the Dedede falls in the crack, it closes on him. Meanwhile, the Dark Minds have stopped with their mirrors and have decided to drop their big bombs around Sweetie Belle, only for the filly to use her shields to propel them into the air where they explode. While the Dark Minds are annoyed, one of them suddenly gets impaled from behind by ten beam swords, and suffers the same fate as the first one.

Sweetie Belle then fires a laser at one of the Nightmare, only for her to miss him as the laser passes above him, making the Nightmare laugh. But with a smirk, Sweetie creates a mirror on the laser's path and deflects it back at the Nightmare, the laser hitting him from behind. Injured, the Nightmare isn't able to teleport in time to avoid being crushed by the spiked ice ball.

She spots the two last Sectonias approaching her each with a sharp ring circling them, and Sweetie looks at the two of them before getting an idea. She rocket punches one of the Sectonias before grabbing her ring and dragging it to her with the Sectonia in it. Getting the ring off of around the Sectonia, Sweetie Belle then throws it at the other like a frisbee, catching her off guard and cutting her in two. Then, before the first sectonia could teleport, she slams her on the ground, stunning her, then uses her as a shield to protect herself from a lightning bolt from a Kracko. Despite being hit by a lightning bolt from the other Kracko, Sweetie belle turns her ten cannons into a staff and impales the Sectonia vertically, from the head to the lower body, but making sure that it doesn't get out by the other side. Quickly, before the dead clone turns into a purple blob, Sweetie grabs the part of the staff that comes out of the head, pointes the dart at one of the Krackos, and throws her like a javelot, piercing the Kracko right in the eye.

She then side jumps to avoid tornadoes from the two remaining Meta Knight, quickly forms two giant beam swords from the claws of the Lobster, and points them at the Meta Knight. Before the clones could wonder what she's preparing, Sweetie Belle then uses her magic to levitate the two of them right into the swords to be impaled. Not minding the blood projectiles hitting her then, she pointes the sword at the remaining Zero and at one of the Dark Minds, only to suddenly target the two other Dark Minds just before doing 'rocket thrusts', taking the Dark Minds off guard and impaling the two of them while she forms a very long beam sword from the Lobster's horn and does a vertical swing with it, cutting the last Zero in two.

She is then grabbed by the hands of the last Necrodeus, immobilizing her to the lasers of both the remaining Nightmare and the remaining Dark Mind while the Necrodeus also charges one. But as they fire the lasers, Sweetie uses her magic to create a shield under her, moving her upward and avoiding them. The Necrodeus immediately charges another laser, only for Sweetie Belle to materialize a shield hand under his mouth and to use it to close it, stopping the charge. With that same shield hand, she then punches the Necrodeus in the teeth, knocking some of them away and making him release her. With the claws that have returned, she then grabs the two hands before exploding them with explosive balls at close range. In return, the Necrodeus spits some mines, but Sweetie Belle uses the shield hand to grab one of them before making him eat it, causing four lasers to come out of his skull and kill him while she dodges the others and lands back on the ground.

All the while, the Dark Mind hasn't spotted the spiked ice ball slowly floating in the air above him, and by the time he spots it, it is already too late as Sweetie releases it from her magic, and the ball falls on him. Sweetie then makes sure that the ball finishes him by punching it with a shield hand from above, giving it enough force to crush the clone, while it also destroys the ball, and the frozen Dedede clone by the same occasion. As for the remaining Nightmare and Kracko, the first ends up having his head crushed by a shield hand, while the last gets impaled by a shield spike from behind.

And so, Sweetie Belle has destroyed all the clones.

But one enemy remains, and the filly immediately turns to it.

Hal stares at the scene, taking a step back. For some reason, it has this terrible urge to run away, as far as possible of this... thing that just destroyed its whole army of clones. To go and hide in the deepest tunnel, never to come out.

This urge becomes stronger when it sees one of the claws turn into a giant screwdriver head pointed right at it.

It knows that it will be able to pierce its shield.

It will be destroyed.

It must run.

It must go warn the president.

It must go RIGHT NOW!

Hal turns around and starts flying toward the entrance of the Access Ark. But Sweetie will not let this one escape. Targeting the robot, the filly fires a Rocket Giga Drill Breaker at it. Hearing something approaching, Hal turns around and sees the giant screwdriver coming at it. And before it could move out of the way, the drill hits its shield, breaks it, and hits the robot. The next second, it explodes.

Hal's head lands just beside the Sweetie Lobster's foot, and Sweetie Belle crushes it.

Thus ends Haltmann's secret weapon.

Chapter 93: Crazy Rolling in Money

Some ponies look in silent awe at the great show of power and destruction they have just witnessed from Sweetie Belle and her Sweetie Lobster Armor, others are cheering, either at seeing such an exciting battle, or at seeing Sweetie Belle showing those aliens who's the boss here in Popstar (even if Kirby is still kinda the real boss). If this robot, Hal, had a face, they would have certainly loved seeing its smug smile being replaced by horror. The almighty army of clones of the Haltmann Works Company, trashed by a filly piloting a robot.

It's a wonder by now why the mothership hasn't just taken off to escape Popstar. Are the aliens still confident despite losing their secret weapon? Or... Do they have an even more secret, ultimate weapon? Something hidden in that mothership that is waiting to be turned on to hit?

They will discover soon enough.

And after what they have just seen, they can't wait to see what will happen next. What will top an army of clones like that?

They will need more popcorn.

---

Sweetie Belle emerges from the Heavy Lobster, the big robot's claws dropping on the ground, some smoke coming out of it. Now inside her good old Sweetie Bot Armor, the filly sighs in both relief and tiredness. Seeing the Meta Knights approaching her from the Halberd, all of them looking at her in admiration with Vul holding a Maxim Tomato, she then jumps out of the armor, clenching her teeth in pain. Even if she was inside the armor while fighting, some of the attacks still caused her to get hurt, like all those attacks that jerked her body, causing her body to slam violently against the walls of the cockpit, or that mirror deflected laser heating the back of the armor until burning her own back a little, without forgetting the electricity that reached her through the armor. At this, she adds the few hits she got while fighting the first three clones.

Yeah, she needs some healing.

So when Captain Vul proposes the Maxim Tomato to her, she immediately takes it with a "Thank you," and eats it.

"Impressive battle," says Vul. "I didn't expect to see the Heavy Lobster becoming that powerful under your command. Would you and your armor like to join us? With your Sweetie Lobster Armor protecting the Halberd, we would be invincible!"

"Uh... Captain? You remember she's now a queen, right?" asks Sailor Waddle Dee.

"Drat."

Sweetie Belle giggles. "I would have said no anyway." A Sword Knight suddenly shows his sword at her. "Uh?"

"Would you sign my sword, please?" asks the knight.

Following his words, every other Meta Knights excepted Vul also present something, generally a weapon, for her to sign.

Sweetie Belle looks at them in disbelief before laughing. "Ok. Just give me something to write."

But then, a few dozen signatures later, the fifth foot of the Access Ark explodes, and the whole mothership crashes down above them. Thankfully, thanks to the two cliffs surrounding the Halberd, they aren't crushed. And now, the entrance is right above their heads.

Sweetie Belle, looking up at the ship, smiles widely. "Good job Kirby." She turns to the Meta Knights. "Sorry, but I have to go. I will finish signing once those aliens are gone."

She is answered by encouraging cheers from the knights as she climbs back inside the Sweetie Bot Armor. Invoking her Warp Star, she then waves at the Meta Knights wishing her good luck and cheering for her to kick some alien's butt before she jumps on it and takes off, the star supporting the armor without problems.

As she approaches the entrance of the Access Ark, it starts closing, so she hurries up. On her way, she spots Kirby also approaching the entrance, the puffball seemingly possessing a new ability if his hat made of what seems to be poison is any indication. Their eyes meet, and they both smile and nod in resolution before they pass the entrance just before it closes.

---

They both land in some hallway decorated with red carpets, everything made of metal with linings forming simple symbols like circles.

Here, Sweetie turns to Kirby and says "Hi Kirby! Good job with the feet! I hope you didn't have too much problem!"

Kirby just shrugs with a "Poyo."

Sweetie Belle takes a proud pose. "You can thank me for this. I took the full blow of the majority of their army to ensure that they would leave you mostly alone in your quest." She giggles. "You have no idea what I've gone through."

Kirby chuckles before rising an arm and saying "Poyo!" to thank her. He then looks at the Sweetie Bot Armor and waves an arm, saying "Hiiii!"

Sweetie Belle rubs the hull of the armor. "Her name is Sweetie Bot Armor, and she really helped me fighting the aliens." She looks back at Kirby. "Do you have an armor too?"

Kirby nods.

"I can't wait to see him. Too bad you couldn't come with him."

Again, Kirby shrugs.

"Maybe we will find an armor for you while we explore this ship. Speaking of, we should go. I have enough of those guys ruining the landscape."

"Poyo!" agrees Kirby with a nod.

They both start advancing, walking down some stairs before they reach some pillars where the hallway becomes more narrow. Passing more pillars, they then pass beside the portrait of a pale egg-shaped man in a suit possessing disembodied hands and feet, well groomed purple hair with some device on the right ear, and a purple mustache. The guy is sitting on a golden, red cushioned stair, staring professionally at the painter with his eyes entirely blue, like Susie's. More painting of this guy follow, taking different poses, as the hallway becomes large again.

After defeating some cloaked floating beings using psychic attacks named NESPs, Sweetie looks at one of the portraits with a frown.

"You know, Kirby? I'm ready to bet that this guy is the big boss of those aliens, President Haltmann.

Kirby nods, looking at the man in the painting.

"I never thought I would end up facing the CEO of a company to save Popstar. Life is sure full of surprises."

They continue, climbing some stairs before they reach a black door between two giant statues of Haltmann pointing a finger to tomorrow.

Bad news, the door is too small for the Sweetie Bot Armor.

"Aww... Now I have to leave her behind. Well, until I find another armor to take over, which shouldn't take long in this place." She climbs down and waves at the armor. "See you quickly, Sweetie Bot!"

They pass the door, entering another, similar hallway with more portraits and statues of Haltmann, this one full of Bombers falling from platforms above them. Sweetie Belle easily knock them away with some magical beams, and they are able to reach another door to another hallway.

Here, after advancing a little, an alarm starts blaring, and Sweetie and Kirby's surprise, a robot looking exactly like the Metal General activates in front of them, except that it is grey with a big red H on the head.

"They have copies of the Metal General?!"

They don't have time to ponder more on the reason of the HWC possessing copies of the powerful robot fought in Halcandra because of the copy starting to twirl its beam blade in front of itself before charging forward, like Metal General in its time.

They avoid the robot with some side jumps, and they both start attacking it, Sweetie using explosive balls while Kirby spits some corrosive poison. The copy then sends some mines here and there in the area before it fires some missiles, all of which are easily destroyed.

After more damage, the robot starts spasming with electricity while steam comes out of it, signifying that it's already coming close to the breaking point.

At least, it isn't as solid as the Metal General, thinks Sweetie Belle.

The copy still has time to attack them a few more times with its sword before it finally takes too much damage and falls on the floor. But then, it takes out some red button and slams it. The robot then starts floating, the button revealing to start a self-destruct process. So the two heroes quickly run away from it before it explodes, the explosion covering the floor under it in fire for a few seconds.

When the fire disappears, Sweetie Belle and Kirby looked at each other in wonder. Yes, it was a weak rip-off of the Metal General, but it was still a rip-off of the Metal General! How could the HWC have one, and maybe even more? Now, Sweetie Belle is fearing for Halcandra. What if the company somehow was able to go to Halcandra? It's the only explanation for them having copies of Metal General, but then, it would mean that they probably mechanized Halcandra! Well, even more mechanized that it already was before. What does it mean for Landia? Was he captured? Robotized? Or did he escape?

They hope they will find an answer.

At worst, they will ask Magolor to investigate with the Lor Starcutter next time he returns to Popstar.

Continuing advancing in the hallway, they eventually destroy a bomb block that causes a chest to drop. Inside it, they find some weird blue cube with circuit board patterns. When Kirby takes it, she asks "What is it?"

"Poyo poyo poyo, popoyo poyo poyopoyopoyo," answers Kirby, doing some signs.

Sweetie Belle doesn't understand much, but she can at least understand something. "It's important?"

Kirby nods. He then mimes of placing the cube inside something, and mimes something expanding or opening. Sweetie judges that he means opening. "It will open a door?"

"Poyo!" confirms Kirby.

"So we have to find as much as possible?" Sweetie guesses from there.

Again, Kirby confirms with another "Poyo."

"Alright. I was starting to miss collecting objects."

Kirby stores the cube in his stomach, and they pass the door not long after, entering a hallway with fans blowing strong air currents pushing them forward. With the quantity of enemies in this area, it is quite annoying, but in the end, they reach the next door rather rapidly, helped by an Invincibility Candy found in a crate, and they enter another hallway where they have to fight another copy of the Metal General.

Thanks to the Candy, this one hasn't even time to activate before they destroy it, and not long after, they pull down a lever, dropping a chest containing another blue cube.

Just after is another black door to an area where they have to use pipes to pass walls and advance, many of those pipes being protected by enemies using projectiles, like the grunts of the company using energy guns, among others. By the way, Kirby decides to give up the Poison ability to eat a NESP, gaining a blue cap with a red bill tilted to the side.

An ability to use psy attacks? This may be very useful.

Once they return to a more normal hallway, Sweetie asks "Can I test this ability, please?"

Kirby looks at her, smiles, and nods before jumping on her back. To her surprise, a blindfold appears on her eyes, blinding her totally, only... This blindness disappears, the filly now able to see the world without her eyes. The more extraordinary is that she now sees the world around her, at 360°! And she can even see what is behind the pillars! She has absolutely no problems seeing that Simirror approaching them!

Instinctively, she points her hoof at the Simirror, and pulls with her mind. The next instant, the Simirror is sent backwards by an invisible force! Smiling, Sweetie Belle tests something else with her mind, and in a few seconds, she starts floating in the air without any magic or anything!

Giggling, she floats forward, seeing a Whippy now approaching. Pointing her hoof at him, Sweetie Belle manages to levitate him without even using her magic, just with the power of her mind! She then surrounds the Whippy by a field of psychic energy. It doesn't do any physical damage, but its effects on the mind are devastating! In less than a second, the Whippy is unconscious.

It's scary, she has just used a small fraction of this power! If she uses more, she could break someone's mind, read it, control it, brainwash it... She could even kill!

Advancing while testing something else, she discovers that she can even teleport! And when she reaches another copy of the Metal General, she even discovers that she can use her mind to create shields (both against physical attacks and energy attacks), heal, and create fire The robot absolutely could not do anything to her before it Sweetie simply decides to levitate it and... crush it into a metallic ball. Just like that.

This ability is broken. If Sweetie could master psychic powers without having Kirby on her back...

But she doesn't know if she may be able to use them, even after testing them. It's not as easy to learn as firing fire, ice, or lightning. From the little she knows about psychic capabilities, you are born with them, or you aren't. And if you aren't, then you can try as much as you want, unless a miracle happens to unlock them, you can't use them.

Maybe Kirby getting on her back with this ability is the miracle she needs to unlock them.

Landing back on the floor, she lets Kirby go from her back, causing the blindfold to disappear. Sweetie Belle immediately closes her eyes to see if she still can see without them. After some focus, however, she discovers than no, she can't anymore. She then rise her hoof to the ball of metal and tries to send it backward with her mind like she did to the Simirror, without success.

Sighing at this, she still keeps some small hope that she will be able to use them later, maybe after some very hard training with her mind. She will probably try that thing with the spoon once they've dealt with the HWC.

Near the next door, they in a small hole in the floor, they find a switch that they press, causing a chess with another blue cube to drop. Taking the cube, they pass the door.

They reach a whole new area, with plugs in the walls, multicolored cubes floating around, tubes filled with weird liquids and a giant tube with... Uh... Sweetie isn't sure what it is, but it reminds her of an image she saw once briefly in a science book. And it's certainly more bright and colorful than those rather dark hallways!

Sweetie's amazement at this area quickly turns to annoyance when she discovers that they have to traverse a path full of lasers projected by some weird cannons that she quickly destroys, letting them pass and reach the next black door without problems, the enemies on the path not being much to even slow them.

They appear before some kind of mechanical gondola that Sweetie lets Kirby use as she floats beside him with a shield while she uses water to destroy the with balls producing electricity that are floating around on the way. As Kirby has to leave the gondola to take another, then another, Sweetie has to destroy more of those balls before they reach another door.

In the next area, they have to pass something similar to what they have gone through in Purple Fortress: two hallways separated by a transparent wall. But this time, no clones. Instead, there's some weird robot that strangely looks like Kirby, and when Kirby takes some kind of device that drops after pressing a switch, the robot starts to repeat all of Kirby's movements. Using this, Kirby has to use the robot to press switches to be able to continue while making sure that the robot survive by not making it fall into pits. Sweetie Belle helps him by activating some switches, making the journey easier. The robot proves its usefulness when Kirby makes it he press a switch that destroys some blocks under a copy of Metal General as it has been activating, causing the copy to fall in the pit. However, it also causes some blocks to be destroyed under the robot, and it falls in a pit too. So Kirby throws the no useless device.

After the robot, they find a black door where they have to activate some switches in the middle of pits to open doors, but the last switch being a red one opening the door for only a couple of seconds, Sweetie has to fire a magical beam at it while remaining beside the door so they can pass. After this last door, they find a chest with another cube, before they pass a black door that returns them to where they fought the Fake General, only for them to quickly pass another door.

They appear in front of a pipe that they take, entering a room with strange green panels on the floor. When they enter it, some of the panels then start turning red with skull symbols, starting with the panels at the back and moving at the panels under them. So they quickly take the battery on one of the panels, walks on them while avoiding the ones about to become skulls, and exit this place. They then reach some weird machine with a Gordo trapped in it, with a similar machine on a different platform with a Maxim Tomato trapped in it.. When they put the battery in the slot for it, the Gordo and the Maxim Tomato exchanges place between the two machines before the machine opens, letting them take the fruit.

"Those teleporting machines would be nice," comments Sweetie Belle.

They have to traverse two more places with those green panels, each harder to traverse than the previous one, and each with a battery to use a teleporter and get another Maxim Tomato, then a cube, before they pass the next black door to a path with many switches opening doors in another path at the other side of a transparent wall. At the end of the first path, a pipe lets them reach the other path, where all the opened doors lead them to yet another cube before they pass a black door.

Just after appearing in the next area, they find an Invader Armor inside a crate. They look at each other and, with a smile, Kirby points at the armor and nods with a "Poyo."

"You let me take it? It's ok, I don't mind if you take it."

Kirby shakes his head and points again at the armor. "Poyo! Poyo!"

"You won't change your mind, uh?"

Kirby shakes his head again.

Sweetie giggles. "Very well, thank you. But the next one will be for you."

"Poyo!"

So Sweetie climbs in the armor, turning it into the Sweetie Bot, and spotting the screw-like mechanism in the floor, she turns one of the arms into a screwdriver and use it on said mechanism to turn the floor and open the way. She has to move to another platform, then unscrew another one, before reaching an artificial door, thankfully big enough for the armor.

After it, they have to climb a few ladders before they reach a point where Sweetie Belle has to use the Bomb Mode of the Sweetie Bot armor to send walking bombs climb walls and activate switches to open the way to a new cube. After the destruction of a block bomb, they reach a door and enter an area with fans, accepted that those fans are in square formations, creating circling air currents. This wouldn't be problematic if there weren't toxic clouds inside those currents. But she quickly discovers that she can get rid of those clouds thanks to the Ice Mode, the wind created by the fans of the armor blowing them away.

Thanks to this, they are able to reach a secondary passage where Sweetie has to turn a bolt to activate some geysers of water. Then, after destroying a bomb block to open the passage to both her and a helping Key Dee, she has to use the Ice Mode again to freeze the water and create a path for the Dee to reach a teleporting machine with his battery. Putting the battery in its place turns the machine o, and it teleports the cube trapped inside it to the other machine at the entrance of the room, where Sweetie and Kirby can take it.

Back in the area with the fans and the toxic fog, following the path, they quickly find another door. Almost as soon as they appear after taking it, Sweetie has to use the screwdriver to unscrew a platform and open the way toward a screen turned off. To turn it on, Sweetie has to turn into Spark Mode and place the prods of the Sweetie Bot into the batteries. When it's on, it indicates a series of three symboles: ice, fire, and thunder.

Noting that in her mind, Sweetie then climbs a near ladder and finds herself between some metallic head looking sad and a big metal block. Kirby shows her head, and Sweetie Belle quickly understands what she must do. Turning to Ice Mode again, she fires a stream of ice at the head, getting it, somehow, covered in snow, the head now smiling. Following Kirby's instructions, she then lifts the head and starts making her way through the path, hurrying up to pass the parts with fire causing the snow to melt, she quickly reforms after said parts. She has to drop the head and unscrew a screw to destroy some blocks impeding her from dropping the head on its body and form a snowman.

A snowman that somehow becomes alive, grabs Sweetie, and throws her at another path.

"Did I just got thrown by a snowman?" asks the filly in disbelief as Kirby joins her by flying. She sighs and shakes her head. "Nevermind..."

They pass the door next to where she has been thrown, and after climbing a ladder, Sweetie now finds herself between another snowman head and a cannon. Remembering the fire symbol, she lifts the cannon, and after some platforming, she reaches the place where she must drop it. With the cannon in its place, she uses a simple fireball from her horn to light the fuse, only for the cannon to expel her to a dead end. In the end, the right place to drop the cannon is at the third fuse.

After another door and another ladder, she is now with a metal block, a snowman head, and a bigger metal block with the part of a circuit. Remembering that the last symbol involved Spark, she lifts the big metal block, then drops it on some yellow blocks that get destroyed by its weight, dropping it in a hole where it connects a circuit. Using Spark Mode at the start of the circuit, she then has to wait for the energy to pass the block before having to use the screwdriver to unscrew and destroy some blocks, and cause the big metal block to drop in the level below where it let the energy reach the next part of the circuit again. Having to do this a few more times, Sweetie Belle eventually reaches the end, where the energy causes the destruction of a wall of blocks and reveal a secret door that leads to a chest containing a cube, with some food around it.

Passing another door, she now has to use the Sword Mode to cut a chain and use a catapult after turning a bolt to choose how far the projectile, a giant Gordo, will be sent. Deciding to go full out, she charges the catapult to maximum, then cuts the chain, and the Gordo destroys the blocks at the top, revealing a door.

A door sadly too small.

Looks like the fun ends here for now.

After climbing down from Sweetie Bot, they pass the door, then climb a staircase toward a room where they fight another Fake General. At least, this one has time to show some different attacks, like jumping, surrounding itself in a field of electricity, and charging at the heroes, or jumping and firing energy projectiles all around itself, which are more attacks from the Metal General.

When the robot is destroyed, some weird window that seems to be an artificial portal looking more like the screen of a bugged computer appears, and having no other choice, they pass it and arrive in...

Woah... What the heck?

It's... as if they are now inside a computer, everything looking artificial, pixelated, blocky, and gridded, with crystalline structures of various forms, mostly star-shaped while others more ball shaped have plugs. Oh, and the background is spinning, as if the whole universe is spinning excepted the part that compose the path.

"I didn't think that I would see something weirder than the other dimension," comments Sweetie, almost becoming dizzy because of the spinning and the grids seemingly going to the infinite. If everypony is watching at home, they must be even more weirded out. I can't imagine what Twilight must be thinking.

---

Twilight Sparkle is leaning against Fluttershy, the yellow pegasus patting her back as the poor lavender mare is sobbing. "I can't take it anymore... This universe... It wants my death..."

"Shhh... It will be alright. Don't think about this," says Fluttershy as she tries to calm her.

---

As the heroes advance, a line appears beside the path and starts to draw a blocky form. When it completes, the four formed blocks suddenly come out, forming a platform, but also and above all, almost hitting the heroes and propelling them beyond the edge of the path. Another line appear almost just after, forming a small stair of three blocks.

Now paying attention to those lines, the heroes continue, stopping or accelerating to avoid the then forming platform until reaching a black door. After it, they wait for lines to form a path until reaching the next door, only to spot more lines forming a path toward another door. Not sure which one to take, they take the first door.

They appear in a small room on a floor made of indestructible blocks, and two lines appear, drawing each a single block at both sides of the room, leaving just one block wide of space for the heroes to avoid being pushed. Once the two blocks are formed, the floor of indestructible blocks disappear, and they drop in another level of the room. More levels follow, each with lines forming groups of blocks to avoid, Sweetie quickly taking a cube at the last one before it could be expelled by the forming blocks. Reaching a normal floor, they then have to move closer to where the lines are forming to go on other indestructible blocks that eventually disappear, dropping them in front of a black door.

In the next area, they fight yet another Fake General, and after a quick fight, pass another door to a vertical room that they have to climb. They could use the forming blocks as platform, but they decide to fly, finding another cube in a secondary path where they have to hurry before it is closed by the blocks. Almost just after, they pass another door.

Almost immediately after they appear, they are attacked by a Fake General leading a group of a dozen Invader Armor.

A dozen Invader Armor.

The aliens have just done a big error!

Grinning, the heroes don't mind the Fake General and directly charge at the two closest armors, knocking away their pilots before climbing in the cockpits. Sweetie's armor turn into the Sweetie Bot Armor while Kirby's armor has its color turning pink with some white, and red at the feet, while having two yellow eyes.

Sweetie belle looks at Kirby's armor. "What's his name?"

"Obobo Amo!"

"Robobot Armor?"

"Poyo!"

Sweetie Belle nods and looks around as more enemies are joining the ones present, the two transformed armors getting back to back.

"Nice to meet you Roboby! I'm Sweetie Belle, and this is my armor Sweetie Bot! I'm sure you two will become great friends!" She chuckles. "How about some friendship bonding while kicking some armored butts?"

"Poyo!"

They both take a fighting pose as the Fake General fires some missiles.

"Then let's go!"

The Sweetie Bot fires a few beams to destroy the missiles before it punches an attacking armor, the Robobot Armor doing the same at his side. Then, Sweetie Bot starts charging a beam, and Robobot grabs her hand before spinning her around him, Sweetie Bot firing a continuous laser that destroys many enemies. Robobot then throws her at the Fake General who has its sword ready. Sweetie Bot turns into Sword Mode and cuts both the beam sword and the Fake General in two in just one swing. Sweetie Bot then turns back toward Robobot and, thinking that it probably possesses the same ability than Kirby, creates and sends a block of ice at him. Robobot sees it coming and the ice block is immobilised in the air as a scan appears around it. The block then disappears, and the Robobot takes on the Ice Mode, immediately using it to freeze the enemies around him while Sweetie Bot turns into Spark Mode and electrify the remaining ones. In just a few seconds, the twenty or so enemies armor are destroyed, and the armors give each other a high five.

"We continue?"

"Poyo!"

Starting their advance, the Robobot Armor rapidly gives up the Ice Mode to absorb a Sir Kibble and gains the Cutter Mode, giving the armor two saw blades at the place of the hands as it becomes yellow. The Robobot Armor can throw the blades to cut the enemies from a distance, their size doing huge damage to big groups of enemies.

After some platforming, they pass an artificial portal like the one they took to come to this area, entering a room made of artificial hexagonal pillars, where they encounter...

Wait a minute, is that an octahedron like they encountered and fought in that alien spaceship in that desert world back in their adventure to save Ripple Star? The difference is that this one is half red and half blue, and is surrounded by a ring of little floating plates.

"They also have copies of them?" asks Sweetie in surprise.

But then, the octahedron opens in two, revealing a smaller one inside it, and out of it come two beams of light that forms two holograms of... Doomers?

Of all the things, Doomers?!

"I have so many questions..." She looks at Kirby. "But I suppose they aren't simple holograms, uh?"

Kirby nods.

One of the Holo-Doomers charges at them while the other starts dropping balls. Kirby decides to face the one dropping the balls, using the saw to attack it, while Sweetie takes on the other, giving it a big punch that sends it flying before destroying it with a laser. The other Doomer quickly is destroyed too by the saws, and as a result of the destruction of the holograms, the octahedron explodes, and another portal opens.

Following the path, fighting many enemies on the way, half of them deciding to run away upon seeing that they stand no chance, they pass another portal and face another octahedron, this one cyan and green and creating a hologram of the Ice Dragon.

"Woah, it's been a long time since we fought it."

Almost as soon as the dragon starts charging at them, the two armors fire at it with saws and streams of fire, destroying it just before it could reach them, and destroying the octahedron by the same occasion. Another portal appears, and they pass it. As they follow the path again, not much happening beside the habitual enemies, they eventually use a giant metal block to destroy some yellow blocks and obtain a new cube.

Passing yet another portal, they face this time a yellow and white octahedron creating a hologram of Kracko.

Sweetie huffs. "I already fought a Kracko Cyborg and five Kracko Clones, do they really expect to defeat us with a simple hologram?"

As expected, the Holo-Kracko doesn't last long against the both of them, the cloud having just the time for fire some lightning bolts at them before it is destroyed, and the next portal appears.

In the next path, they spot a trap door in the ceiling above a pit, and understanding what will happen once they open it, they drop a metal block in the pit to block it, and they they press the switch that opens the trapdoor, a chest containing a cube drops from it and falls on the block.

Then, not long after, they arrive at a conduit that expels Capsules J3, improved versions of the previous Capsule Js, and Robobot absorbs it (releasing by the way the Sir Kibble he used to gain the Cutter Mode), and turns into Jet Mode, which is pretty much the Robobot with the form of a jet, with a gatling cannon under the nose. Following him, Sweetie bot turns into Jet Mode too.

Taking off, they fly their way through some obstacles and a small army composed of Fake Generals, Blockys, Bonkers, Dubiors, Kibble Blades, King Doos, Miasmoros, and weird creatures with horseshoes-shaped floating bodies with pulsating lines using psychic attacks named Telepathos, without forgetting all the smaller enemies like Capsule Js, HWC grunts, Waddle Dees piloting flying machines, and more.

But with the power of their armors in Jet Mode, this army is quickly destroyed, and they even find another cube. After that, it mainly consists of avoiding forming blocks until they land when they spot a portal, the armors returning to Normal Mode. Using some cannons, they reach and pass the portal. After more platforming, they encounter, and destroy, another Fate General before they unscrew a platform that it has been guarding, opening the way.

And it leads them right into an ambush, where they are attacked by one of those giant purple robots.

Just this one.

Rolling her eyes, Sweetie Belle decides to use the Fusion Capacity of her Sweetie Bot to take control of the robot, surprising Kirby. Then, once in control of the purple robot, she turns its right hand into a screwdriver and uses it to pierce a hole in its own chest. Once the robot has taken enough damage, she unfuses, and the purple robot is destroyed.

A door, too small for the armors, appears, forcing them to leave the armor.

Sweetie Belle looks at the Robobot Armor, saying "See you soon, I hope," before they pass the door, not seeing the Robobot Armor and the Sweetie Bot taking each other's hand.

The heroes appear in a small path leading to a big red locked door with a hole in it. Knowing what he must do, Kirby starts placing the cubes in the hole. After placing just seven cubes, the door opens, and Kirby spits away the remaining cubes, not needing them anymore.

When they pass the door, they appear on an elevator, and as they ascend, everything around them suddenly starts flashing before disappearing, letting place to simple black walls with some familiar blocks, revealing that, apparently, this whole area was just an illusion.

Then, some black cubes looking like the blue ones, with two orange, more normal looking cube, appear and create a portal door to a room that they can see through it. From what they can see, it is a huge room with a red carpet and a single desk in front of a window showing the surface of Popstar.

There's no doubt, this is President Haltmann's office.

Advancing, they traverse the portal, and enter the room, the portal disappearing behind them.

There, they encounter none other than Susie herself.

"I... just can't believe that you were able to destroy Hal and his whole army of clones. He was our trump card to stop you. I don't understand. How did you do it? A primitive like you?"

Sweetie Belle giggles. "I was helped."

Susie then turns to Kirby. "And you, you managed to destroy everything that I sent after you, Mecha Knight, that upgraded clone..." She looks at the two of them. "And now, the two of you climbed your way through all our defenses and reached this very room, the Haltmann Works Company head office. Even the Mother Computer's best creations couldn't stop you. But... I can't stand it. I can't let you enter the head office and bother the President just like that."

"So, you will fight us?"

Susie shakes her head. "I wouldn't stand a chance. I know it. But instead..." She takes a remote control and presses a button, and from the ceiling, a robotized Meta Knight is dropped, to Sweetie's horror. "He will fight you. Let me present you our latest produce, hot off the production line. A new version of the Mecha Knight upgraded with the newest technologies who can work for 24 hours without recharging, programmed to be a merciless fighting machine. We call it Mecha Knight+." Susie starts walking backward, giggling. "I hope you like it. have a nice day! Buh-bye!" she finishes with a wave as the named Mecha Knight+ activates, the red light between its eyes, apparently a bionic eye, turning on.

Sweetie Belle looks at the warrior turned robot in rage. She knew that it was probably Meta Knight's fate the instant she discovered about him being captured, but it still enrages her to see such a strong and prideful warrior, also a great friend, turned into a robotic slave! They have even installed rocket launchers on his arms! Meta Knight! With rocket launchers! And then, there's the fact that said rocket launchers are totally covering his arms. How do they expect him to swing his sword rapidly and effectively with those things covering his arms?! Speaking of the sword, why does it only possess the guard?

Oh, it's actually an energy sword made to look like Meta Knight's sword. And apparently, he can perfectly move his arms despite them. And his wings, also artificial, possess reactors to fly.

And then, Mecha Knight raises his sword, and it grows two to three times its size.

Okay, this robotized Meta Knight may actually be a problem.

Sweetie Belle forms her own ten double beam swords, and quickly uses five of them to parry Mecha Knight's first swing, the clash creating sparks. Kirby uses his PSY ability to teleport behind Mecha Knight, probably to attack him by surprise while he's busy with Sweetie Belle, but to his surprise, Mecha Knight slashes at him, and Kirby quickly teleports again while Sweetie attacks him. The robotized knight then attacks Sweetie Belle again, and she parries him a second time while Kirby is finally able to attack him with his psychic powers.

Mecha Knight then starts flying around before charging at them with his sword and planting it in the floor, creating a small shockwave. With it not working, and even leaving him vulnerable to the heroes' attacks, he decides to simply fly around before charging and slashing at them. Again, Sweetie tries her best to parry him, but his attacks are well calculated. When she parries him the first time, he immediately attacks her where he has the most chance to break her defense, only for Sweetie to use her five other beam swords to parry him. And so, she uses those two groups of five beam swords to parry him continuously as he attacks too rapidly for her to do anything else.

But suddenly, as Mecha Knight seems to focus on Sweetie Belle, letting Kirby attack him, the knight turns toward Kirby flies a little toward him, and prepares to send one of his sharp sword beams. Of course, Kirby teleports behind him, beside Sweetie Belle. But they then discover that Mecha Knight has been faking his attack, and instead does a powerful spin attack that releases energy in the form of electricity. When Sweetie tries to block it and save both her and Kirby, the power of the attack sends her swords away after not even one second of clashing. But this gives Kirby enough time to teleport the both of them away. When the attack ends, the sword returns to a more normal size.

Soon, they attack him, avoiding lasers fired by his bionic eye before Sweetie clashes with him with her ten swords while Kirby uses his psychics powers. Mecha Knight even fires missiles, but they are easily destroyed by the puffball before he's hit by a strong buck right on the eye, causing the mask to crack a little.

To this, Mecha Knight flies away, and the apparatus on his back extends into a giant clawed tail.

"What?!" shouts Sweetie Belle. "After the rocket launchers, this?! They didn't even try to respect his style of fighting! This is an insult to his swordsmanship!" she says in anger.

Mecha Knight starts attacking them with his tail, trying to punch them, to claw them, to crush them, and even to grab them, but while Kirby continues teleporting behind him to remain out of the way, Sweetie Belle simply remains far enough to dodge the attacks and counter. Eventually, Mecha Knight grounds the claw, using it to lift himself and to move around in the air while sending sharp shockwaves or slashing at them.

With the speed at which it moves in the air, it's hard to hit him, and he still manage to parry and deflect attacks, attacking when he has the occasion. Having enough of this masquerade, Sweetie Belle runs to the claw and grabs it, covering her whole body in Soul Energy before she lift it from the ground with difficulty. Using all her boosted strength, she then slams Mecha Knight on the floor before she runs at the base of the tail, grabs it, and rips it from Mecha Knight's back. She then uses it as a bat to hit Mecha Knight and send him toward Kirby who, in return, uses his mind to violently send the knight back at Sweetie Belle. The filly prepare her hoof, and hit the mask with the most powerful punch she could give, totally breaking the mask and sending him flying to the ceiling.

He falls back on the floor, and Kirby and Sweetie Belle prepare themselves as he slowly gets back up, groaning. Once up, Meta Knight blinks, looks at them, finds out that he doesn't possess a mask anymore, and flies away, breaking a window.

"Improbable..." they then hear Susie say as she approaches, looking at the window through which Meta Knight has escaped. "No... Impossible! How could you defeat the most recent creation of the Mother Computer... so easily?!"

"Your Mother Computer must be bugged! Despite all his upgrades, this robotized version of Meta Knight couldn't compare to the real one! Was your computer trying to upgrade Meta Knight, or downgrade him?"

"How dare you?!" shouts Susie in anger. "The Mother Computer is perfect! It can't make errors like that!"

"And yet, as you said, and just saw, we, simple 'primitives', defeated its perfect creations. Not as perfect, if you want my opinion."

"Ugh..." Susie steps back at Sweetie's words, having a hard time to admit that she's right.

But then, before she could find anything to reply to her words, someone says "That's enough, Susie."

Following the voice, everyone looks at the desk. Because of all this, Sweetie Belle hadn't spotted until now that there was someone here, his chair turned to the window, the person on it looking at the surface of Popstar. The chair then turns around, revealing the familiar figure of the portraits, hand in hand in front of his mouth.

"M-Mr. Haltmann! Sir!" shouts Susie in surprise.

"Hello," says Haltmann directly to Sweetie Belle and Kirby, speaking as if a battle hasn't just happened in this very room, more like a CEO talking to a guest. While he talks, his chair, which is floating thanks to small reactors, moves around the dest and approaches them. "I must thank you for looking after my secretary." He then looks at Susie. "Susie, dismissed. You're done here. You may step down now."

The secretary reluctantly bows while saying "...Yes, sir" before walking away, leaving her boss to talk with Sweetie and Kirby.

The filly frowns at him, the man responsible for all this. "President Haltmann."

"Nice to see that I don't need to present myself. And you don't need to present yourself to me either. You made quite a show down there. I personally saw your battle with Hal. I must say, I was impressed. I didn't expect to see a furry little native destroying the totality of my army. Without forgetting your pink friend who was able to destroy the feet of the Access Ark. Really, this planet was full of surprise. And I thought that it would just be another planet like we visited so many others until now." He chuckles. "Now, I suppose that you are here to convince me to stop?"

They both nod. "And we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. I hope that you will accept the easy way."

He chuckles. "Why take the easy way? I didn't become CEO of such a prosperous company just by taking the easy way. I would even say that I love doing things the hard way. It spices the monotonie. Why do you think I let my secretary deal with you until now rather than taking matters in my own hands? If I wanted to use the easy way, I would have simply sent the Mother Computer to attack you, and you wouldn't be here talking to me." He taps his hand. "Take a look..." Suddenly, the floor of the room opens in two, and a big, sorta circular platform made of the same cubes that opened the portal to this room is rising to take its place, forcing everyone to go on it as something else is rising of the pit below.

And Sweetie gasps in horror, recognizing what is that thing.

A white cylindrical body with a screw head, with pink lights forming a broken heart, and wings at the sides.

The corrupted prototype of Clockwork Star that Queen Ripple showed to her!

With a laugh, Haltmann continues talking. "Absolutely incredible. Indeed. It's truly marvelous! We've analyzed the most advanced civilizations in the known universe. And with that knowledge, we have reactivated this... The Mother Computer... Star Dream."

Sweetie Belle remembers Queen Ripple's warning, and looks at Haltmann with that same look of horror. "And... You used it?"

Haltmann raises an eyebrow at her strange question. "Of course."

Oh, drat... Don't tell me it's Sectonia all over again...

"But..." continues Haltmann, forgetting about Sweetie's question. "Now that you are here... In compliance with the business plan drafted by Star Dream..." He taps his hands again, and a golden armor encrusted with many gems suddenly drops from nowhere behind him, right at the center of the platform. "effective today, you are..." His chair flies inside the cockpit of the armor, and he presses a few buttons, activating it. He then presses the strange device on his head, and weird glasses appear on his eye. "terminated!" he then finishes with a shout and a small laugh.

Sweetie Belle and Kirby immediately prepare themselves.

Violently, Haltmann grabs the ground with the disembodied hands of the armor, and the central part of the platform rises in the air. With those same hands, he then creates four Susie-shaped drones while laughing, before he jumps from the platform at the opposite side from the heroes.

He sends the drones to home in Kirby and Sweetie Belle who are easily able to dodge them, the drones exploding on the floor and creating small areas of electricity that quickly disappear. As Haltmann create more drones, Kirby starts attacking him with the ESP ability, and Sweetie Belle sends her ten swords after him. Seeing the swords approaching, Haltmann creates even more drones, and sends them at the metallic base of the swords, their explosions knocking the swords away, but it leaves him open to some laser beams from the filly.

Creating more drones, a wall made of circuit patterns appear around the central platform, and Haltmann attaches his armor to it, the drones doing the same at the opposite side. He and the drones then starts rapidly spinning around it while also spinning the arms of the armor around him, slowly approaching the ground. Like against Mecha Knight, Kirby quickly runs toward Sweetie Belle and uses the ESP ability to teleport with her and avoid the attack. But when they reappear, the drones suddenly home in at them, and they are both hit by one, Kirby losing his ability. When he recovers, he quickly runs to inhale back the ability while Sweetie returns to fight Haltmann, this time trying to punch him directly.

Haltmann protects himself by placing an arm from the armor in the way, intercepting her punch, then himself tries to punch her in return, only for the filly to use a shield fist to punch the armor away, right in a psychic field from Kirby, where Sweetie continues attacking him with lightning bolts.

Recovering from the assault, Haltmann jumps on the central platform and lowers it back at its place before he starts flying in the air. The next instant, a group of five golden robots appear, the robots looking like bodyguards, and they start attacking the two heroes with their strong fists. They prove to be particularly durable, only Sweetie's strongest attacks being truly effective against them, and while they are busy dealing with the robots, Haltmann starts firing the giant ruby at the bottom of his armor at them, the gems exploding and leaving fire at the impact, a new ruby appearing to replace the previous one each time. When one robot remains, Haltmann then does a signal to him, and the robot starts self-destructing. Sweetie and Kirby quickly run from it to avoid the explosion as Haltmann lands back on the platform.

Then, with an impressive speed, he spin dashes toward Kirby who, again, teleports away. Haltmann then suddenly turns around and spin dashes toward Sweetie Belle who air-jumps to avoid him. However, while she air-jumps, Haltmann also jumps, and with an "Eep!" Sweetie quickly forms a shield to protect herself, but the spinning arms of the armor are able to break it and to slap her away. But as she's slapped, she's still able to leave a little gift: an explosive balls that flies at Haltmann and explodes on his face, causing his mustache and his hair to lose their grooming. Quickly recovering from the explosion, he doesn't take time to groom them again before charging back at Kirby who yet again teleports.

Only, this time, when Haltmann spots where he appears, he sends some drone at him. Kirby teleports another time, but is surprised by Haltmann spin dashing him, ramming him with the strength of a big Nruff, knocking away his ability. Kirby could barely recover before Haltmann charges at him again, and without the ESP ability, he can only do a roll to dodge the attack. As Haltmann passes beside him, he leaves behind him a yellow star that Kirby inhales and spits back at him before he starts running toward his ability, hoping to get it back before it disappears as Haltmann continues charging at him.

But then his armor suddenly gets rammed from the side by Sweetie's Giant Fiery Comet, stopping his charge, which lets Kirby inhales the ESP ability again right before it disappears.

Recovering from the fiery comet, Haltmann suddenly jumps, and crashes at the center of the arena, creating a hole. He flies back up above the newly formed hole, and with a laugh, he fires dozens of drones that bombard the whole area, Sweetie Belle using a shield to protect both herself and Kirby from the rain. But then, Haltmann jumps in front of them, and his arms open, turning into cannons, before he fires from them directly at Sweetie and Kirby... bills. Bills that cover their eyes and break their focus.

"Wha...?!"

Before Sweetie could say more, she his grabbed and slammed on the floor while Kirby is punched, knocking the ESP ability again, and this time, it falls in the hole at the center of the arena, making it impossible for him to recover. Haltmann then jumps above Sweetie Belle, trying to impale her with the ruby, and she quickly rolls to the side, avoiding the ruby, before she gets back up and jumps away, only for Haltmann to jump at her again, forcing her to jump back again.

Only to get more bills on the face from Haltmann before he spin dashes her, sending her above the pit around the platform. She quickly recovers with some air-jumps, and looks as Kirby tries to escape him by running away, only for Haltmann to catch him and ram him, sending him too above the pit. Kirby quickly inflates to avoid the fall, but his eyes widen in fear when he sees Haltmann firing drones at him. Sweetie Belle saves him by destroying the drones with some beams, and she then uses her ten cannons to fire at Haltmann while remaining on a shield above the pit.

To her surprise, however, one of Haltmann's robots from earlier appear, only to directly turn into self-destruct mode. Haltmann then grabs it, and throws it right at Sweetie Belle, followed by some drones. Sweetie quickly flies away from the path of the robot, avoiding its explosion, then destroys the drones, only to get a face full of bills, again! But this time, she doesn't let it gets her, and she creates a shield around herself, saving herself from some more drones.

While inside the shield, Sweetie Belle gets rid of the bills blinding her, then grabs one and looks at it before gasping.

"O-o-o-o-one hundred thousand?! You are firing bills worth one hundred thousand at us, just like that?!"

Haltmann laughs. "A little sacrifice against you. And I have millions of those, so a few dozen destroyed will not change much."

Millions?! This guy is even richer than Celestia!

With Haltmann focused on Sweetie Belle, he doesn't see Kirby jumping on the armor behind him, and he finds himself punched on the back of the head by him, causing his face to slam on the buttons in front of him, getting the armor to move erratically until he moves his face away from the buttons. Sweetie Belle takes this occasion to send lightning bolts at the armor, Kirby jumping away to not be shocked. Despite being electrified, Haltmann is able to send one of the armor's arms to grab Sweetie Belle before she punches her on the face again and again with the other arm. But again, Kirby jumps on the armor and punches the back of Haltmann's head, slamming his head again on the buttons. As the armor is jerking around as a result, Sweetie is able to free herself from the arm, grabs it with her magic, and as Haltmann recovers from the punch, Sweetie Belle throws the arm on his face. While he recovers from this, Sweetie Belle sends a lightning bolt at Kirby, and the puffball inhales it, gaining the Spark ability. He immediately uses it to throw a big ball of electricity at the armor while Sweetie does the same with lightning bolts.

Groaning in rage, Haltmann presses a button, and suddenly, from the hole at the center of the arena, a large square platform appears, and holes appear in it, only leaving the top and bottom face and the edges. Two robots are then conjured at both sides of the arena, and Haltmann flies inside the cube, the holes getting blocked by force fields. The president then starts spinning inside it, and two opposite sides of the cube start glowing as he gives a maniacal laughter. Forgetting about the robots, Kirby and Sweetie quickly run away from the glowing sides of the cube just in time to avoid large beams fired by them, the beams easily destroying the robots. With another maniacal laugh, the two other sides of the cube start glowing, and they again run away from them to avoid the beams. The cube then starts spinning, its four sides starting to glow as Haltmann laughs again, and Sweetie and Kirby make sure to remain in front of the edges of the cube to avoid the beams.

Haltmann exits the cube, only to star floating in front of one of the sides as a purple energy appear inside the cube. The heroes can barely attack him before he fires his armor inside the cube, warping when touching the purple energy and reappearing around the arena. He repeats this a couple of times, but then as he does that a fourth time, instead of teleporting, his armor gets surrounded in energy and he slams on the floor of the arena, creating a tall shockwave that goes all the way to the other side of the arena, taking the heroes in surprise and hitting them, knocking Kirby's ability away. Kirby quickly inhales it back while Sweetie approaches Haltmann and attacks him with lightning bolts as the president starts firing drones by dozens like earlier, bombarding the whole arena.

Kirby surrounds himself in electricity to destroy the drones before they could hit him, and Sweetie uses a shield to protect herself. But Haltmann then jumps at her, and she quickly jumps away before firing a stream of fire, burning the bills that he is then firing at her, along with his armor, which also gets hit by an electric ball from Kirby. Dozens of lightning bolts are then fired at him from Sweetie's cannon, and as Haltmann is about to attack again, his armor suddenly short-circuits. Haltmann looks left and right as electricity appear all over the armor, an expression of horror appearing on his face.

And his armor explodes, expelling his chair, and him with it, right up before it falls back, Haltmann now half unconscious, and the cube disappearing to reform the platform as it was before the start of the fight.

But the man reveals to be really resistant, and recovers from the explosion, more angry than ever as he starts pounding his chair in rage, his face becoming red and shouting, "You ungrateful native! You need to be taught your place! Savages! Savages! Savages! Savages! You're all wild savages!"

"Says the invader!" shouts Sweetie.

"Enough!" yells Haltmann before his chair starts flying toward Star Dream. "Your insolence must be punished! Watch me activate Star Dream, the most powerful machine in existence."

"No wait!" shouts Sweetie. "Don't!"

But Haltmann doesn't listen to her. "And you filthy natives will be..." He jumps in the siege above Star Dream's yellow eye. "eradicated!"

"Stop!"

Again, Haltmann doesn't listen, and after pushing some buttons, and the control device appears above him, slowly floating down as the president is rubbing his hands together in delight.

But then, as he's putting the device on his head, someone suddenly comes from nowhere and snatches the device, this someone revealing to be none other than Susie!

"What?! You! Susie! What did you...?!" screams Haltmann, putting his hands to his head in pain.

Sweetie Belle can only watch in horror at what's happening.

"I... I can't... cont...rol..." are Haltman's last words before he passes out.

Susie looks happily at Haltmann's unconscious body and screams "Yippee! I thought this day would never come!"

"What have you done?!" Sweetie Belle shouts angrily at her.

Susie turns toward her, tilting her head in confusion. "What's the problem? I stopped Haltmann from activating Star Dream, and saved everyone on your world by the same occasion. Why do you look angry?"

Sweetie Belle walks toward her, almost getting muzzle to nose (or where Susie's nose should be if she had one). "The problem is that this machine, Star Dream, must not be used without this device! It's too dangerous! It may even have killed Haltmann!"

Susie looks at her in worry. "What... do you mean?"

"I learned that from Queen Ripple, from Ripple Star. She possesses a book giving some infos about Star Dream, and she explicitly said that it must absolutely not be used without the control device! The book didn't say what it would cause, but there was no doubt that it was very serious when using Star Dream WITH the device caused the user to be corrupted!"

Susie steps back in surprise. "C-corrupted?"

But before more could be said, Star Dream suddenly turns on by itself and starts firing lightning bolts around. Sweetie Belle quickly grabs Susie and she jumps away just before a lightning bolt strikes at where they've been. However, in her surprise, Susie drops the device, and the lightning bolt destroys it.

When Star Dream stops attacking, they all look up as they suddenly hear a "Beep beep boop..." from the siege. Then, before their eyes, Haltmann's body starts moving. "I...this...am...is...infinite... operating...sys... Star Dream..." The body then rises up, revealing his eyes now yellow, and lifeless. "Syntax error... I am...Haltmann...? Overwriting irrelevant error... Please wait..."

"What...?" says Sweetie in worry.

Haltmann looks at his hand expressionless. "Beep boop... A...hem." He now looks at the three of them. "Through... this organic body... I have studied... all forms of life. The goal of this company has always been prosperity. Unfortunately, you imperfect, fragile life-forms were a liability. So you are invited to witness the end of history. A new age shall begin, an age of infinite prosperity. Enjoy your destruction."

At this, Star Dream rises from its socle and flies through a hole in the roof into space.

Susie falls on her knees. "I didn't want this. I... only wanted to give him a lesson, and get him to recover his mind... To remember me..."

Sweetie Belle and Kirby look at her. "What do you mean?"

Susie looks down for a moment before saying "President Haltmann's full name is Max Profitt Haltmann..." She then looks at Sweetie Belle. "My full name is Susanna Patrya Haltmann..." Sweetie Belle and Kirby's eyes become wide. "I am his daughter." She looks back down. "Long ago, we found Star Dream, and started experiments to reactivate it. But in one of those experiments, I was warped to another dimension where I remained trapped for a few years. While in this other dimension, I collected data about some local monsters and found some plans about various robots and other technologies before I was able to use said technologies to open a portal back to this universe. But when I found father, after all this time... he didn't recognize me. Now, he had only two things in mind: the prosperity of the company, and Star Dream. He was treating Star Dream like a god. Everything it said, he would follow, in the goal of reaching prosperity. But he still hired me as his secretary, so I remained at his side, a plan forming in my mind: recover the control device and sell Star Dream. Hopefully, without it, Haltmann would have recovered his mind, stopped idolizing this machine, and finally recognized me.

While being his secretary, I also did some snooping and found out, thanks to some entries in his computer, that he thought that I died in the incident, so he finished Star Dream and wished it to bring me back to life. Of course, it didn't work, since I was still alive. But he persisted and... somehow... he got from wishing to bring me back to life to wishing for eternal prosperity of the company, and the more recent the entries, the more I could see he was becoming obsessed with Star Dream. I didn't understand. What happened to turn him like that?" She looks back at Sweetie Belle. "You said something about corruption?"

Sweetie Belle looks at Susie in sadness, nodding. "This is what Queen Ripple told me about Star Dream. It was corrupted by an ancient powerful being named the Dark God, and in return, Star Dream would corrupt anybody using it." She sighs. "There's no doubt that, as Haltmann tried to use Star Dream again and again to bring you back, Star Dream slowly twisted his mind, made him forget about you, and gave him instead that obsession about prosperity." She clenches her teeth. "And now, Star Dream somehow fused with Haltmann, and will use that wish for eternal prosperity to kill everyone!" She looks at Kirby. "What can we do?"

Kirby rubs his head, not finding any solution. "Poyo..."

Susie looks at the two of them before taking her remote and pressing a button. Two Invader Armors are then brought here. "I'm not sure how, but I am certain they will be helpful."

Sweetie Belle grins. "The Jet Mode!"

"Poyo!"

The two of them climb in the armors, turning them into the Sweetie Bot Armor and the Robobot Armor. But before they could do more, they suddenly spot the Halberd approaching the windows, Meta Knight, back to normal, on it, nodding at them! And then, at the opposite side, they also spot the Warhammer, with Dedede waving at them to come!

Sweetie Belle and Kirby look at each other, grin, nod, and both jump through the windows, Kirby going toward the Halberd while Sweetie goes toward the Warhammer. Kirby then Scans the whole Halberd while Sweetie Fuses with the Warhammer!

Thus, the Robobot turns into a pink and white version of the Halberd with his face at the front and bird wings instead of bat wings! And the Warhammer becomes white with some pink and purple, with Sweetie Bot's face at the front, horn included!

In the cockpit of the Warhammer, at the front, Sweetie Belle has the biggest grin of her life as she starts piloting the battleship, not paying attention to the shouts of astonishment from Dedede and the others inside the ship that she can hear through a speaker. She turns the ship toward the window, Kirby doing the same at his side, and they both make the ships nod at the very amazed Susie, saying to her that they have the matter in hand, before they give chase to Star Dream.

Author's Notes:

Everybody aboard the hype train! Time for an epic space battle!

Chapter 94: Star Dream

The emotional roller coaster has been hard for the ponies since Sweetie Belle and Kirby entered Haltmann's office. Horror at seeing what happened to Meta Knight, excitement, hope, and fear during the fight against Haltmann's armor, also disbelief at the idea of someone firing money to hinder their enemy, especially bills worth 100 000 bits! Horror at seeing what happened to Haltmann after that, at Star Dream's ambition and at hearing Susie's story, quickly followed by great sadness at understanding that Haltmann was innocent, like Sectonia, and that he was just a father who wanted to see his lost daughter again. Sadness that quickly left place to amazement and more excitement when Sweetie and Kirby used their armors to take control of the Warhammer and the Halberd before giving chase to Star Dream.

And now, while some of the ponies still have some tears in their eyes, others can barely remain in place with the idea that they're about to see a space battle between two battleships and a powerful robot.

And also, Sweetie piloting a battleship? As Rainbow Dash is repeating since the Fusion, "This is so awesome!"

To have a better point of view of the future battle, Discord has placed the portal behind the two battleships, which are now side by side, making sure that they can see the both of them. He has also added smaller portals around it showing Sweetie Belle, Kirby, and the most important members of the crews like Dedede, Meta Knight, Bandana Dee, Captain Vul, Cape Knight, and Sailor Waddle Dees.

A link has been formed between the Warhammer and the Halberd, giving both crews the possibilities to communicate between each other.

Once everyone among the crews calms down after the surprise move of the two heroes, Dedede eventually shouts, "You could have at least warned us!"

"Didn't get the occasion," replies Sweetie Belle with a giggle.

"In the end, it seems better this way," says Meta Knight. "The ships seem to have gained more agility."

"And I still can use my powers with the Warhammer! I will be able to fire all kinds of projectiles from both the cannons and the horn! Star Dream will have no chance!"

"Wait..." says Vul before he looks at Kirby through a screen. "You can do that with your armor, right?"

Kirby rubs his head, sweat dropping. "Poyo..."

"He can't unless his armor scans someone that can give him an ability, like he did to the Halberd. And it seems he can only have one ability at once, so since he's already in Halberd Mode, don't expect him to shoot fireballs from the cannons," says Sweetie belle.

Growling, Vul says, "This doesn't mean anything, Dedede! You may have the superior battleship for now, but we have the superior pilot!"

Dedede laughs. "Keep telling yourself that."

"Please, can the two of you calm down? We have a crazy machine to destroy, no time for that silly competition between our two armies," says Cape Knight.

Sweetie nods. "Cape Knight is right. Against Star Dream, we will need to all work together. It is a corrupted prototype of a Clockwork Star, and this means that it possesses powers great enough to be able to grant wishes. And now, with Haltmann's mind fused with it, it gained sapience, and it wants to use its powers to kill everyone for the eternal prosperity of the Haltmann Work Company."

"So this means that we can't lose. Losing would mean the death of everyone on Popstar," says Meta Knight.

"Not only Popstar, but the whole universe, I guess. Star Dream talked about studying many lifeforms in the universe, and judging them as bad. I fear that if we lose, it will target everyone in the universe. And with its powers, it can do it."

"Sweetie's right," says Bandana Dee. "We must work together to avoid that!"

"You heard that guys? Everyone at their posts! Ready the cannons! Time for the Meta Knights to save the universe!" shouts Vul.

"Same for all of you, soldiers! Let's show them the power of Dedede and his army!" shouts Dedede.

"Star Dream in sight!" shouts someone.

"Oh, here we go," says Discord, rubbing his hands in anticipation.

The two battleships catch up to Star Dream as it flies in space above Popstar, the lands and oceans still visible. As they approach behind it, the computer turns around to face them, before it deploys its wings, blue, glass-like shards appearing along them to form feathers. Then, Star Dream spins its wings, and it suddenly starts growing in size until it becomes even bigger than the battleships!

Meanwhile, one by one, the cannons of the Warhammer and of the Halberd face the machine, ready to fire, everybody focusing, not even letting the robot's change of size get to them.

And as Star Dream roars at them, both Dedede and Vul yell "Fire!"

Every cannons of both ships start firing at Star Dream, Sweetie Belle and Kirby also pressing a button to make a powerful frontal cannon fire. Moving around to avoid as much projectiles as possible, Star Dream spins it wings again, and dozens of small portals suddenly appear in a straight line, each from which come many lasers targeting the two battleships.

"Wah! Do a barrel roll!" shouts Sailor Waddle Dee.

"What? Wah!" Doing aileron rolls, Kirby and Sweetie Belle are able to move the battleships away from the barrage of lasers.

Vul slaps the Waddle Dee on the back of the head. "You idiot! We call that an aileron roll! Next time, think before talking, or you will get ourselves killed!"

"But... But the video game, it said..."

"Video games can make errors! Don't take them for granted! Now, focus back on the fight!"

While they talked, Star Dream has continued opening more portals in different patterns, raining lasers on the battleship without stopping moving to evade the projectiles fired at it. Not stopping moving the ships and doing aileron rolls to evade the lasers too, Sweetie Belle and Kirby continue firing at the computer, the filly even adding lightning bolts to the projectiles she fires.

Of course, Star Dream hasn't grown in size just to impress. While it makes it easier to hit it, in return, it has greatly improved its resistance, so despite the many projectiles it has taken, it has barely taken any damage. However, the lightning bolts are very effective, no matter its size.

Star Dream eventually stops opening portals, and instead, it fires a dozen missiles that are the size of the battleships and that home in on them!

"Homing missiles!" shouts Sailor Waddle Dee.

"Quick! Everyone fires at them!" shouts Dedede.

Trusting in their friends, Sweetie Belle and Kirby continue firing at Star Dream while all the other cannons target the missiles. Each missiles are able to resist for a couple of seconds before they are destroyed. Strangely enough, while targeting Star Dream, the cursor on Sweetie's screen also lands on the parts of one of the missiles, and in a flash of light, the parts are absorbed! Looking in wonder at this, Sweetie moves the cursor around, absorbing more missile parts, realising that it causes a gauge to fill beside a big red button with "Planet Buster" written above it. Despite the gauge only being half filled, she still press the red button, and it causes the main cannon she uses to fire giant star projectiles that hit Star Dream strongly.

"What was that?" asks Dedede.

As she avoids more lasers fired by Star Dreams, she answers, "Our new weapon: the Planet Buster. Kirby, do you have a big red button with 'Planet Buster' written above?"

"Poyo!"

Star Dream suddenly opens at least one hundred heart-shaped portals, each of which comes an invader armor that immediately charge at the battleships, and the cannons quickly start firing at them.

"Quick, Kirby! Move your cursor around to absorb the parts of those armors! You will understand from there!"

"Poyo!"

Kirby does as she told, and together, they are able to absorb a great number of parts of the destroyed armor as the space around the battleships is turned into a field of wreckage. The small size of the armor doesn't fill the gauges much, but their number makes up for it. But some of the armors still manage to pass the barrage of projectiles from the cannons to destroy themselves against the battleships like kamikazes, causing some small damage, but not enough to cause any problems.

When the last armor is destroyed, the heart formed by Star Dream's pink lights opens, revealing a cannon firing two dozen heart-shaped... they aren't sure what, but it's certainly bad news, so the cannons immediately target them and are able to destroy a little over half of them before the remaining reach one by one level of the battleships. Almost as soon as a heart reaches it, it suddenly explodes in a straight burst, the burst going in the same direction as the bottom of the heart, and also the opposite. The first one takes them by surprise, but thankfully just grazes one of the Halberd's wings. So, for the following ones, Sweetie Belle and Kirby follow the instructions given by the crewmembers watching the screens and keeping an eye on the hearts, and move the ships to avoid the bursts.

Spinning its wings again, Star Dream opens more heart-shaped portals, invoking more Invaders Armors, and as the armors start charging like kamikazes at the ships, Star Dream opens more portals firing lasers.

In awe at such a display of power, Twilight says "And it does that without effort... This machine even dwarfs Discord in power..."

"Hey! I resent that! But... Yes... I must admit, even I wouldn't be able to open so many portals like that. To think that a single civilization could build dozens of machines like that, and much more powerful."

"Yet... It's just a prototype of one of those Clockwork Stars," says Celestia with a chill crawling her back at the thought of what this civilization could have done if they had decided to be conquerors. They would be masters of... of thousands of universes!

In the space battle, the crews learned one thing: targeting moving armors while the battleships are busy spinning around to avoid lasers is NOT easy. But the wings of the battleships still manage to slap and destroy a lot of them while doing aileron rolls.

And by now, Kirby manages to fill completely the gauge of his Planet Buster, firing full powered star projectiles at Star Dream, damaging it badly, to the point that it's thrown back a little by the blow!

But Star Dream isn't destroyed yet, and comes back more aggressive, its yellow eye turning red!

With a roar, the heart of Star Dream separates into two pieces floating in front of it, conjuring a heart-shaped shield big enough to protect all its body, repelling any projectiles fired at it. However, the heart pieces can still be fired at, so the Warhammer targets the one at the left while the Halberd targets the one at the right. But then, doing some circles with its wings, Star Dream creates half a dozen heart-shaped portals much bigger than the ones from which came the armors earlier, and out of them come giant version of those blue cubes that Sweetie and Kirby collected, those ones now serving as obstacles to protect the heart parts and forcing the battleships to move around to not crash into them. The cubes can be destroyed as they quickly discover, but with their number, they aren't able to destroy all of them in time. At least, the parts of the ones destroyed fill Sweetie's gauge, but she waits for the shield to be destroyed before firing it.

More cubes are invoked, along with more armors attacking them, forcing the cannons to fire at them, making it longer for Sweetie and Kirby to destroy just one cube. But they finally manage to destroy, and absorb, the heart parts, destroying the shield, and Sweetie immediately fires her full powered Planet Buster, damaging Star Dream even more, the computer now having a heart-shaped hole.

Star Dream counters by firing its missiles before forming a circle with its wings in front of itself. While the battleships are busy destroying the missiles, it starts charging energy from the cannon in the hole, and just as the last missile is destroyed, the Warhammer, which is targeted, immediately moves away with an aileron roll, barely avoiding a huge purple laser beam as big as it! Continuing firing the laser, Star Dream makes it move around, following the ship. While firing it, Star Dream moves its wings again, and laser portals open, firing at both ships while Star Dream itself fires missiles again before suddenly changing target and firing its purple laser at the Halberd. Sweetie helps Kirby as much as she can by destroying the missiles charging at him while the crew of the Warhammer deals with the ones targeting their ship, letting Kirby to dodge both the small lasers and the big one. One of the small ones still manages to hit the pink ship but it thankfully doesn't do much damage.

Thanks to the missile parts absorbed, Kirby is able to fire another full powered Planet Buster, and Star Dream seems to start to lose ground, starting to drop toward Popstar before it recovers, starting to spin before charging to ram them itself. Sweetie and Kirby make absolutely sure to avoid it, because being rammed by Star Dream at its current size would mean their immediate end, so they don't hesitate abusing the aileron roll move to quickly move out of the way. All the while, the various cannons of the ships don't stop firing at the computer.

Star Dream eventually stops and rises higher before spreading its wings, opening a huge heart portal. To everyone's horror, out of it comes a whole field of meteors! Not small ones, but giant ones even bigger than the ships! And while the two ships are busy avoiding or destroying those meteors, the computer doesn't stop invoking or firing more things, starting with the heart mines which the ships target immediately, then armors, then missiles, then more heart mines... Thankfully, the meteors destroy many of them, making it easier for the ships, but Star Dream then restarts charging energy while hiding itself behind a group of meteors. Not knowing where it will fires, the two ships wait for the sound of the energy accumulating to stop before they quickly move, the giant purple laser grazing the Warhammer while destroying some of the meteors. As Star Dream moves it after the ships, more meteors are destroyed, and by now, the gauges of the two Planet Busters are full.

When they have an opening among the meteors, Sweetie Belle and Kirby immediately fire their ultimate weapon, and when the two groups of powerful star projectiles hit Star Dream, the computer is thrown back, extremely damaged as it starts falling toward Popstar and starts exploding, the 'feathers' disappearing and the eye turning off.

Everypony cheers at the heroes' victory.

"They did it! They did it!" shouts Pinkie.

"The most powerful computer of the universe was no match against the most powerful heroes of the universe!" shouts Starlight.

They aren't the only ones cheering as everyone in the battleships pretty much already started partying, half of the crews singing in unison "We saved the universe! We saved the universe!"

But the joy doesn't last long, interrupted by something huge rising from below, grazing the Halberd and almost sending it spinning toward the Warhammer. Kirby is barely able to stop the disaster from happening while everyone shouts in confusion.

Then, they identify what is that thing that almost caused this disaster as it moves in front of both ships: Star Dream, now controlling the now legless Access Ark, the computer having planted itself in some socle at the top while the mothership is now surrounded by the 'feathers'!

Everyone looks in pure horror at what they are now facing as Star Dream roars.

"Can... I say the f-word?" asks an Axe Knight.

"Refused," answers Meta Knight, sweating.

"Wait! I have an idea!" shouts Sweetie Belle before she activates her magic as she approaches the Halberd. Then, the Warhammer starts glowing, and it separates into several parts that merge with the other ship, which starts glowing too. While glowing, the ship triple in size, four more wings appear, along with a horn, and many, many cannons.

When the glow disappears, the newly formed ship has a mix of the Robobot Armor's pink and of the Sweetie Bot Armor's white, pink, and purple. The bridge is now castle-like, like the one of the Warhammer, but it is fully metallic, like the one of the Halberd. As for the face, it is now the one of Sweetie Bots, but the left eye is still yellow, the upper-left part of the face pink. The horn is also much longer than the one of the Sweetie Bot Mode Warhammer.

Sweetie Belle and Kirby are now together inside the face, Kirby at the wheel while Sweetie operates the main cannon.

"SHE FUSED THE TWO SHIPS?!" shouts Twilight.

Discord takes off a pair of sunglasses that appeared on his eyes, looking in disbelief at the fused ship. "Mother of Faust..."

"Yes! It worked!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

"Did... Did we fuse again? This time to the Halberd?" shouts Bandana Dee as he looks at the Meta Knights now in the bridge, looking around in amazement.

Dedede guffaws. "She will never cease to amaze me!"

"Okay everyone, enough staring! Time to show Star Dream the power of our new Star Killer! Fire! Fire! Fire!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

Everyone in the ship immediately follows her order and fires at the Access Ark with every cannons, but even with the ship's new size and power the projectiles seem to be vulgar bugbites to the planet-sized mothership.

The Access Ark then spins, and more of those laser portals appear, only, this time, for some reason, the lasers are ring shaped. But now, instead of firing them directly at the ship, he creates patterns with some of them, sweeping areas of space in straight lines, doing closing circles, and so on, trying to trap the heroes and forcing them to maneuver to avoid those traps correctly. Sometimes, the Access Ark teleports around before firing more lasers, and seeing such a huge thing appear and disappear like a mirage is very breathtaking.

But eventually, the hull of the Access Ark starts cracking!

Sweetie Belle grins. "You are seeing that, everyone?! Let's continue! We can win!"

"Yeah!" replies the unified crew, moral raised.

But then, a huge blue shield appears in front of the Access Ark, and a big L appears in it. To their surprise, the L is expelled toward them, slowly spinning counterclockwise. They have no problems avoiding it, but Star Dream almost immediately follows it by firing from the Access Ark HUGE missiles that are easily the same size than the Star Killer. The kind of missiles that could easily destroy a city like Canterlot in one hit!

No need to say that they must absolutely avoid getting hit by them.

The ship is however able to destroy some of them thanks to the teamwork of the crew, the missiles greatly filling the gauge, but their number as the mothership continues firing them quickly becomes too much, and they are forced to move around to dodge them while they continue absorbing them. When the gauge is full, they fire a newly named Star Buster from the horn at the Access Ark, cracking it more.

So it stops firing missiles, and opens a few heart portals from which come out some of the giant green or purple robots that start firing their own missiles while charging at the battleship. While most of the cannons target them, and Kirby moves the ship around, Sweetie restarts firing at the Access Ark as it starts opening more laser portals, then fires half a dozen more missiles, then fires more lasers, dodging them becoming harder as they also have to dodge the charging robots. At least, the robots and missiles that they are able to absorb greatly refill the gauge, and another Star Buster is fired. By now, half of the hull facing the Star Killer is cracked.

Another blue shield appears, this time expelling a A, much harder to dodge because of its size, but Kirby is able to get the Star Killer through the hole of the letter. Meanwhile, Star Dream teleports around while starting to fire lasers directly from the feathers, and because of the ship passing the hole of the A, it can't move much to avoid them. So Sweetie Belle quickly creates a shield, but it is rapidly broken, and the front of the ship gets hit by a few lasers before Kirby is able to more it away with an aileron roll.

But then, while continuing firing, Star Dream starts to use the four superior feathers to send energy lasers that separate into more energy lasers before they fuse back into four energy ball that explode, the lasers following the Star Killer up and down before stopping when the balls are created. Of course, Kirby is able to move away from the balls, but Star Dream quickly creates new ones while continuing to fire the normal lasers from the other feathers. The second wave of energy balls is only composed of three balls, but they are much bigger, their explosions almost reaching the Star Killer. The last wave as only two balls, but they are so big that Kirby only avoid their explosions thanks to a quick aileron roll.

Seeing that the attack hasn't worked, Star Dream then creates another blue shield before expelling an H which is easily avoided. Then, in some flashes of light, it regrows four of the Access Ark's legs, making everyone gulp. The feet of those legs are like mountains. If Star Dream attacks the Star Killer with them...

And here they come. Star Dream starts spinning the Access Ark, giving big swipes with the legs, trying to use them to slap the battleship. The downside with this attack is that because of the Access Ark's size, they are easy to see coming, and it gives enough time for the Star Killer to move away with a few aileron rolls. When swiping doesn't work, Star Dream then does some thrusting, but for the same reason, the Star Killer still avoids them. So Star Dream eventually decides to give up on the legs, detaching them from the Access Ark. But in a last attempt to get the battleship with them, the legs try to ram into the ship as they fly away into space.

As Kirby tries his best to avoid the flying legs, Star Dream then restarts firing lasers from portals and the feathers before firing missiles and invoking the green or purple giant robots.

With the Star Killer still resisting, Star Dream then does a last ditch attack: it charges at the battleship! Everyone looks in horror when they see the planet sized mothership approaching them, impossible to dodge in time. But Sweetie, seeing that the gauge is now full, even a little overcharged, presses the red button and fires the Star Buster.

In a big explosion, the giant projectiles hit the Access Ark and manage to break its crackled hull while pushing it back as a result. Sweetie Belle then quickly creates a shield to protect the ship from the debris of the hull.

But when the Star Killer passes the field of debris, they see that the Access Ark has disappeared.

And then, it reappears in front of the Star Killer, and everyone's eyes immediately widen.

The destruction of the hull has revealed... a face. And everyone in the battleship recognizes what is this face, to what it belongs.

Above a cat-like mouth, two giant eyes slowly open, the Star Killer reflecting on them, before they flash, the face gaining life.

Then it teleports further, better showing its true nature to everyone.

And with horror, Meta Knight says what everyone is thinking. "A clockwork star..."

"MEOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWW!!!!!"

With this meow, the Access Ark distorts the space around them, creating a huge prismatic space tunnel, and trapping them inside it.

"THIS is a clockwork star?!" shouts Luna almost breathlessly.

"It just... distorted space... as if it was nothing..." says Celestia.

"It's bad... Very bad..." says Discord, one of the rare times in his life where he is genuinely scared.

"T-that meow... I never thought I would be scared of a meow..." says Fluttershy.

"Can I say the f-word?" asks again the same Axe Knight as earlier.

This time, Meta Knight doesn't even answer.

"E-everyone! We must attack! Now!" shouts Sweetie Belle, sweating.

As every cannons of the Star Killer start firing, the Access Ark opens its mouth and starts inhaling.

"Seriously?" shouts Vul. "All engines! Reverse power!"

The crewmembers managing the engines immediately do as told and reverse the power as much as possible to make the ship resist the pull of the inhaling, Kirby also pulling the wheel to the left to try to get out of the vortex. Thankfully, Star Dream stops after a few seconds, but immediately follows it by firing two huge lasers from the eyes, moving them right toward the ship that starts maneuvering to avoid them, spamming the aileron rolls. Then, once Star Dream stops firing the eye lasers, it opens its mouth and fires another huge laser from it. After this laser, the eyes of the Access Ark do a roll before it teleports away as a huge heart-shaped portal appears at the extremity of the tunnel. Out of it comes hundreds of meteors that are either avoided or destroyed and absorbed. But then, as the meteors stop coming, Star Dream reappears, does another roll with the eyes, and disappears again as the heart portal grows in size.

And out of it comes a planet-sized meteor. Or... a real planet.

"A whole bucking planet?!" shouts Rainbow Dash.

"How can they avoid that?! It's as big as the tunnel!" shouts Starlight.

"Oh no... Oh no..." repeats Apple Bloom in worry.

But then, Sweetie Belle slams her hoof on the red button of the Star Buster, and the horn is able to destroy the planet, reducing it into a field of debris that the other cannons are able to destroy too, reducing them into sizes that the Star Killer is able to absorb.

Then, Star Dream reappears, and the eyes flash before a yellow shield like the blue ones earlier appears. A big yellow 5 then appears in it, which separates into five 5 before they are expelled at the battleship.

"Five?" asks Sailor Waddle Dee.

Again, Meta Knight's eyes grow wide in horror. "It's a countdown... A countdown for a wish..."

Dedede gets the same expression. "The wish to exterminate all lifeforms in the universe."

"WE MUST DESTROY THAT THING IMMEDIATELY!" shouts Sweetie Belle. "EVERYONE! FIRE AT WILL!"

The ship unleashes its full offensive power at the clockwork star, but Kirby quickly looks at Sweetie in confusion when she doesn't fire the Star Buster. "Poyo?"

"Not now. I intend to overcharge the Star Buster to deal a maximum of damage. It's risky, but it may be our best chance."

He nods before he looks back at Star Dream as the clockwork star finishes spinning its head. It then teleports away, and two heart portals appear above the Star Killer...

And of all things, a giant weather vane and a grandfather clock pendulum come out of them, the weather vane floating around while the pendulum starts moving like... well, like a pendulum.

Everyone can't help but say "What?" at this.

Suddenly, the whole universe around the Star Killer accelerates. Unless this is the Star Killer that is slowed down? Anyway, this reveals to be very bad news when the weather vane suddenly starts firing giant arrows at the Star Killer.

The cannons of the battleship start firing at the two giant objects, Sweetie's main cannon firing at the weather vane with explosive projectile, while Kirby does his best to dodge the arrows despite being slowed down, the arrows grazing the ship and actually managing to destroy one of the cannons. The weather vane is however quickly destroyed, soon followed by the pendulum just as it started to disappear. Sweetie Belle then absorbs them.

Star Dream reappears and creates another yellow shield with four 4. Then, once they are expelled, it does another spin with the clockwork star's head before disappearing, two new heart portal appearing. Out of them come a drafting compass and a globe. The globe immediately starts spinning, and the whole universe starts spinning around the Star Killer while the compass starts firing ring lasers randomly, their randomness making them more dangerous with everything spinning. So Sweetie quickly helps Kirby by forming a shield before attacking the globe, wanting to stop the spinning, but it's not easy to target it because of it. She's still able to destroy the globe, stopping the universe from spinning, before she absorbs its parts and helps the others finish the compass, which she absorbs too.

"Wait a minute," says Sweetie Belle as Star Dream reappears and repeats its actions, expelling three 3. "A weather vane, a pendulum, a globe, and a compass..." She looks at Kirby. "Those were objects that were on Nova. You remember?"

Kirby nods.

"It... is using parts of Nova to attack us?" asks Dedede.

"As if its powers weren't enough, it's using the power of another clockwork star to attack," says Vul.

"It is probably already using most of its power to grant the wish," says Meta Knight.

When Star Dream disappears again, barely damaged by all the projectiles it has taken until now, three portals appear this time, one from which comes a lightbulb while two atomic tubes come from the others, slowly floating toward the Star Killer. The cannons manage however to destroy the lightbulb and one of the tubes before the last tube is able to reach the level of the Star Killer, the ship quickly flying away from it. It then explodes into a huge explosion that almost gets the Star Killer, the blast still sending it spinning a little before Kirby is able to recover.

By now, the ship is starting to heat because of the Star Buster overheating.

"Now would be a good time to fire," says Bandana Dee in worry.

"Not yet..." says Sweetie.

Star Dream reappears and throws two 2. Only, this time, instead of simply moving forward until they disappear, the two 2 assemble, and as they reach the Star Killer's level, they start spinning counterclockwise, but Kirby masterfully dodges it.

When Star Dream disappears, this time, a single portal opens, with a few giant piano keys coming out of it, making piano sounds when they are hit by the cannons' projectiles as they fly in a circle in front of the Star Killer for a couple of seconds, and they manage to destroy half of them. But then, they advance at the level of the Star Killer while still flying in circles, threatening to ram the ship which is forced to do circles too to avoid them. After a time, the notes return flying in front of the ship before they come back for another round. The cannons manage to destroy all of them as they start.

"Now?" asks Bandana Dee.

"Not yet."

After they avoid the 1 spinning like the two 2, but changing direction in the middle of the spinning, Star Dream invokes this time a pocket watch and a telescope. The pocket watch quickly starts opening and closing like a mouth while the telescope fires a huge laser beam, doing circles with the laser. The pocket watch eventually charges at the Star Killer to try to bite it, and Kirby avoids it with an aileron roll while the cannons targets it in priority, the object being the most dangerous. With the pocket watch quickly destroyed before it could try to bite them again, they quickly target and destroy the telescope.

As Sweetie absorbs the parts of the destroyed telescope, the ship now burning, she yells "NOW!!!" before slamming the red button. Instead of firing star projectiles, the horn then fires a laser at least ten times bigger than the Star Killer right as Star Dream reappears. Its eyes widen at seeing the laser approaching, but it can't do anything before it is hit right between the eyes. The laser is so powerful that it outright pierces the mothership from front to back, leaving a huge hole as the clockwork star starts exploding, and the space tunnel is destroyed.

With a distorted "MEOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!!" of agony, the clockwork star starts dropping, closing its eyes.

Only for the explosions to stop, its eyes to open, and for a yellow shield with a big "GO" to appear!

"NO!!!" shouts everyone in horror, seeing their doom coming.

But then, the clockwork star starts spasming, and the "GO" is replaced by a huge, red "FATAL ERROR".

The shield then disappears, and the clockwork star's mouth opens. A smaller shield appear above it, with another "GO" appearing along with an arrow pointing at the mouth.

By now, the Star Killer is suffering the consequence of that laser attack, alarms blaring as the engines stop working and some parts of the ship explode. But despite this, everyone looks at what's happening with Star Dream in wonder.

"Can someone explain to me what's going on? Why would Star Dream ask someone to enter its mouth?" asks Dedede.

The "GO" disappears to let place to a drawing showing an arrow entering the mouth, traversing some conduit, and entering a room with a heart. When the arrow reaches the heart, the heart breaks in two.

Sweetie Belle gasps. "The heart! Of course! Like with Nova! But... Wait... Why would Star..." She gasps again. "Haltmann! It must be him! He's still in there!"

"He's stopping Star Dream from granting its wish and is gaining us time. I don't know how long he will be able to retain Star Dream, you two should hurry," says Meta Knight.

Sweetie Belle and Kirby look at each other and nod. Then, Sweetie Belle defuse the Warhammer and the Halberd before defusing the Sweetie Bot from the Warhammer. At the same time, Meta Knight plants his sword in some sort of hole in the back of the Halberd like a lever to eject the Robobot Armor. Before Sweetie and Kirby could start using the reactors of the armors to advance toward the mouth of the clockwork star, Meta Knight then flies toward Sweetie Belle and gives her some device.

"With this, I will be able to communicate with you and inform you if the situation evolves out there."

Sweetie Belle puts the device in her ear. "Thank you." She turns to Kirby and nods to indicate that she's ready.

And they both propel themselves toward the mouth with the reactors of the armors, entering it.

The path to the heart is even more straightforward than the one they took within Nova. Well, with Nova, they didn't enter by the mouth, but by a hole above the eye, so it would explain that. But here, it is mainly a giant tube leading them straight to their destination, and nothing even tries to stop them, not even those drones they fought inside Nova.

But then, as they reach the end of the tube, entering an area plunged in darkness, a red ring-shaped shockwave comes out of nowhere and slams the armors, causing Sweetie Belle and Kirby to be expelled out of them by the shock.

They land on something that they can't see when, suddenly, a yellow scan appears around the two of them, and when they look at its origin, they can see it, somehow, in the darkness.

Some sort of heart-shaped artificial purple crystal, surrounded by a shell formed of metallic plaques.

The Heart.

Then the darkness disappears, revealing that they are in a spherical room with a shield at the 'equator', and that they are now on a circular platform similar to the one on which they fought Haltmann.

A column-shaped forcefield then appears around the heart, and three familiar pillars, almost like the ones in Nova, appear on the platform, starting to circle the Heart while the vulnerable parts, red or blue crystals, start floating up and down. To make things more complicated for the heroes, the top and bottom parts of the pillar surround themselves in a red forcefield that screams "DANGER!" and small heart portals appear to drop some creatures to protect them.

Without a word, Sweetie Belle and Kirby run in opposite directions to attack two different pillars, and Sweetie is the first to destroy one with a few projectiles.

"Huuoooooo!"

The instant the first pillar is destroyed, a familiar voice screams in pain from it, and Sweetie Belle's eyes widen in horror.

Then, when Kirby destroys his own pillar with a ball of electricity, also eliminating a Galbo on the way...

"Huuoooooo!"

The voice screams again from it.

Haltmann's voice.

"What? But... B-b-but... How..." Then she understands, and she looks at the Heart in rage.

Star Dream understands that the Haltmann part of it, the man's soul it absorbed, is what's stopping it from granting the wish to destroy all lifeforms in the universe. So, knowing that Sweetie and Kirby must destroy those pillars to attack the Heart, it transferred Haltmann's data into the pillars.

This way, they will destroy the pillars, but also destroy Haltmann's soul, and Star Dream will be free to do what it wants.

It is using them to end the existence of an innocent man so it could continue its plan.

That...

That...

Kirby destroys the third pillar with another electric ball.

"Huuoooooo!"

Sweetie Belle shakes her head to focus back on the fight as four more pillars appear, this time, one of them containing a group of three yellow crystals.

This is disgusting, but Star Dream is leaving them with no choice. If they want to destroy it, they must first destroy the pillars, and so, Haltmann's soul. Stopping thinking about the poor man (or trying), Sweetie Belle fires at the pillars as they start moving with sudden movements, advancing rapidly, stopping, in groups or alone, a Bong resounding each time that they stop. Sometimes, the pillars get so close to each other that they barely leave any space for Kirby and Sweetie to not touch the red force fields, so they are forced to move around them, jump above the pit around the platform, or jump through one of the pillars, under or above the crystal.

But despite this, the pillars are quickly destroyed one by one, even if the one with the yellow crystals is resisting a little longer.

"Huuoooooo!"

"Huuoooooo!"

"Huuoooooo!"

"Huuoooooo!"

Each time that Sweetie hears this scream, she grits her teeth, tears soon starting to form in her eyes.

That machine...

She WILL destroy it.

Six new pillars appear, one of them possessing now a green crystal really resistant. With their number, avoiding them becomes really tricky, and Sweetie finds herself rammed from behind as she fires at the green crystal. Kirby also almost loses the Spark ability because of this.

But the first pillar is quickly destroyed. "Huuoooooo!"

Then a second one. "Huuoooooo!"

Then a third one. "Huuoooooo!"

Sweetie's ears press themselves against her head, trying to stop hearing that awful scream. That scream that is slowly, very slowly, becoming more and more silent.

"Huuoooooo!"

"Huuoooooo!"

Just one remaining...

And it will be over.

"Huuoooooo!"

This last scream is so distant, she can barely hear it.

The force field disappears.

And the Heart turns toward them before 'roaring'.

«Sweetie Belle! Star Dream stopped spasming! And it just restarted its countdown!» shouts Meta Knight through the device in Sweetie's ear.

Sweetie Belle starts growling, her mane turning on fire as she looks at the Heart with pure anger and hate. Never before had she felt those emotions that strongly, not even when Marx and Magolor betrayed her. Yes, she did hate them for it, but that... thing... It...

It not only corrupted an innocent man who was just a father who wanted to see his daughter again, it now used Sweetie Belle and Kirby, and forced them to destroy the soul of this very man, which was the only thing stopping it from exterminating everyone.

And the worst part is that Star Dream, contrary to Marx and Magolor, never acted as a friend. It was an enemy, from the start, and yet, it was able to use them to get what it wanted. It purposely put the data of Haltmann's soul in those pillars knowing that Kirby and Sweetie Belle would have no choice but to destroy them. It was able to use their heroism to force them to kill an innocent! Even Marx and Magolor didn't force them to kill someone innocent!

That machine of Tartarus...

It is the worst...

The worst...

SHE. WILL. DESTROY IT!

The Heart fires two pink lasers in front of it, Sweetie and Kirby side jumping to avoid them, only to jump again as the lasers sweep the whole platform around the heart below them, turning the floor pink. Then, to their surprise, huge shockwaves come from the pink floor, throwing the two heroes toward the ceiling before they crash back on the floor.

The heart then immediately teleports at the edge of the platforms before shooting those drones that defended Nova at them. Sweetie Belle quickly puts two shields to protect both her and Kirby as the puffball runs to inhale back the Spark ability. But as the drones explode upon impact, the shields doesn't resist long, and while Kirby is able to protect himself thanks to a field of electricity surrounding him, Sweetie Belle is hit, and thrown backward by one of the drones exploding on her.

Before she can recover, the Heart rams her, sending her above the pit, and Sweetie quickly wraps her whip around the Heart before pulling, using it to return on the platform while also giving it a shock. But as Kirby throws an electric ball at the Heart, it starts teleporting continuously all around the platform.

It then appears beside Sweetie only to disappear and reappear beside Kirby. But the Heart immediately teleports again beside Sweetie Belle who quickly fires at it, only for it to teleport again behind her. But it was again a trick as it teleports yet again, appearing beside Kirby and immediately firing cutter blades that reminds of Marx' attack. Taken by surprise, Kirby is cut by one of the blades, and he finds himself again having to run after the Spark ability. The Heart then teleports beside Sweetie Belle and fires more cutter blades that she avoids by rolling away before using her cannons to fire at it. But it teleports another time before she could hit it, and it hits Kirby again with more cutter blades just as the puffball had gulped back the ability.

And almost immediately, barely letting time for Kirby to recover again his ability, the Heart separates into two parts, one pink and one blue, and the two parts dash across the platform, the heroes barely jumping above them before the two parts collide just beside Sweetie Belle and create a huge explosion that takes her by surprise and throws her above the pit again. As the Heart does the attack a second time, and then a third time, Kirby avoiding them, Sweetie Belle quickly creates a shield to land and recover from the Heart's relentless attacks.

She who thought that it would be a piece of cake to destroy it, like the Heart of Nova...

Her mane is still on fire, not having calmed enough for it to return to normal yet, and it won't anytime soon. Not as long as Star Dream isn't destroyed.

«Star Dream got out the 4!» she hears Meta Knight shouting.

She wants it gone, forever.

"Heartless!
You don't care what we're feeling!
Because you don't have feelings!
So for your goals you don't have any remorse doing the worst things!"

With her power boosted by her Soul Song, she propels herself toward the Heart, charging at it head first like a rocket as it appears to fire mode drones at both her and Kirby. Her headbutt is so strong that the Heart is thrown backward, its move interrupted. Kirby takes the occasion to fire an electric ball at it, Sweetie moving away to not be electrified.

"Soulless!
For you, moral means nothing!
You are just calculating!
And we are just numbers in all your scheming!"

The Heart does its thing with the two lasers again, and Sweetie Belle quickly levitates Kirby on her back -getting the Spark ability by the way- before using a shield to fly above the pit and avoid the pink shockwaves. She then fires a powerful lightning bolt at the Heart, its power boosted by the ten cannons also firing smaller lightning bolts that merge with it, before she throws Kirby at the Heart, the puffball surrounding himself with a field of electricity, not only headbutting the heart, but also shocking it again.

Sweetie air-jumps a few meters above the Heart, preparing a punch as Kirby moves away. Once Kirby is far enough, she charges down at the Heart and crashes hoof first on it like a meteor, slamming it on the floor at the center of the platform.

The Heart immediately fires a laser at her, expelling her from it in the air where she recovers and lands on another shield as the Heart restarts teleporting around the platform, firing a drone each time that it reappears before disappearing again.

«Quick! The 3 just came out!»

Sweetie Belle floats down above the center of the platform and charges an Ultimate Doom Laser.

"Destroy."

As she fires the laser, she starts spinning, trying to catch the teleporting Heart in it, also destroying the drones it fires.

"Massacre."

The laser hits its mark, stopping the Heart from teleporting and damaging it heavily.

"Blackout."

As soon as the Heart is stopped, Kirby throws an electric ball, and Sweetie Belle punches it with a fist shield.

"Ending."

The Heart teleports behind Sweetie Belle and rams her, throwing her of her shield. The Heart then disappears and reappears in her path in the air to ram her again. But Sweetie Belle is able to surround herself in a shield and charges herself into the Heart, causing the two of them to clash.

"Of your program, this is the only true purpose"

Her ten cannons start firing at the Heart while they clash, and it decides to teleport away, appearing above Kirby before suddenly dropping on him to crush him. Kirby rolls away, only to be rammed as the Heart then does its attack where it separates in two.

«It just did the 2!»

"And innocent people suffered because of it."

While Kirby inhales back the Spark, Sweetie Belle waits for the two parts to collide, create the explosion, and separate again before attacking. She places herself behind the pink part of the Heart and quickly gives a shield punch to it, sending it slamming right into the blue part. While it causes the explosion, thankfully not hitting anyone, it also sends the two parts flying out of control as a result, and Sweetie Belle fires at them with her horn and her ten cannons, even gathering energy around her to fire additional beams of energy.

"So we stand in front of you to fight this purpose"

The Heart reappears above the center of the platform and starts rapidly spinning while continuously firing a laser, making it slowly move up and down. Carefully, Sweetie Belle and Kirby move to avoid the laser while attacking the Heart.

"And you just used us to murder an innocent man so you could continue it!

So I promise that we will destroy you right now!"

The Heart does a last spin as the laser sweep the floor, creating the pink shockwaves, and Sweetie does like before and levitates Kirby on her back before jumping above the pit.

"Nothing will remain of you as you're massacred now!"

The Heart teleports above Sweetie and separates before the two pieces close on her and Sweetie, only for the filly to electric shield punch the two of them simultaneously, propelling them backward at opposite directions. She then flies after the blue part of the heart, surrounding herself and Kirby in an electrified shield before ramming it.

"Poyo!"

Hearing Kirby's scream, Sweetie Belle immediately moves to the right as the pink part of the Heart collides with the blue one, but she's not able to move far enough to avoid the explosion, and they're both sent back on the platform where they quickly get back up, Kirby running after the Spark ability.

«I don't know what's going on in there, Sweetie Belle, but it's almost done! It finished the 1!»

«Please! Hurry! I don't wanna die!» shouts Vul.

Sweetie Belle grits her teeth.

"Very soon, as we fight, your black out is coming!"

The Heart reappears at the center of the arena and starts spinning again, shooting this time drones randomly all over the platform and beyond. But Sweetie surrounds herself in a shield again before charging through the drones and ramming the Heart again, and she quickly follows this by various other attacks as she starts charging another Ultimate Doom Laser. A slash with an ice axe, a shield uppercut, Dark Matter lightning, shield hammer, explosive ball, ice sword, water spikes, ice spear, ice sword, shield crush, shield slam, lightning spear, fire axe, energy beam, ice sword and fire sword cross slash, ice shard, shield punch, and finally, a double shield uppercut that sends the Heart flying.

"And you couldn't even calculate that against us your own ending was coming!"

Sweetie Belle fires the Ultimate Doom Laser, along with a couple dozen laser beams that she has charged at the same time all around her, all of them hitting the Heart that is pushed against the ceiling of the room as a result, the heart-shaped crystal in it starting to act weirdly.

The Heart then teleports above the center of the arena as the room turns red.

Then, like a real heart, it starts pulsing, each pulse forming a red energy that circle it. Sweetie Belle joins Kirby as the two of them look, wondering what's coming now.

And suddenly, a red ring-shaped shockwave is expelled from the top of the Heart, the shockwave passing too high above the heroes. A second one then comes a little lower, coming right above their heads. Finally, two more shockwaves come from the bottom and the top at the same time, forcing the two to control their jump to jump above the bottom one while not getting too high to not be rammed by the top one.

And finally.

Finally.

The Heart starts short-circuiting. As it starts spinning erratically, Sweetie Bot and Robobot land on the arena right behind Sweetie Belle and Kirby, a little damaged by the shockwave from earlier, but still operational. Not wondering how they could come back by themselves, the two heroes climb inside the cockpits as the room starts flashing.

At this instant, the heart-shaped crystal breaks in two, and the metallic plaques around it are expelled all around it.

"HuuuUUUUUUuuoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!"

With a last, heavily distorted scream that has nothing to do with Haltmann anymore and that gives a chill to anyone hearing it (and a lot of work for Luna tonight), the Heart crumbles, releasing an astronomical quantity of energy.

Rapidly, the armors take off from the platform as everything around starts shaking. They quickly exit the room, the force field blocking the exit having disappeared, and traverse again the tube that they used to enter as they hear a huge explosion behind them. Now followed by a blast, the armors fly as fast as they can to not be caught by it, the blast slowly gaining on them.

They reach the mouth, and exit the Access Ark just before the blast reaches them, the clockwork star coughing the explosion.

Not finished with Star Dream yet, the two armors start to fly toward the top of the clockwork star, toward the computer itself, flying left and right to avoid the explosions that come out of the exploding mothership.

They eventually reach Star Dream, but continue flying up while avoiding the lasers that it fires from the feathers. Once they are high enough, Kirby nods at Sweetie Belle, and the filly uses the Fusion Capacity to fuse Sweetie Bot with Robobot, creating an armor about three times bigger looking like the face of the Star Killer with Sweetie as the pilot.

Pressing a button, she then turns the right arm into screwdriver mode, then presses another button to make it grow bigger until it is at least four times bigger than the fused armor.

Since Star Dream looks like a screw, this will be a fitting end!

Sweetie Belle gives a smirk, which is very scary with her mane still on fire and her eyes glowing with excess of energy.

"Screw you, Star Dream!"

And she charges at the computer, who quickly puts a dozen heart-shaped shields between itself and the approaching armor.

The screwdriver passes through them like through butter.

When it reaches Star Dream, the machine doesn't even resist one second before it disappears inside the Access Ark, the armor drilling from the top of the mothership, through Haltmann's office, the areas the heroes traversed, what remains of the chamber of the Heart, to the bottom.

The Access Ark, already heavily damaged by the explosions and the earlier battle, cracks, and finally, explodes, yelling a final, agonising "MEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW"

But nobody cheers, because the explosion is so huge that the blast catches the fused armor and propels it in the distance with pieces of the mothership, Sweetie Belle and Kirby losing consciousness as the armors defuse.

But at least, they still seem to be alive, and everypony breathes a sigh of relief.

And then, to their surprise, as the armors float in space among the debris, they grab their pilotes and send them toward the battleships trying to catch them before the two of them grab each other's hand, slowly floating away to who knows where, together.

Thanks to the action of the armors, the crews of the battleships are able to reach the unconscious heroes and to bring them aboard before returning to Popstar.

And again, everypony sighs in relief, while also saddened at the fate of the armors now lost in space.

As the battleships return in Popstar, they can see that all influence of the HWC has disappeared, all trace of mechanization gone.

"Told you!" shouts Pinkie.

Twilight just groans in answer.

Kirby quickly wakes up aboard the Warhammer, looking around in joy as he sees that Popstar is back to normal. Sweetie Belle, however, doesn't seem ready to wake up anytime soon. Nopony can blame her. The girl fought an army, copies or wannabes versions of many of her old enemies, and a machine controlling another, planet-sized machine that could distort space and time. She needs her rest, especially after using this Ultimate Doom Laser so many times.

A planet-sized machine that could distort space and time... The ponies still have chills thinking about this thing. Its powers were beyond everything they know, and it almost eradicated all lifeforms in a whole universe. Decillions of lives, gone in one instant.

And Sweetie Belle, with the help of all those friends she made, destroyed it, but it was still a close call. If that wasn't for Haltmann...

What will this be when the time comes to fight the Dark God?

"Well, I'm gonna prepare a 'Sweetie Belle saved everyone in the Dream Universe' party!" shouts Pinkie before bouncing away.

Good old Pinkie Pie, trying to make everypony feel better after THAT. And they will not complain.

And such a victory deserves to be celebrated.

Author's Notes:

You could say by the end of the song that Sweetie Belle really wished to destroy Star Dream. At least one wish that Star Dream was able to grant.

Chapter 95: One Year

Sweetie Belle wakes up in a chamber that is not hers, obviously because it has been destroyed by those lasers at the beginning of the invasion, along with the throne room, Dedede's room, the room with the ring, the treasury, and many others. Thankfully, she quickly discovers that her plushies have survived the destruction. Unless they were destroyed and the guys created new ones to replace them. However, no trace of the letters. Hopefully, Dissy was able to save them, or at least, he can use his magic to remake them.

The chamber she's now in must be the one of one of the servants. Better that than nothing. But now, she wonders where that servant slept. With half the castle destroyed, many are now lacking rooms, including her and Dedede, so... what? Will they share rooms? Will they ask members of the army living outside to shelter them? Will they ask the Meta Knights for some rooms? No, scratch that last one, nobody in the army would go ask them for shelter.

After eating a Maxim Tomato that has been left on the nightstand for her to heal, she exits the room and immediately finds an answer to her question: tents are now placed everywhere in the hallways. Curiously more than the number of rooms destroyed after some exploration. And looking through the windows, she can see more tents surrounding the castle outside. And everywhere, members of Dedede's army are working to rebuild the castle, the strongest and/or biggest ones (including Spikezilla and some creatures made of yarn) moving back and forth transporting heavy charges, smaller ones repair what could be repaired or building new stuff.

Seems like the totality of the army has come to repair the castle, and at least half of them have decided to camp here.

When Spikezilla spots her, he immediately drops his charge before running at her and giving her a bone crushing hug.

"S-Spiky... You're crushing me..." The doll dragon releases her with a sheepish smile, and Sweetie Belle laughs, patting him. "Me too, I'm glad to see you again. Do you know where’s Dedede?" Spikezilla nods. "Can you lead me to him?" With another nod, the dragon starts walking, the filly following him.

On the way, she spots through a window Yin and Yarn, still as the Yin-Yarn Wizard, helping to lift stuff up the walls with their yarn power, using yarn like rope. Cape Knight, who waves at her when he spotted her, is overseeing the workers, giving instructions, and not long after, she also spots Broom Sunglasses walking down the hallway with a box of nails. When he passes beside her, he stops and places on her eyes new sunglasses exactly like the ones she took from Spinni.

"The old ones are destroyed, so here's a new pair," he says before continuing.

"Uh. Thank you," replies Sweetie Belle, keeping the glasses on her eyes because she has nowhere else to put them.

They soon reach the rampart of the castle, exactly where she has been playing chess with Dedede when the HWC invaded. Now, it has been cleared of all the rubble, and like everywhere else, there are a few tents here and there. Among them is a really big blue and red tent with Dedede's symbol clearly more luxurious than the others, with windows and even a chimney.

Sweetie Belle doesn't know if she should be surprised that Dedede decided to live in a tent while waiting for his room to be repaired, or not at seeing the luxury of the tent compared to the others.

She also spots Bandana Dee eating a sandwich with a few other members of the army not far.

She looks at Spikezilla. "Thank you. You should return to work."

He nods and returns in the castle while Sweetie opens the tent calling Dedede, and spots the penguin sleeping on a throne-like chair beside the chimney.

However, at hearing her call, Dedede opens an eye, and after a yawn, says "Oh, Sweetie, you're awake."

"Hello Dedede. I see that the castle's already well on its way to be repaired. How long have I slept?"

"A whole day. Frankly, after yesterday's events, I thought that you would have slept at least one more day. Why are you wearing sunglasses?"

"Oh, Broom Sunglasses gave them to me on my way here." Saying this, she places the glasses on a table where she spots her crown.

"You must be hungry. Let me call some food for you." Dedede then takes his communication device. "Thanks the stars that the kitchens haven't taken too much damage." Pressing a button, he says through it "Sweetie Belle's awake. Bring something for her. Don't forget the Maxim Tomato pie."

Sweetie Belle sighs. "Just make sure they don't bring a whole buffet."

Dedede chuckles. "After what you did yesterday, you deserve more than just one buffet. But don't worry, they know not to bring much. With the majority of the army working to rebuild the castle, the cooks are working almost without stopping, and there isn't much food to spare. Even I am forced to not eat as much as I usually do. Hopefully, the pie should be enough as a reward until the celebration. Which, of course, is reported. Now, you should come and sit while we wait. I'm sure that you want to ask about what happened since your battle with Star Dream."

"I can already see that everything came back to normal," comments Sweetie Belle as she sits on another chair beside a bigger, round table.

"Yeah. It seems that Star Dream was at the origin of that whole mechanization technology. Almost as soon as it was destroyed, all the technostuff disappeared. Even the inhabitants that were turned into robots or cyborgs are back to normal." He frowns. "But the marks left by this giant ship when it landed are still here, as well as the damage caused as it crashed when the last foot was destroyed by Kirby."

Sweetie Belle nods. "So, what else?"

"Not much, actually. Kirby returned to his home, the Meta Knights have returned to their HQ with the Halberd, the inhabitants of Floralia are alright if you're wondering--you can thank Taranza, Adeleine, Elline, and Claycia for that--and that's all, pretty much."

"What about Susie, what happened to her?"

Dedede smirks. "She's alright. You'll see her soon enough."

"And Sweetie Bot? Where is she?"

Dedede loses his smirk, and starts rubbing the back of his head with a sigh. "When Star Dream exploded, the explosion propelled you and Kirby into space, your speed too fast for the Halberd and the Warhammer to catch you. But then, the armors, both yours and Kirby's, grabbed the two of you and threw you back toward us, saving you. As we talk, the two of them are probably still floating in space toward the unknown, and I have no idea where they may be exactly."

Sweetie Bot and Robobot are somewhere in space and they can't be saved by the battleships because they're too fast? Well then, she will use the Warp Star! It's much faster! But Dedede doesn't know where they are now, and she doesn't know either. But she must save them! She must save Sweetie Bot! She's... She's her... sister? Daughter? Whatever, she's very close to her! But what can she do? Search space randomly hoping to find her? How long would it take? Probably years! If only there was a mean to find exactly where she is...

She'll think of a way. She must.

"Sweetie?" Dedede calls her in worry, seeing that she has tears in her eyes.

"Oh..." She rubs her eyes. "Sorry. I was trying to find a way to save them. I don't want to let them float in space forever."

"But you can't find any way..."

Sadly, she shook her head, more tears coming. "But I will find one. One day. I hope."

Sighing, Dedede walks toward her and puts an arm around her before pressing her against him for comfort, giving a small chuckle. "Knowing you, you'll somehow successfully save them. Any other questions?"

Before Sweetie could shake her head again, a couple of Cook Waddle Dees and a Chef Kawasaki enter the tent holding three plates, one of them containing the Maxim Tomato pie while the others contain pasta and a dozen cookies. The Chef Kawasaki also holds a cup of ice cream with written on it in chocolate "To our hero!"

Sweetie Belle giggles. "You are adorable."

---

After this good meal, Sweetie decides to go help the others repairing the castle. This night, she returns in the chamber that has been given to her until her real chamber is rebuilt, along with Spikezilla, back in his Spiky form, and Yin and Yarn, still as their Wizard Yin-Yarn form.

Here, Dissy gives her an envelope. "You've a letter. It actually came when you were still sleeping. And don't worry, the other letters are safe."

Sweetie Belle takes the envelop. "Thank you Dissy."

"Oh, by the way..." A camera appears in his paw and claw. "I recorded the whole fight against Star Dream. It's not everyday that a battle between two battleships and a supercomputer that eventually takes control of a reality-manipulating sentient planet happens. I'm sure they will make a movie out of this back in Equestria. Of course, I would make sure that you get some money out of this."

Reading the letter, Sweetie Belle replies "You may need to edit the part with Haltmann. Already, I'm reading in this letter how everypony was horrified at what happened to him and at what I was forced to do."

"Pif pof! This is why I won't edit this! This is perfect drama!"

"I wish I could have saved him..."

Dissy sighs. "The instant his soul got absorbed by Star Dream, nothing could be done. You already learned it with Sectonia, not everyone can be saved. Heck..." He looks away. "How many people do you think died in this incident? When the Access Ark landed, its feet probably crushed many beings. Then there was the storm caused by this tower. Don't tell me it didn't cause a few victims. Less powerful hurricanes back in Equestria can provoke dozens of death. And then, there was when the Access Ark crashed when Kirby destroyed the last foot. Something this big certainly crushed thousands of people. And let's not forget everyone that was inside it when it exploded." He looks back at the filly looking down in sadness, now hugged by Spiky. "Events just do that even when we do our best, there are still people dying, because this is beyond our control. But because you did your best, you were at least able to save as many people as you could with the help of your friends: pretty much everyone else in the universe. Yes, it would have been best to save everyone, but again, things happen, and in the end, you can't."

"And I don't think you could have saved everyone no matter what you did," says Yin-Yarn. "You faced a freaking alien invasion, the aliens possessing a freaking mothership the size of a planet, and they were brainwashing people. What did you expect? You're just an overpowered filly, not a god. It's already a miracle that you were able to destroy that crazy machine despite the odds."

Sweetie Belle sighs before smiling at them. "Thank you."

"Anytime," replies Dissy.

"If I see Susie again, I will at least say sorry for not being able to save her father."

---

The following days, Sweetie Belle continues helping in repairing the castle, but she soon sees that something is going on behind her back. Dedede sometimes leaves the castle, often followed by Bandana Dee and other castle staff, going toward the base of the Dreamstalk. But resisting the urge to go see what's happening over there, she continues helping, the castle now almost finished. Already, her room has been finished, and Dissy immediately placed the letters back in her desk. Actually, the room has been made a little bigger to better accommodate her royal stature, with her own real bathroom now connected to it, not the small one without a bathtub and with just a sink she had until now. This doesn't mean she will stop coming at the daily bath with everyone else. She just loves those moments where she can talk to the others while relaxing after a hard day of training and/or job.

All the while, she hasn't stopped trying to find a way to save Sweetie Bot and Robobot, but she just can't find anything. She's almost ready to ask Dissy to just snap his fingers to bring them back.

Then...

One day, she wakes up, and everyone is gone. All she finds is a letter telling her to quickly come at the Dreamstalk, even saying that it's important.

So, using a Warp Star, she flies to the Dreamstalk, only for her jaw to drop when she spots what's at its base: a huge party, with everyone here! And everyone, as in EVERYONE! Everyone in Dedede's army including the lieutenants like Kracko, Paint Roller, or Mr Bright and Mr Shine, everyone in the Meta Knights, everyone in the Bug Clan and the Flower Fairy Clan, and she also spots many fairies of Ripple Star and robots from Shiver Star! The Lor Starcutter is here too, as well as the blimp of the Squeak Squad, so this means that Magolor and the Squeaks are also somewhere in the crowd!

And when they spot her approaching, they all cheer, showing banners with written on them two words: "One year!"

One... Oh... "Has it really been a year since I appeared here...?" Sweetie Belle asks to herself in disbelief.

Some banners also show that not only this party is to celebrate her one year since she appeared in Popstar, but also to celebrate their victory over the HWC and Star Dream.

And when she lands at the edge of the party, she's greeted by Dedede, followed by Bandana Dee, Cape Knight, Broom Sunglasses, and Knuckle Joe, but also by Kirby, Meta Knight, Captain Vul, Sailor Waddle Dee, and everyone she encountered and befriended in her adventures, even Dark Meta Knight (certainly forced to come by Marx), Queen Ripple, Prince Fluff, Waly, Mirror Kirby, Barbara, and the Landias! She also spots Susie in the crowd, remaining behind, seemingly hesitating.

"So that was what you were preparing those last few days," says Sweetie Belle to the king.

"I'm surprised you didn't put two and two together before today," says Dedede with a laugh.

"With all that has happened since the invasion, you can't blame me, I had other things in mind." She looks around at everyone, and at the party they all prepared for her. "But, wow, I don't know what to say! This is the biggest party ever made for me! Thank you everyone!"

With this, the party starts. After a quick group hug with the animals, Sweetie Belle decides to go talk to Susie first. the poor girl remaining by herself, clearly not sure of what to do.

"Hello Susie. Nice to see you've come."

Susie bows to her. "If that wasn't for King Dedede telling me what he was preparing and inviting me, I would have left Popstar. It gives me the occasion to thank you for destroying Star Dream."

"I wasn't the only one," says Sweetie Belle as she waves around her. "Kirby, Dedede, Meta Knight, and their armies greatly helped. Without their help, we would have failed. You should also thank them."

"Already done," says Susie with a giggle.

Sweetie Belle smiles sadly at her. "Your father also helped. He was able to stop Star Dream from making the wish long enough for me and Kirby to destroy the Heart. I... I'm sorry we couldn't save him..."

Susie sighs. "I'm the one who should be sorry. You could have saved him if I hadn't taken the control device while he was in Star Dream."

"You didn't know. It's not your fault. It's... nobody's fault... Things happened, and it went out of control."

They both remain silent for a time, until Sweetie continues talking. "So, what will you do now?"

"I want to rebuild the company and continue the legacy of my father."

"Without the mechanisation?" asks Sweetie Belle with a smirk and a clear message that Susie should consider her answer.

"Without the mechanisation," answers Susie.

Sweetie nods and looks around. When she spots Magolor not far, she points at him. "You should ask Magolor to help you. He's a descendant of the Ancients, the civilization at the origin of Star Dream and many other technologies that your company was using. He's really good, especially at building stuff using the power of the Four Matters. With his help, you will have no problems rebuilding the HWC and make it better."

"Thank you for your advice. I shall go talk to him right away."

"Alright. But..." Sweetie Belle looks at Susie pleadingly. "Do you have a way to find the location of armors?"

Susie tilts her head. "No, why?"

"Our armors, at me and Kirby, Sweetie Bot and Robobot, they're lost somewhere in space, and we don't know where."

"Uh... Why do you care about them? They are just armor."

"You're wrong. Look at these robots," Sweetie points at some of the robots from Shiver Star. "Despite being artificial, they are people like you and me. They have feelings and a soul." She looks back at Susie, tears in her eyes. "Same of the armors. Under our command, they developed their own soul. Sweetie Bot... I feel so close to her that I now consider her family. So, please, the HWC created those armors, you know those armors better than me, so can you find a way to save them?"

"I will try."

Sweetie Belle hugs her. "Thank you."

Susie walks toward Magolor, the mage talking with Marx probably about pranks and mischief, and Sweetie Belle follows her.

"Magolor!" she calls, gaining their attention. "There's someone who wants to talk to you!"

"Hey, Sweetie! I was told everything that happened! Too bad I wasn't here to participate in the action!"

"Oh yes!" shouts Marx with a bounce. "It was so fun! There were robots everywhere! And the edgy dark ball and I were having the time of our life fighting them!"

"Never call me edgy dark ball again, you buffoon!" yells Dark Meta Knight from a chair not far.

When Susie spots him, she puts a hand on her mouth with a gasp. "Another one! Oooh so dark, so edgy. I already see all the upgrades that I could give him!"

"Seriously, Susie?" asks Sweetie with a deadpan look.

"What? This time, I would let him have his freedom. But imagine him, with a black armor, a red energy sword, a cybernetic red eye..."

"Ooh! Like a dark cyborg from a sci-fi movie!" says Marx.

"I like your style," says Magolor.

"I'm out of here," says Dark Meta Knight before flying away.

"Wait! Come b-"

"I think you forgot something, Susie," Sweetie interrupts Susie as she has been about to chase the dark knight.

Susie looks at Sweetie Belle who points at Magolor and says "R-right!" She turns to the egg mage. "Hello. My name is Susie. I was the secretary of the Haltmann Works Company, and I want to rebuild the company. Sweetie Belle told me you could help me."

"I would love to. I was told that the HWC possessed many technologies taken from the Ancients, and I love working with those."

Leaving the two to talk business, Sweetie Belle turns toward Marx. "You know, maybe I should have tried to search for you. If you had the time of your life just fighting a few robots, you would have loved being with me. I was fighting the bulk of their army."

"Darky would have been in heaven. The guy loves fighting. He fights me at least two times each day. And he loses every time," says Marx, laughing at the last part. "He lives for action."

"He was pretty much created for that," says Sweetie Belle. "And he searches to become stronger to one day defeat Meta Knight, and me. If he wants, I wouldn't mind fighting him. It would be good training. How about you?"

"Oh, me, you know, the usual. Pranking, trolling, making others laugh, fighting Darky, annoying him, avoiding being murdered by him, plotting to kill you and take over the world..."

"What?"

"Kidding."

At this instant, Susie shakes Magolor's hand, the both of them nodding.

"Already done?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"It wasn't hard to find a common ground," says Magolor. "I'll help her giving back to the HWC its original greatness, and in return she'll use the various technology the HWC studied to help me build New Halcandra. Everybody wins."

"It will take a few years for the company to return to what it was, but with his help, it will be back to business in just a few months."

"Glad for you Susie, and for you too Magolor. I wish you two good luck."

---

The party lasts for the rest of the day and well into the night, Sweetie Belle taking the occasion to catch up with all her friends, especially the ones she hasn't seen in a long time like Mirror Kirby or Queen Ripple. She learns from this last that Ribbon wants to come and live in Popstar, and the little fairy has proposed to Adeleine to come and help her with her school. Paint Roller is also very interested in it. Now, they form a really good group of friends with Elline, Claycia, Prince Fluff, and even Yin and Yarn.

From Taranza, Sweetie Belle learns that the new castle of Floralia hasn't taken much damage from the invasion, and the construction progresses well. The damage it has taken will only cause a little delay of a few days. Nothing bad.

"Good job protecting Floralia while I was busy."

"Thank you Your Majesty."

She finds Dark Meta Knight beside, of all people, Meta Knight. Even if they are opposite in many way, they still have many things in common, and one of those things is that they like being alone sometimes. So they just sit there, together, without saying a word. She still goes to talk to Dark Meta Knight.

"Marx told me you fight him a lot. I wouldn't mind fighting you too. Fighting the same guy everyday must be getting old, and it would be good training for both of us."

Dark Meta Knight nods.

The filly then looks at both knights. "You could also train together. You have both very similar styles, but still different enough to not be clones. You could learn a lot from each other."

"Train with this guy..." says Dark Meta Knight pensively. "Mph. Fine. It may be useful."

"And thanks for helping protecting Popstar from the aliens."

At this, the dark knight looks away with a huff. "I just did this to protect myself."

"Maybe," replies Sweetie Belle with a chuckle.

Daroach is partying with the whole Squeak Squad at his side. In parties, this group is always a jovial one, drinking to their heart's content between good laughs That laugh becomes even louder when Gooey comes from nowhere and licks Doc in the face before bouncing away, chased by the angry old mouse. It's at this moment that Sweetie Belle approaches them.

"You know, Doc should go talk to Magolor and Susie."

"The technonerds? This may not be a bad idea," replies Daroach.

"Maybe he could actually turn our blimp into a morphing robot with their help," says Spinni. "You know, passing from vehicle mode to robot mode. It would be cool."

"Why didn't I think of this sooner?!" they hear Doc shout, the old mouse having heard them as he has been coming back. "But I would rather prefer a mecha."

"Then go talk to them before they decide to return to the stars," says Sweetie Belle, before she's suddenly licked in the face by Gooey. "Hey! Ew! Gooey!"

"Googoo! Googoo!" shouts Gooey before he bounces away with a laugh, quickly chased by a laughing filly.

"Wait until I catch you!"

"Goo!"

They are soon joined by the animals and the two Kirbys, starting a little game of tag.

And as the sun is setting a Waddle Dee shouts "It's group photo time! Everyone, assemble!"

Smiling, Sweetie Belle joins Dedede in front of Whispy Woods, where they are quickly joined by Bandana Dee, the two Kirbys, the animals, Gooey, and one by one, by everyone else, Dark Meta Knight forced to come by Marx while Meta Knight slowly approaches, arriving among the lasts, Vul and Sailor Waddle Dee following him.

But as everyone assembles, one problem quickly appears to the Waddle Dee with the camera. "We will need more cameras..."

Impossible to take a group photo of everyone, including the two armies, the two clans, the robots, and the fairies, with just one camera.

So they use about one hundred cameras, side by side, to take everyone.

---

A big pile of paper suddenly appears on one of Rarity's tables. Pausing her work, she approaches it to look, and discovers that it is a pile of photos. In the one at the top, she recognizes Sweetie Belle along with all her closest friends she made since she appeared in Popstar. The filly is on Dedede's head, a butterfly on her head, Bandana Dee, Broom Sunglasses, Cape Knight, and Knuckle Joe around him. At their left is Kirby as well as a black Kirby that Rarity remembers is the one from the Mirror World, along with the animals, including their loved ones, ChuChu and Nyupun being on the puffballs' heads while the puffballs themselves are on Rick and Nago's backs. Gooey is also here with them, flying beside Coo in his Dark Matter-like form. The Squeak Squad is at their left, Storo at the back because of his size, followed by Susie, Magolor, Marx, and Dark Meta Knight, arms crossed and not looking at the camera, clearly annoyed.

At the right of Dedede and company is Meta Knight, Captain Vul, and Sailor Waddle Dee, followed by Adeleine, Ribbon flying at her side, Claycia, Elline flying above her, Prince Fluff, who she recognizes is Paint Roller, Queen Ripple, and Taranza. Behind Dedede, taking a good part of the background of the photo, are Whispy Woods, Kracko, Spikezilla, and a part of the Lor Starcutter (too big to just be in this photo). In this photo are also a few more members of Dedede and Meta Knight's army, along with a few fairies flying around Queen Ripple, and a few bugs around Taranza and close to Sweetie Belle. Some Flower Fairies also fly above her, along with the four Landias, and Yin and Yarn in their wizard form in front of the Lor.

Looking at some of the photos, she sees more of Sweetie's friends in them, mainly members of Dedede's army, but also many Meta Knights, inhabitants of Floralia, more fairies of Ripple Star, and the robots of the frozen Earth, including who she recognizes as Waly. She even recognizes this human-like creature who loved enigmas. Barbara, was it? When she finds the photo showing the rest of the Lor Starcutter, she places it next to the first one, discovering that all those photos are linked, forming a giant group photo. Her table isn't big enough to put all of them side by side.

On some of the photos, she can also spot some banners in the background saying "One year!" and Rarity puts a hoof on her mouth.

"As it really been one year?"

One year. And Sweetie Belle has done so much in that time! She made all those friends. She saved the world, and even the universe, many times. She became the greatest warrior of Popstar under Kirby. And she even became queen!

And yet, it's so hard to think that a whole year has passed. For Rarity, it's just yesterday that her little sister disappeared to another dimension because of that awful magical accident.

She must write a letter to her for this. She will also talk to her friends so they can write too. And... She will have to ask Pinkie and Twilight if they can find a way and a place to put all those photos together.

---

Months pass.

Somewhere in space.

In a fortress dwarfing any planets surrounded by a dozen smaller ones.

A white cloaked figure slowly climbs a staircase toward an altar.

On this altar, a purple crystal heart, pierced by four pink spears with heart-shaped extremities.

Arriving at the top of the staircase, the cloaked figure raises his arms, starting a ritual, surrounding the heart in runes.

The runes break.

The heart spears are expelled out of the heart.

The purple heart suddenly flies into space with the spears.

And they explode.

The day of judgment has come.

Author's Notes:

This chapter would have been perfect to post the day I posted the first chapter.

Chapter 96: The Mourning Spider: Taranza

Sweetie Belle is flying up the Dreamstalk with her Warp Star, Floralia's castle, her castle, being her destination. The previous day, a little before sunset, she received a message saying that it is finally finished, so as soon as she had finished breakfast, she has taken her crown, exited Dedede's castle, climbed on her Warp Star, and started her short journey toward the last main island of the kingdom of the sky.

It is so nice to finally have such a long period of peace after all those terrible events that happened to Popstar. The Dreamstark going out of control because of Sectonia, covering the whole planet in vines. Dark Crafter stealing all the colors, causing everything and everyone to stop moving like statues. And finally, the HWC's invasion, the worst event so far, easily equal to the invasion of the Dark Matters, the both of them having caused so much tragedies, so much deaths... After all those events, the inhabitants of Popstar needed that peace.

In that time, not only the castle has obviously been repaired --it didn't take long-- but Dedede has finally finished the Space Resort! To inaugurate this, Dedede passed two whole weeks in it with Sweetie Belle and Bandana Dee. They offered Cape Knight to come too, but he refused, remaining behind to take care of the castle in the absence of the ruler. Sweetie Belle also invited all her closest friends living on Popstar, and even used the sock to go on Patch Land and invite Prince Fluff. All together, they passed two wonderful weeks full of fun and relaxation under the stars.

Adeleine and Claycia's school has finally opened too, and so far, it's a success. People come from all over Popstar to learn how to give life to their creations, or to get better at it for the ones that already know, like the Vividrias, beings that remind Sweetie Belle of Paintra, probably because the Great Artist used Paintra's painting as a model to create them. Paint Roller is also among the students, and Sweetie Belle also comes sometimes to learn to sculpt.

With the help of Magolor, Susie has been able to reform the HWC, which she calls the Neo HWC. From what Sweetie Belle learned, Susie has already started to explore the universe in search of planets full of precious resources to take to help her company grow back to its former glory, making sure that those are always uninhabited planets, and of advanced civilizations to study, not only to increase her knowledge, but also to better fill her part of the bargain she did with Magolor, helping him to build New Halcandra. Thankfully, when she encounters unknown new technology, she always make sure to ask Magolor for advice before activating them, wanting to avoid another Star Dream incident where she would be the victim this time. The two of them also accepted to grant Doc's request, and the Squeak Squad now possesses a brand new high-tech airship.

Sadly, neither Susie nor Magolor have been able to find Sweetie Bot and Robobot, but Sweetie Belle still has hope.

Dark Meta Knight, still his edgy self, has somewhat mellowed down a little. Seems like the company of Sweetie and the others has grown on him, and he has less problems accepting to join them in their activities, like the two weeks in the Space Resort, but he remains a lonely knight. Marx still remains at his side most of the time, to the dark knight's annoyance. The jester now considers himself as "Darky's best pal." Dark Meta Knight refutes this every time, but Marx never listens. Of course, Marx' real best pal remains Magolor. When the egg-shaped mage comes to visit Popstar, those two are always up for mischief, to the dismay of everyone else, especially Dark Meta Knight. For some reason, Sweetie seems to be one of their favorite victims, probably because the filly always make sure to return the favor, often leading to prank wars. Kirby and Gooey are close seconds because they never get mad at them.

As for Sweetie Belle, she has finally learned to levitate herself, and it is so much better than air-jumping or using a shield. She is also much better at gathering and using the Four Matters for her attacks. She still needs some time to master Heart Matter, but Soul Matter, Dream Matter, and Dark Matter are now fully part of her panoply. For this, Magolor and Susie also upgraded her whip. She now can't wait to use it against the next bad guy.

Also, on one of the smaller, secondary islands of Floralia, not even linked to the Dreamstalk, she has started to build a hangar for her own battleship. If Meta Knight and Dedede have one, then why not her? And if another battle like the one against Star Dream happens in the future, three battleships will be better than two, especially that they may not be able to use the Fusion Capacity of her Sweetie Bot.

Eh! With that in mind, why not build a whole armada? With the help of Susie and Magolor, they could! And no bad guys would ever dare anymore to attack Popstar!

However, as the months passed, only one problem, predictable, has appeared: she's now chubby. Curse that world! The two weeks in the Space Resort definitely didn't help. Adeleine's school being on the island entirely made of delicious food too. And that time she visited Patch Land, she swore to herself to never return to that place with the cake mountains. She also did the error to participate in a Gourmet Race. As much as she wanted to try at least once, she knew that this would end badly for her, especially with Dedede as her opponent. But at least, it was fun.

At least, thanks to her constant training, this doesn't cause problems to her agility.

Eventually, she reaches the last island of Floralia, and she gets to see her finished new castle.

And it is absolutely beautiful.

The castle is entirely made from Sectonia's crystals, and it shines in the light of the sun like a star. It's easily bigger than any castle she can think of, and the tallest tower, at its very center, must be as tall as the crystal castle from the Crystal Empire. Around this central tower are dozens of other towers, and the more towers are close to the edge of the castle, the smaller they are. When looking from above, those towers form the shape of a star.

There's no doubt that the central tower is where her future chamber is.

And waiting for her at the entrance is Taranza, waving at her.

The poor spider. Despite all the months that passed since Sectonia's death, he hasn't gotten over it yet. He tries to be strong, smiling, laughing, playing, but sometimes, she surprises him shedding a tear.

When she lands, he says "Hello, Sweetie Belle. Glad you could come. What do you think of the castle?"

"It's the greatest and most beautiful castle I ever saw! You all did a really wonderful job! I wasn't asking for so much!"

Taranza laughs. "I know, but when King Dedede gave us the idea to use the crystals to build the castle, I knew that we had to use all of them, not leave a single one."

"I can't believe there were so many crystals."

"You have no idea how much pocket dimensions there were in that giant crystal vault. So, want a tour?"

Sweetie Belle nods, and Taranza leads her inside the castle, showing her the various rooms, hallways, gardens... With the castle covering the whole island, there's a lot! And many of those rooms are chambers, the castle being the home of the whole Bug Clan as well as of many beings that also served under Sectonia or that decided to come live here, including some of the Flower Fairies. Speaking of flowers, outside of the crystals, they are the main theme inside the castle, each room, each hallways being filled with flower pots and even some trees in the bigger ones.

However, there aren't any banners. The bugs are waiting for Sweetie Belle to have her Cutie Mark to place it on them, planning for it to become Sweetie Belle's symbol.

Hoping that the Cutie Mark won't be something like some she described. Having for symbol a snail or a spoon would be very weird. They are hoping for something like a crown, a flower, a star, a sun, a heart... Just in case, Sweetie Belle's planning to draw a symbol that they would use if the Cutie Mark reveals to be one not fit for this.

After a couple of hours, the tour ends at the top of the central tower, her apartment, and more exactly in her chamber where Sweetie already dreams of sleeping on that huge bed that looks even softer than a cloud. The chamber has a big window opening to a balcony, and as they walk on it, Sweetie Belle can only look in awe at the view it gives of her castle. The main courtyard is visible under it, so she can watch the people, her people, from it. The balcony is also facing the flower of the Dreamstalk, as beautiful as always.

"This castle is magnificent! I don't know what to say, Taranza. Thank you. And thank you to everyone who participated. To... To think I'm the queen of this castle, I... It's like a dream."

They look both at the castle in silence for a few seconds.

"I don't know much about Sectonia, the real Sectonia, but I can see that this castle would have been perfect for her," says then Sweetie Belle.

"Yes... This is the castle that I would have loved building for her. A castle that would have reflected her beauty, in all the senses of the term."

Sweetie Belle puts a leg around him, pressing him against her. "Wherever she is now, I'm sure she loves this castle. I... really regret that she isn't the one ruling over it. That I am in her place..."

Taranza just sighs in reply.

"But she wouldn't want us to mourn her. Especially you, because it hurts you."

"I... know... She would want me to move on, to live happily, to think about my future, and not the past." He sighs again. "I still need time..."

"Remember, we are here."

Taranza nods before looking up toward the sky, thinking about his queen.

But then, as he looks at the sky, he spots something.

"Uh? What is that?"

Hearing him, Sweetie Belle looks up, seeing what he spotted. In the sky, many purple lights, and a few pink ones, are approaching like meteors, reminding Sweetie Belle of that night when the crystal shards rained. Like the shards, those lights eventually fall here and there on Popstar, all around the castle, and when they spot two approaching the balcony, a purple one followed by a pink one, the two of them turn around to run away, only for the purple light to crash behind them, propelling them forward on their bellies. Unbeknown to Sweetie Belle, the pink light falls right on her, the pink heart composing it disappearing in her.

She could feel a great energy entering her body, but she doesn't focus on it as she quickly gets up and turns around to look at what crashed on the balcony.

A heart made of purple energy.

A purple energy that feels SO wrong. Everything negatif in the universe, she can feel it in this heart.

And just beside it, looking at it like in a trance, is Taranza, the purple energy starting to enter him.

"Taranza! Get away from it!"

But it's too late. Almost as soon as she finishes talking, the heart disappears in a cloud of purple energy that disappears inside Taranza's body, his eyes glowing purple.

As the spider turns toward her, Sweetie Belle immediately jumps back before taking her whip as well as Yin and Yarn in her magic. Spiky, in his doll form, is hanging from her neck, but she decides to not turn him into Spikezilla. On this balcony, it would be too dangerous.

The two needles yawn, having slept all the while.

"What's going on?" asks Yin.

"Corrupted friend," simply answers Sweetie Belle.

Surrounding himself in a net, Taranza teleports above the edge of the balcony in front of Sweetie Belle.

THE MOURNING SPIDER
TARANZA

Taranza throws a net at Sweetie Belle, intending to trap her in it like the time he foalnapped her, but Sweetie Belle jumps out of the way and immediately attacks the spider mage with her whip while firing magical beams from her horn. Taranza avoids most of the attacks by teleporting around while also firing energy balls at her, which she deflects with a mirror shield, and eventually, Sweetie Belle's able to wrap her whip around Taranza's neck before pulling down hard, making him crash on the balcony while also electrifying him with it.

Sweetie Belle immediately jumps to kick him from above, only for Taranza to teleport at the last second before appearing just beside her where he creates an explosion of energy all around him. Sweetie Belle is sent above the edge of the balcony because of the explosion, but quickly levitates back on it while using Yin and Yarn to knit Yarn Bronto Burts to attack him. Taranza throws more energy balls to eliminate them, opening him to Sweetie Belle slamming a shield on him from above, making him crash on the balcony again. Then, the ten parts of the whip all charge at him one after another after surrounding themselves in energy, before Sweetie finishes by charging at him too.

Taranza uses a shockwave of energy to expel Sweetie Belle and the ten whip parts before teleporting a few meters up. He then materializes two crystals that he throws at the filly who easily levitates out of the way, only for Taranza to throw more crystals one after another without stopping. Avoiding them, Sweetie Belle eventually uses a fist shield to punch one of them back at Taranza who sidefloats to dodge it before he surrounds himself in a shield of energy just in time to protect himself from Sweetie Belle charging at him also surrounded by a shield. The two then charge at each other a couple of times before Taranza suddenly teleports just before they clash again, throwing Sweetie Belle off guard for a couple of seconds.

Taranza uses this to charge energy above him, creating a huge energy ball that he throws at the filly. Thankfully, the ball is rather slow, so Sweetie has no problems avoiding it, only for Taranza to appear in the path of the ball and to use an energy shockwave to send the ball toward her again. Sweetie quickly reforms her whip before turning it into staff mode and covering its extremity in energy. Using the extremity like a bat, she then hits the ball, and after some efforts, sends it back toward Taranza, the ball exploding on him.

As the explosion sends him away in the air, Sweetie Belle attacks him again with many energy beams until he teleports again to reappear above the balcony, a purple aura now surrounding him.

And then, using his magic, Taranza surrounds himself in a purple magical shell in the effigy of Sectonia, two rapiers appearing in its hands.

"Uh... That's new... I didn't know he could do that," says Yarn.

"Because he couldn't," says Sweetie Belle.

Readying the rapiers, Taranza teleports behind her before swinging, Sweetie Belle using Yin and Yarn to parry the attack before swinging her staff at him, hitting the head of the Sectonia lookalike. It doesn't do much, and Taranza tries to sting her with the hard part of the shell, which she avoids by levitating backward before firing a few beams, only for Taranza to teleport above her before dropping on her, trying again to sting her. Sweetie Belle dodges, and Taranza tries a third time, not leaving her time to breath, but this time, Sweetie Belle is able to form a fly swatter with her shield before using it to slap Taranza and slam him against the wall of the tower.

Taranza immediately comes back, charging at her with his rapiers, and Sweetie Belle uses Yin and Yarn as her own rapiers to parry him, the two flying around the tower and clashing again and again, firing all kinds of projectiles between each clashes.

Moving away from each other after one of those clashes, Taranza charges energy around the rapiers before firing two dozen energy balls. Sweetie Belle avoids most of them and uses a mirror shield to deflect the others, only to be electrified from behind by the spider who teleported. Sweetie Belle quickly turns around and uses her whip to drag Taranza at her before forming a sharp ring with a shield. She then uses the ring like a saw to badly cut Taranza's shell until he teleports away.

As he appears however, he's immediately trapped in a cage formed by energy bars from Sweetie's ten cannons. Not letting him time to teleport again, Sweetie Belle closes the cage on him, the energy bars badly hurting him before she uses a giant shield fist to punch him through the bars from above. But as he's propelled down by the punch, he teleports just above her, using the momentum to headbutt her. As she's headbutted, Sweetie Belle grabs the head and points her horn right between its eyes before firing a huge beam from it along with dozens of other beams below her, hitting the shell all over its body. Taranza quickly uses an explosion of energy around him to force her away before he starts teleporting and flying back and forth while firing lightning bolts continuously.

Using a shield to avoid being electrified, Sweetie Belle quickly puts another shield on the way of Taranza, causing him to hit it head first. With the spider stopped, creates another shield behind him, and crushes him between the two of them. The shields are destroyed with an explosion of energy, and Taranza immediately throws a dozen crystals at the filly, and as Sweetie Belle flies away, he teleports in her path with a giant sharp ring circling him. Unbeknown to him, Sweetie Belle has been knitting, and soon, the spider is hit on the head by a 1T weight of yarn. Taranza quickly moves from under it, only to receive a storm of punches from Sweetie Belle's now metallic hooves. With one last punch, Sweetie Belle then levitates herself above Taranza and turns herself into metal, dropping on him like a heavy weight (even more heavy with her, well, added weight).

While they drop because of her, Sweetie Belle quickly puts her hooves together and charges energy. She then turns back to normal and flies away before firing a huge energy beam that pushes Taranza back on the balcony, his Sectonia shell exploding.

The purple heart comes out of him, but before Sweetie could do anything to it, it flies away.

Rather than chasing it, Sweetie Belle lands beside the unconscious Taranza, looking at him in worry. That's when she gets an idea. The energy that she absorbed earlier, it felt totally the opposite of the purple heart, pure positivity. Maybe if she could use it...

Raising her hooves, she focuses on that positivity, and soon, a pink heart forms above her. She then throws the heart at Taranza, and the effect is immediate. The spider is healed and immediately wakes up as if the fight never happened.

"Are you alright, Taranza?"

"Better than ever! Sorry for attacking you, I don't know what got over me. I suddenly had that irrepressible urge to find a way to resurrect Sectonia and to become like her. Well, the her at the end. Weird, I'm not even sad anymore thinking about her."

"This must be this heart of positive energy I threw at you. As for those urges, it was caused by this purple heart that crashed. When you looked at it and got too close, you absorbed all its negative energy." She looks around. "I don't like this. Those purple hearts fell a little everywhere around Popstar. I fear that more people got corrupted. I should call Dedede."

She takes a communication device from her belt that Dedede gave her to talk with him at all times, and presses a button, only for nobody to answer the call. She tries again a couple of times before giving up.

"Drat. Either he has been corrupted too, or he's fighting someone who has been corrupted. Hopefully, this isn't Kirby."

"Kirby corrupted?" asks Taranza with horror. "Please, don't talk about such a nightmare fuel possibility."

"We can't have nightmares. The Fountain of Dreams makes sure of that." Sweetie Belle places the device back in her belt along with Yin, Yarn, and her whip before calling her Warp Star. "I'm going to investigate. You want to come?"

"Very well. Depending on who got corrupted by those hearts, you may need my help. They're able to power us up, and some of us are already really powerful. If Kirby got corrupted..." He shakes in fear at this. "We will need as many fighters as possible."

Sweetie Belle nods and lets Taranza climb on the Warp Star before they fly down the Dreamstalk, passing the islands of Floralia one by one.

Until they reach Lollipop Land and find out that it has been turned into a twisted painting version of itself.

Sweetie Belle facehoof. "Ooooh... Come on!"

Chapter 97: Prodigy Painter: Adeleine

It's the Drawcia Incident all over again. Thankfully, for now, it's only limited to Lollipop Island, but it's clear that if left unchecked, it will spread all over Floralia, Dreamland, and the rest of Popstar. No choice, she has to go fight Adeleine and stop her. Fighting Adeleine is nothing new, Sweetie Belle fought her once back at the Crystal Shard Incident, and Kirby also fought her before during the invasion of the Dark Matters, but what worry her is that Adeleine now possesses the Magical Paintbrush, making her a Drawcia bis. Sweetie Belle can already see many fights against painted versions of various beings, starting with the Ice Dragon (a favorite of Adeleine). Hopefully, Adeleine won't use the power of the paintbrush to make her horn disappear, or worse, make her limbs disappear and turn her into some kind of pony-worm. And what has she done to Claycia, Ribbon, and Elline? Unless they have been corrupted too. Sweetie Belle hopes that hasn't been. Fighting Adeleine with the Magical Paintbrush will already be hard enough, so also fighting Claycia possibly helped by Elline who possesses powers similar to the Magical Paintbrush? No, just, no. At least, Yin and Yarn are with her.

"Sweetie Belle!!" she suddenly hears three voices calling her name one after another.

Sweetie Belle looks in the direction the voices come from and sees Claycia, Ribbon, and Elline approaching her panicked. To Sweetie's relief, they aren't corrupted. "Girls! You're alright!"

"Sweetie Belle!" shouts Ribbon. "It's horrible! Adeleine! She's... She's..."

"I know. Some kind of purple heart fell from the sky, and it corrupted Adeleine. I'm here to save her and stop..." Sweetie waves at the island. "this. I was really scared that you were corrupted too."

"Seems like the purple hearts can corrupt only one person at a time," says Taranza.

"If that's the case, then good for us," Sweetie says before turning to the girls. "Adeleine is still in her school, right?"

"Yes," answers Claycia. "She's starting to build an army inside it. We barely escaped them."

"But she totally transformed the school. The inside has nothing to do with what it was before," says Elline.

"Oh, I fear the worst now... Okay Taranza let's go to the school."

Claycia looks at Elline, and they both nod before they say "We will help!"

Ribbon then takes the last invention of the fairies of Ripple Star: the Crystal Gun, based on the Crystal back when they used it as a gun to destroy the Dark Matters and Zero Two. "I'm coming too!"

"Welcome to the team you three. With your help, the fight may not be as hard."

With this, not wanting to lose time traversing the whole island, Sweetie Belle flies her Warp Star right toward the entrance of the school, which now looks like a multicolored palace of painting with a tower twisting in weird directions, another looking like it's melting, and a third one looking like it's made of countless dots. At the entrance, Taranza then says "Wait. Before we enter, I want to test something. When you hit me with that pink heart, I could feel its positivity being absorbed by my body. Maybe I can now do the same."

"This would be neat! No risk to be corrupted anymore!" says Sweetie Belle happily before turning to the girls. "If that's the case, we should also give it to you."

As they nod, Taranza raises two of his hands and effectively creates a pink heart that he throws at Ribbon, giving her its power. Sweetie Belle does the same to Claycia while Taranza throws a second heart to Elline. The three girls immediately test this new power, throwing their own pink hearts. Each time that the energy of a pink heart is absorbed by someone, Sweetie Belle can feel a link forms between her and that person. It's... as if they now form one. They aren't just a team now, they are one being. They can absolutely trust each others. For good measure, she throws three more pink hearts at Yin, Yarn, and Spiky.

The instant the hearts hit Yin and Yarn, she feels the remaining corruption inside them disappear.

Now, she knows those two are her friends.

"Woo! I feel reborn!" they both shout.

Smiling, Sweetie knits for them their Wizard Yin-Yarn form, a smaller version that will be able to fit through the black doors. Thus, they will fight at their sides as a fellow fighter, and not as tools anymore.

"Nyahaha! Time to show the power of someone who can create worlds!" he shouts excitedly.

"You know that without the glowing yarns, you don't have that power anymore, right?"

"Uurg... Right... But I'm still powerful!" shouts back Yin-Yarn, rising the needles above his head.

With a giggle at his antics, they open the door to the school, and enter a different world.

---

As soon as the purple heart corrupted Taranza, Dissy sent a message to Discord who, in return, warned Twilight, who sent a message to her friends. While the ponies came one by one to Twilight's castle, without the Crusaders because they're still in school, Discord opened the portal to follow the events, watching Sweetie's fight against Taranza, and the newly formed team of heroes approaching Adeleine's school. By the time the last pony, Applejack, appears in the room, the heroes are at the entrance of the school. Twilight quickly explains what's going on to everypony else as they settle.

"But why would hearts corrupt? Hearts are symbols of love," says Fluttershy.

"In this universe, hearts represent all feelings, both positive and negative," answers Twilight.

"And it looks like those hearts in particular represent not just negative feelings, but negativity in general," informs Discord. "I would say that it's evilness in its purest form to be more clear, but evil wouldn't be enough to describe those hearts. Evil beings at least can feel positive emotions like joy at accomplishing their goal. There's no positivity in those hearts. Absolutely nothing! Nada! Niet! They're just pure Negativity with a big N!"

"So, everything that's bad in the universe," says Starlight.

"This smells Dark God," says Pinkie Pie.

"It smells Dark God in almost every single adventure since the first one," says Rainbow Dash. "Those hearts are probably another one of his creations." She then sees Rarity biting her lips while looking at Sweetie Belle. "Hey, you alright, Rarity?"

"Do not worry darling, I just need to get used at seeing Sweetie Belle... fat."

"Sweetie Belle was already starting to get fat for a while," says Applejack. "She was already a little plump when she fought that mad machine."

"And she warned you in her letters," says Starlight.

"I know. But before, it was barely visible with her clothes. And it is one thing to be told in a letter about her weight gain, it's another thing to see it." She puts a foreleg on her forehead. "For a dreamy world like this one, it is more a nightmarish one! Who thought it was a good idea to have cookie mountains and ice cream trees? Because of those, it's so easy for somepony to lose their figure!"

Pinkie raises her hoof. "Me! Me! Memememememe! I love that idea!"

"And any foal would love that too," says Applejack with a chuckle. "Just stop thinking about that. No matter her weight, she's still yer sister."

"And no doubt she'll easily lose that weight once she returns to Equestria," says Rainbow Dash. "Give a couple of months, and it'll be gone."

"Hum... They're entering the school," says Fluttershy.

Looking back at the portal, the ponies see the team of heroes composed of Sweetie Belle, Taranza, Ribbon, Elline, Claycia, and Yin-Yarn, opening the double door that is the entrance of the school. From what they already could see inside, it could now pass for Discord's home.

---

They have been warned about the inside of the school being transformed, but it's beyond anything Sweetie Belle thought! The inside is now as if all the styles of painting had fused in a chaotic mess of colors and forms! The hall they have entered now has walls with all kinds of environments, objects, and creatures randomly painted on them without logic, with a rainbow-colored staircase leading to the second floor.

And barely they enter that they're attacked by a Painted Ice Dragon among a group of various smaller painted enemies and three Painted Waius running on the walls to fire at them.

Sweetie Belle levitates to one of the Waius while Taranza flies to another. Ribbon starts firing crystals at the smaller enemies, and Claycia, Elline, and Yin-Yarn focus on the Ice Dragon, flying out of the way of its ice breath. While Claycia starts sculpting something, Yin-Yarn knits some bombs that explode on the dragon, and Sweetie already eliminates her Waiu with a strong body slam followed by her impaling his head with her weapon in its ten energy swords mode. She quickly points a hoof at the third Waiu, the one that nobody's attacking yet, and after trapping him in a cage formed by her shields, she fires a huge energy beam engulfing it, disintegrating the ninja. The last Waiu is eliminated by Taranza teleporting beside him before trapping him in a ball of net and making it explode.

Claycia finishes sculpting a big spiked ball and throws it in the air above the Ice Dragon as it's busy dealing with a few Yarn Spear Waddle Dees knitted by Yin-Yarn. Elline then paints a Rainbow Rope on the way of the ball and uses it to guide the ball toward the dragon until it hits. As the dragon recovers from the ball, it's impaled by the spears of the Yarn Spear Waddle Dees as well as by Yin-Yarn himself thrusting Yarn. Ribbon, who has finished with the smaller creatures, then starts firing at it, and the dragon's finished by Claycia sculpting a cannon looking like the head of Bastron before firing a group of bullets from it.

With the welcome committee destroyed, the group climbs the staircase and enters a hallway at the top where more enemies are attacking them, including more Painted Waius, a Painted Blocky, and a Painted Bonkers just before a black door.

As the Bonkers swings down his hammer at Sweetie Belle, she stops it with just a hoof before she forms an energy blade around her other hoof and uses it to behead him. She then uses the blade to impale a Painted Waddle Dee before saying "I thought those painting versions would be stronger."

"They're stronger," says Claycia. "With the Magical Paintbrush, Adeleine's power skyrocketed, and those copies are now almost as powerful as the originals."

"Yeah, it's you who has become a monster," says Yin-Yarn with a laugh. "It may be time for you to fight Kirby. I think you're more than ready."

"I know, but I want to be sure and certain that I will beat him. So not before I master Heart Matter and sculpting. Those are the last skills I still need to train," replies Sweetie. "Learning to teleport would also be great."

Elline turns to Taranza. "You could teach her. You know how to teleport."

"I don't use the same magic. I'm not sure I would be able to teach her correctly."

"Maybe you could still give it a try," says Ribbon.

"Maybe. Once we're done with those hearts, if Sweetie wants."

"I would like to."

The group passes the black door, seeing that it's a painted one that definitively wasn't here the previous time Sweetie came in this school, and they enter... a 3D painting. There are no other ways to say it. They appear on hills with a river not far, this river going into a hole in the ground. Further, at the other side of a cliff, they can see a volcano from which comes a column of lava going all the way into space. They spot the moon not far from it. Just behind them, the place they're in ends in a wall, the only way to know there's a wall being to touch it, the painting on it forming a perfect optical illusion.

Because of it, it's impossible to see where the room ends, and what isn't painted on the walls and the ceiling. The moon? The volcano? That weird upside down floating island at their left? The city they can see under it? That whirlpool in the air sucking the water from an ocean at their right? And what about all those objects and buildings randomly painted a little everywhere? Why place a pyramid in the middle of a grassland?! Well, the hole in which the river disappears seems to be real, so they decide to go over there, easily defeating all the enemies that get in their way.

"Even Drawcia's painted worlds weren't this weird, without counting the last one. At least, they all had a unique theme: grasslands, deserts, volcanoes, futuristic cities, space, haunted forest, and so on; but here, it's like Adeleine couldn't remain focused on a single theme and decided to just paint everything that passed in her head," comments Sweetie Belle.

"Uh? And how was the last world?" asks Yin-Yarn.

A chill crawls over Sweetie's body at thinking about THIS world. "You don't want to know."

After jumping or floating above a few pits, they reach the top of a hill where they can see that the river's still a little far, and that there are many enemies ready for them among the remaining hills. But seeing all those slopes, they can feel the positive energy of the pink heart in them resonate, and they suddenly get an idea.

They let the energy speak for them, and following it, they quickly form a circle, or rather, a wheel, grabbing each others' legs, and they soon roll down the slope of the hill, crushing anyone that gets on their way.

"Waah! Are we really doing this?!" shouts Elline.

"Yes! We're doing this!" shouts Sweetie Belle as she laughs.

"Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!" repeats Ribbon, not sure if it's in fear or in excitement. Maybe both.

"This is the power of the pink heart?!" asks Claycia.

"Yeah! It turns friendship into a weapon! Nyahahahaha!" shouts Yin-Yarn.

"They won't believe it back home!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

"I'm not even believing what we're doing!" shouts Taranza in disbelief.

---

Everypony looks at the... friend circle... in awe.

Then, Pinkie looks at the others with one of the biggest smiles she could give.

"No, Pinkie! No!" shouts Twilight. "We will not do that!"

---

Moving up and down the hills, jumping above pits and obstacles, and crushing enemies, the group is able to reach the river in just a couple of minutes. Just as they reach it, they approach a Painted Whispy Woods that they crash on. While it doesn't destroy him, it uproots him, leaving him vulnerable to a serious beatdown despite his attempt to get up using his roots, and in just a few seconds, the heroes eliminate him without even letting him time to attack.

"Easiest Whispy fight ever," says Sweetie Belle.

"No, remember what Dedede said about what Kirby did to that last Flower Whispy in Sectonia's palace?" asks Yin-Yarn.

"Oh yeah."

Taranza looks at the both of them. "I'm curious. I always wondered how Kirby, Dedede, and Bandana Dee were able to catch up to us so rapidly despite the tree."

"Thanks to one of the Miracle Fruits, Kirby ate the Flower Whispy whole," says Sweetie.

"Ah."

"What?" ask the girls in disbelief.

"We will explain later," says Yin-Yarn.

They start following the river, which is somehow able to go up a slope, until they reach the hole in which it disappears. They look in it, and seeing nothing, they carefully float down in it until they reach the submerged bottom of the cavern they are now in. So they let themselves fall in the water where currents slowly push them among Gordos and all kinds of fish toward the next part of the cavern where the river continues, with some ground out of the water.

Getting out of the water, they see a dam blocking it, forcing it on a path toward a hole. Two more dams follow this one, before the path ends against a huge metallic door with metallic wheels at the bottom, where the river should be.

The heroes quickly understand than they have to open this huge door, and for this, they have to open the dams to let the river reach the wheels, so they move to the first dam and spot beside it a round hole. From this hole starts a slope with, at the top, something in the ceiling, and a pit along the way.

They move to the top of the slope and grab a few handle hanging from the ceiling, revealing it to be a plug. With it gone, a big metallic ball comes out of the hole in the ceiling and starts rolling down the slope. The heroes quickly run to the pit, and with the help of the energy in them, form a bridge with their bodies, letting the ball roll on them without falling in the pit. The ball then reaches the round hole, and the dam opens, letting the river pass.

For the second dam, they have to jump in a pit beside the round hole where, further down, they find a path with another slope with a plug in the ceiling at the top. Removing the plug, a new metallic ball falls, and they quickly return to the pit to form another bridge for the ball, only, this time, as the ball rolls on them, they have to climb the pit while making sure that the ball doesn't enter another path as it rolls back and forth.

With the second dam opened, they pass to the third where there are two round holes, one red beside the dam, and one green in the pit beside it. Like previously, they find the two balls after removing a plug further down in the pit, and as the two balls roll on them when they form a bridge, they slowly climb the pit. The problem is that the green ball can't reach the green hole because of the red ball on the way, so they have to find a way to reverse their positions. They find the solution thanks to two of the paths, one above the other, being dead ends where they let the red ball enter the one at the top, then let the green ball enter the one below. So, the red ball comes back first, followed by the green one, successfully reversing their positions. And so, the green ball is able to enter its hole, and the red one too.

With the three dams opened, the river reaches the door and starts to push the wheels as it passes under it. After a couple of seconds, the door opens, letting our heroes pass and continue to follow the river, which ends in a waterfall toward a big underground lake. Diving in the lake, they encounter a Painted Acro.

"I didn't think I would encounter a painted version of Acro," says Sweetie Belle.

"I remember him from the party for your one year in Dreamland," says Taranza. "I didn't dare approaching him too much..."

"He's nice, you've nothing to fear from him," reassures Ribbon.

"Not this version," says Yin-Yarn as the Painted Acro starts spitting skulls, anchors, and smaller Acros at them.

They swim out of the way, Sweetie Belle quickly firing back energy beams while Ribbon and Taranza also fire crystals and energy balls, and Claycia and Yin-Yarn sculpt and knit fishes of clay and yarn to attack. Painted Acro then rapidly swims toward Ribbon, mouth wide open, trying to devour her, only for Sweetie's whip to wrap around his mouth and force it to close. Sweetie Belle then turns the whip into Spark Mode, electrifying the orca as he starts swimming around to get himself rid of her without success. Elline then turns into her paintbrush form and creates a Rainbow Rope on the path of Painted Acro which leads him right into a wall, some of his teeth breaking because of the impact. Claycia then quickly sculpts a harpoon and throws it at Painted Acro, impaling and eliminating him.

With the orca gone, they emerge from the water in front of the entrance of a tunnel without water.

"Now I wonder who we will encounter next," says Claycia.

"I'm certain we will fight a Kracko sooner or later," says Sweetie Belle. "He's another one of Adeleine's favorites. Beside Kracko... No idea. Anything's possible."

At this, they enter the tunnel, which reveals to be a long, straight path with a few pits in the way, ending in a dead end, the only way to continue from there being upward.

And again, the energy of the pink heart resonates in them. When they call it, the energy gathers above Sweetie Belle as everyone else forms a single file behind her. The energy then materializes... a conductor's hat with the chimney of a train that drops on Sweetie's head.

"What?"

And then, as smoke comes from it, they start running on the spot for a couple of seconds, their legs (or whatever for Taranza and Yin-Yarn) somehow forming the sound of a train starting.

"What?"

And finally, they suddenly charge forward at max speed.

"WAAAAHH!!! What the heeeeeeck?!!" yells Sweetie Belle while the others all scream in surprise, before she quickly jumps above a pit followed by the others, the sound of a train whistle coming from the chimney when she jumps.

"Are we seriously doing a train?!" shouts Taranza.

"This is so weird!"

"This is so fun!"

"This is embarrassing!"

"AAAH! Captain! Wall right ahead!" yells Elline.

"I can't stop!" shouts back Sweetie Belle as the wall approaches dangerously. "StopstopstopstopSTOPSTOPSTOPST-WAH?!" To her surprise, and to everyone's, as they're about to hit the wall, they suddenly start climbing it using a small slope between it and the floor! "EEEH?!"

"Are we se-"

"YES WE ARE!"

They quickly reach the top of the wall, only to now run on the ceiling before doing a loop. Back on the ground, they run on a switch that opens a part of the wall they have just climbed, and after the jump, they continue in the newly revealed passage.

Twilight must be pulling her mane!

They continue running and jumping, eventually reaching a... place where they jump on the roof of a floating house before jumping from melting clock to melting clock. After running on the back of a flying whale, they then run up a giant pencil before jumping on piano keys. One last jump and they leave this crazy place and return in a more normal looking cavern, only to be attacked by a Painted Moley following them, digging through the earth like swimming through water and throwing boulders at them.

Because they can't stop, the heroes are forced to either jump or to move slightly to the left or to the right to avoid the boulders while the giant mole jumps around them while digging, once at their left, then at their right, then directly in front of them, and even going out of the ceiling. They get some respite when they reach another underground lake where they actually run on the water, the mole only able to attack from the ceiling here, but the boulders hitting the water causes it to form waves that make dodging more tricky.

They soon leave behind the lake to enter another tunnel, only for the heroes to run on a switch. The next instant, the tunnel is filled with smoke, and they can't see where they're going, forcing Sweetie to focus on her path to avoid pits while also leastening to the others who warn her of the boulders, because Moley doesn't need to see them to know where they are, the mole sensing them.

But then, they leave the tunnel to run on some kind of stone bridge above a huge lake of magma, and behind them, the Painted Moley falls in it. But another problem quickly appear: they approach a huge column of magma going all the way toward a hole in the ceiling!

"Uh... Sweetie..." says Claycia in panic.

"I know, don't worry, I got this."

Lighting her horn, she covers everyone's legs in ice before they start running up the column of magma.

"Okay, that's nice, but when, and how will we stop?!" asks Yin-Yarn.

"I'm sure we will find a way! There must be one!"

At this instant, as they enter the hole in the ceiling, in front of them, a painted version of that creature of magma Sweetie fought in that volcano along with Kirby, Dedede, Bandana Dee, Adeleine, and Ribbon, comes out of the magma of the column further in front of them, and it starts sending little pillars of magma toward them. Like before, the heroes move left and right to avoid them, and this time, Sweetie Belle counterattacks by sending a stream of ice against it from her horn. The living magma then spits fireballs that are also dodged before it charges toward them. Again, a slight move to the side is enough to avoid it while they finally exit the hole, coming out of the volcano they saw earlier.

The fight lasts during the whole climbing before the magma being solidifies into stone and is rammed, and smashed into small boulders by the train. This, however, breaks the train, everyone getting propelled up in space as a result, not far from a huge round boulder at the top of the column of magma. Quickly, they all fly or levitate to it, taking the occasion to rest a little after this long running.

"It was crazy!" says Claycia.

"But, of all things, why a train?" asks Elline.

"Uh... Because friends love doing the train?" proposes Sweetie Belle. "Especially children."

"I never saw someone doing the train," says Taranza.

"Me too," says Ribbon. "Probably because there aren't trains in Ripple Star. But it was fun! I'm sure the others will love it once I show them!"

"Eh. I can see why kids would find it funny, but you'll not take me doing it again anytime soon!" says Yin-Yarn.

Elline giggles. "You may reconsider that. We may do the train again soon."

Yin-Yarn gives an exasperated sigh.

"Speaking of, are you feeling the energy resonate again?" asks Sweetie Belle.

Hearing her, everyone starts focusing, quickly feeling it too.

"Again?" asks Claycia.

"What will this be this time?" asks Taranza.

"Probably a way to reach this door," says Elline as she points at the moon not far, showing a black door visible on it.

All nodding, they call the energy, and it soon creates some kind of Warp Star with wings and a comet-like trail. Sweetie Belle jumps on the star itself while the others jump on the trail in a single file, like the train. Sweetie Belle quickly learns that she can fire star-shaped projectiles from the star, and thanks to her magic and her master of Dream Matter, she can change the properties of the projectiles, sending ice stars, fire stars, spark stars, sharp stars, and so on. If someone else was on the star, they could probably do the same depending on their abilities. If they could create more than one star, it would be neat!

At the command of the star, Sweetie Belle guides it toward the moon, a great quantity of flying enemies trying to stop them, including many big ones, like Dubiors, Bugzzys, Telepathos, and especially Vividrias. Some meteors, small black holes, red angry faces firing fireballs from their eyes, and pens drawing walls also serve as obstacles forcing Sweetie Belle to be careful. And as they near the moon, as Sweetie predicted, a Painted Kracko comes from behind it and stops them.

Painted Kracko starts attacking by firing lightning bolts that Sweetie Belle tries to dodge as best as she can while firing back her star projectiles at him. He also creates small storm clouds that flies toward them while raining lightning bolts too before he tries to ram them a couple of times. But despite all his attacks, some of them hitting the star, the Painted Kracko is eventually destroyed, and the heroes land on the moon in front of the black door.

They discover that the moon is made of cheese.

"The moon is made of cheese... So cliche," says Yin-Yarn.

"At least it's good," says Elline as she eats a piece of cheese.

Sweetie Belle also eats some cheese to heal after the fight against the Painted Kracko. "And useful."

Once fully healed, they pass the door and appear inside a huge room where the floor, walls, and ceiling are entirely made of canvas and that is full of painted enemies. In the center of the room is Adeleine, the girl swinging the Magical Paintbrush. With each swing, more enemies are painted, adding to their already great number.

She eventually spots the heroes and jumps out of the crowd before landing on an elevated platform.

PRODIGY PAINTER
ADELEINE

Adeleine points the paintbrush at them, ordering her minions to attack before she paints two wings on her back, letting her fly. As everyone else deal with the minions, Ribbon flies toward the painter and fires at her with her crystal gun, but Adeleine flies too fast and easily avoids the projectiles before bonking the fairy on the head with the paintbrush. Taranza and Sweetie Belle come to her help and fire energy balls at Adeleine, hitting her a couple of times before she flies away and swing the paintbrush, sending balls of paint to intercept the energy balls.

Meanwhile, Yin-Yarn, Elline, and Claycia knit, paint and sculpt their own minions to help them fight Adeleine's army, which the girl constantly recreates when she gets the time. To help the two of them, Sweetie Belle takes the Spiky doll and throws him at Yin-Yarn. The mage of yarn then knits the doll into Spikezilla, and the dragon immediately starts rampaging among the enemies.

Adeleine then swings the paintbrush, painting five clones of herself in one go, the clones starting to fly around before attacking the heroes one after another by charging at them while swinging their paint brushes. One of the clones, however, remains behind and continues to paint minions while the real Adeleine paints giant spikes on the canvas, causing giant spikes to come out from the floor, walls, and ceiling.

Spikezilla easily destroys half of the Adeleine Clones, but gets impaled by some of the spikes. Yin-Yarn, while avoiding the spikes, immediately starts healing the dragon by knitting more yarn for him, and Claycia sculpts the same laser cannons she used while she was possessed by Dark Crafter, the cannons raining lasers from the ceiling for a few seconds and serving as obstacles for Adeleine. As the painter is forced to fly around the lasers, Sweetie Belle is able to intercept her and punches her into one of them. Since Adeleine isn't resistant at all, it hurts her greatly, and she gets even more hurt when Taranza traps her in a net and moves her through two more lasers before slamming her against a wall. Meanwhile, the remaining clones are destroyed by Spikezilla and Elline painting her own spikes from the canvas.

Adeleine recovers and quickly flies to avoid the claw of Spikezilla before she paints an Ice Dragon as well as a Fire, Water, and a Spark equivalent, which forces Spikezilla to deal with them along with Taranza and Sweetie Belle. Yin-Yarn, Claycia, and Elline remain focused on Adeleine as the human paints on one of the walls a pirate ship that starts firing bullets at them with its cannons. Claycia throws balls of clay to destroy some of the bullets, and Elline uses the Rainbow Rope to stops the others, while Yin-Yarn opens his mouth and, like in his tank form, fires rockets from it, but only one at a time, and much smaller.

Elline follows Adeleine's example and paints in the opposite wall Bastron who starts firing at the girl who, again, flies around to avoid the majority of the bullets before she swings her paintbrush and destroys the painting. Seeing that her dragons have just been destroyed, she then swings again at the ceiling, painting an orbital laser cannon that starts charging energy. Before Elline could destroy the painting, she's slapped by one of Adeleine's wings. The cannon fires, and its laser starts moving around, forcing the heroes to run to avoid it, all the while attacking Adeleine. When the laser of the cannon stops, Adeleine then swings her paintbrush again, and the cannon breaks apart before the pieces come out of the painting and fall in the room like meteors. Yin-Yarn quickly turns Spikezilla back into a doll before he could be killed, his size not letting him much place to avoid the falling piece, contrary to everyone else.

When the last piece crashes, Adeleine then paints a few Gordos before she starts doing circles with her paintbrush, and all the canvas of the room are painted to make it look like they are inside a storm. A strong air current constantly changing direction appears in the room, pushing everyone, including the Gordos, before lightning bolts come out of the canvas and strike randomly around. To complete the picture, Adeleine paints Kracko, the painted one-eyed cloud adding his lightning bolts to the ones coming from around.

Sweetie Belle fires an Ultimate Doom Laser at him while the others continue to try to hit Adeleine who continues to fly around. Attacking Kracko with all she has, Sweetie's able to quickly destroy him, only for Adeleine to immediately replace the storm by an ocean, submerging the room in water as dozens of aquatic enemies start attacking the heroes, including another Painted Acro and a painted version of the captain squid Sweetie fought in Seventopia. Turning her weapon into Ten Swords Mode, she starts cutting the two of them into cubes helped by Yin-Yarn knitting a submarine firing harpoons.

But then, just as Adeleine finishes to paint herself a fish-like tail, turning herself into a mermaid to better swim in the water Taranza's able to hit her with a huge ball of energy followed by a dozen smaller ones. Ribbon then charges toward Adeleine as she recovers and bonks her on the head many times with her crystal gun. Adeleine uses her paintbrush to slap her away, only to be hit and slammed against a wall by an energy beam from Sweetie Belle.

Looking like she's about to fall unconscious, a purple aura suddenly appears around Adeleine, and in one swing, everything painted in the room disappears. In another swing, the room becomes even more huge, becoming as big as the whole school. In a third swing, everything is painted black and red with weird black marks rapidly moving around.

Exactly like in...

A fourth swing, and Adeleine paints Zero Two.

"Oh no..." says Sweetie Belle.

But then, with a fifth swing, Adeleine paints beside Zero Two the weird white Dark Matter with the many red eyes they fought in Ripple Star.

And with one last swing, the two painting fuse before coming out of the canvas. The result of the fusion is simply Zero Two with twenty-one bloody eyes moving around in his body, which is enough to make Ribbon, Elline, and Claycia sick. Everyone knows Zero Two thanks to Magolor's training room, so they're used to him, but this new Zero... It's the most disgusting thing they've ever seen.

ABOMINATION OF DARKNESS
PAINTED MIRACLE ZERO

Sweetie Belle stares at the new Zero in shock before she looks at Ribbon. The fairy looks back at her, and fighting her sickness, she nods in determination, readying her crystal gun. Meanwhile, Adeleine hides behind her creation.

Zero fires his little explosive projectiles toward the heroes, and they all quickly fly away before approaching the abomination, quickly discovering that no attacks outside of the crystal gun work against him, and the crystal gun can only hurt him by hitting the eyes. Using the Heart Matter she has been able to learn to use, giving in all her positive feelings, Sweetie Belle starts firing little energy beams, which also hurt Zero when hitting the eyes. Meanwhile, Taranza, Yin-Yarn, Elline, and Claycia move around the abomination to attack Adeleine directly.

But then, Zero's body covers itself in fire, and he starts firing huge streams of fire in all directions, burning Yin-Yarn and almost getting the others. Remembering what she must do, Sweetie Belle starts firing fireballs and streams of fire, even using her ten cannons to create a real storm of fire and badly hurt Zero. When Zero returns to normal, three of his eyes are missing, and his tail has appeared. Ribbon immediately proceeds to attack it with her crystal gun.

"Guys!" then shouts Sweetie Belle. "When that thing changes form, his weak point becomes whatever element he's using!"

Yin-Yarn flies to her. "Right. I remember when you trained against him in the training room. He uses fire, only fire can hurt him. If I remember correctly, his other forms are ice, spark, stone, bomb, cutter, and needle, right?"

"Yes, that's it." She looks at Claycia and Elline. "So you understand what you must do when he change form?"

They nod, readying themselves to sculpt and paint.

Meanwhile, Zero's tail disappears, and he restarts firing projectiles from his eyes, explosive ones, bloody ones, and there's even one time where the eyes all fire a continuous beam at the same time while moving, managing to get Sweetie Belle, Taranza, and Elline by surprise.

"Wait a minute. Zero Two is a being created from negativity if I remember how you described him," says Taranza. "Maybe the positive energy in us can hurt him."

Sweetie Belle rubs her chin in thought. "It could work, but this one is not the real Zero, but a painted copy, so it may also not work. But let's give it a try."

They all nod and start approaching Zero to be able to throw pink hearts at him, but before they could start, Zero changes form again and becomes all black before he shoots from his body at least one hundred black bubbles all around him. It takes everyone off-guard, and they're all hit at least once by one of the bubbles that explode upon contact. But the heroes quickly recover and move back to avoid being hit again before Sweetie Belle starts firing explosive projectiles while Yin-Yarn, Elline, and Claycia all create their version of a rocket launcher. As for Taranza, he teleports beside Zero and creates explosions of energy.

It doesn't take long before Zero returns to normal with three less eyes, his tail reappearing, and Ribbon attacks it again. But this time, Zero starts turning and flying to get his tail out of the way of the projectiles of the crystal gun, but Sweetie is still able to hit it with her beams of Heart Matter.

When the tail disappears, everyone immediately starts attacking Zero's eyes, the pink heart hurting him like Taranza said. Sweetie Belle manages to partially destroys Zero's wings, causing him to become slower.

Zero's body then turns into a ball of electricity, and he fires beams of electricity in all directions, the beams bouncing on the floor, walls, and ceiling of the room, but this time, the heroes have seen it coming and they quickly fly back to better dodge them while firing their own projectiles of electricity, Taranza actually forming Sectonia with his magic before making it fire lightning bolts from its scepter like the real Sectonia for a couple of seconds.

Sweetie Belle suddenly hears Dedede's anthem playing from her belt, and she quickly takes her communication device before pressing the button.

«Hey, Sweetie, whe-»

"SorryDededecanttalkmiddleofafightcallyoulater!"

She presses the button again, puts the device back in her belt, and continues attacking Zero.

When Zero returns to normal, because of his destroyed wings, he has more difficulty avoiding the projectiles of Ribbon's crystal gun, so he tries to directly attack her with his eyes, but the fairy manages to avoid every projectile he throws at her.

Turning to his ice form, Zero surrounds himself in a sphere of spiky ice boulders orbiting him, the ice boulders protecting him while he moves around to try to hit the heroes with them, but because of his lack of speed, they're easily able to fly away. Seeing this, Zero suddenly expends the sphere, but this causes the space between the boulders to grow, giving enough room for the heroes to pass between them and attack Zero with ice projectiles (for the ones who can fire ice projectiles, to Taranza's annoyance).

Rather than turning back to normal, Zero immediately changes to a different form, now using the cutter one, huge cutter blades firing from his body while his wings turn into even bigger cutter blades and move around his body. This doesn't leave much for the heroes outside of Sweetie Belle who throws cutter blades with her tail, and Yin-Yarn, Elline, and Claycia are forced to simply create Sir Kibbles to attack.

Zero then turns to his needle form, his body turning into a ball from which huge spikes come as it turns. To make it worse, smaller spikes grow from the bigger spikes, turning them into 'spike trees' that could easily impale everyone. Created Gordos are quickly thrown while Sweetie curls into a ball, turns her fur into needles, and turns her body into metal, before she charges toward Zero. At this point, Taranza has decided to go after Adeleine, the spider chasing the girl around while attacking her.

Finally, Zero turns into his last form, the stone one, and his body starts rapidly flying around the room to try to ram them, his two wings-turned-boulders orbiting him. Created boulders are quickly raining all over the room, and Sweetie Belle turns into stone before charging at Zero's body like a meteor.

With this last form defeated, Zero returns to normal, and Ribbon destroys his tail.

But to everyone's surprise, he doesn't explode. He just... cracks, and he flies and turns erratically as he starts heavily bleeding. His body then becomes a mismatch of all his forms from which he starts firing everything all around! Between all the projectiles, the heroes have extreme difficulty avoiding them, and Adeleine herself is hit and knocked out by them, a purple heart coming out of her.

And finally, after about ten seconds of this chaos of attacks and movements, Zero's body explodes, and the whole room is plunged in light. When the heroes can see again, they are now in the room that they recognize as Adeleine's office.

The purple heart then flies through a window, but the heroes don't pay attention to this, more busy catching their breath after surviving this last storm of attacks.

"It's the second time an enemy attacks before dying," says Sweetie Belle. "And this one totally caught us off guard."

"Yeah, it's not like Star Dream's Heart who lets you time to prepare, making it easy to dodge," says Yin-Yarn.

"Adeleine!" Ribbon then screams the name of her friend as she flies toward the unconscious human girl. Quickly acting, Ribbon throws a pink heart at her, and Adeleine immediately recovers before being hugged by the fairy. Everyone else approaches her, Sweetie Belle joining Ribbon in hugging her friend.

Adeleine looks around confused for a few seconds before she recovers her senses and sighs with a shake of her head. "At least, it wasn't possession this time... I think."

"More like corruption," says Taranza. "I got the same."

"Thank you for stopping me, and I'm sorry for everything I've done. But what the heck was that heart?"

"We don't know," answers Sweetie Belle. "They just suddenly came from space. All we know is that they're pure negativity, a little like the Dark Matters."

After a quick explanation of everything that happened until now, which isn't much, Sweetie Belle then says that she's planning to go to Dedede's castle to talk with him and plan together their next move. Adeleine, as well as everyone else, decide to join her. Better using the power of this 'Friendship Heart' while they can, and so, all work together to find, and destroy, the origin of those hearts. Whatever it is, it must be really terrible, and powerful.

While they exit the school, Sweetie Belle takes her communication device and calls Dedede, remembering that he searched to call her earlier.

When Dedede answers, she says "Hello Dedede. Sorry for earlier, I was busy."

«No problem. You said you were in the middle of a fight, right? Must've been really nasty if even you couldn't take the time to talk, you who could almost fight everyone with your eyes closed by now.»

"You have no idea. Remember that white Dark Matter we fought on Ripple Star? Now imagine it fused with Zero Two. That's literally what I fought."

«You're kidding!»

"Not at all."

«But how?»

"Adeleine got corrupted by one of those purple hearts. Speaking of, please, tell me Kirby hasn't been corrupted."

«Thanks the stars, no! I was the one corrupted by one of those things, and Kirby saved me with the help of Bandana and a few other guys he recruited on the way.»

"Neat! Well, I'm exiting Adeleine's school, now, so I will soon come to the castle to meet you and the others."

«Uh... Actually, I'm not in the castle anymore. That's why I called you earlier, I wanted to know if you were alright, and I also wanted to warn you that me, Kirby, and the others are chasing the purple hearts. Right now, we're in that place called Friendly Field.»

"I don't think I explored this place yet. What is it?"

«Ahahah! You would love and hate it! It's an area entirely made of food! Like, biscuit bushes, giant cupcakes, hill sized ice creams, and macaroon mountains!»

Sweetie Belle looks at her pudgy body and sighs. "I think I will wait for you to leave this area before joining you."

She can hear Dedede guffawing through the device. «I knew you would say that!»

The group exits the school at this moment, and Sweetie Belle calls her Warp Star. But before she could climb it, Pitch suddenly comes in front of her screaming frantically.

"Woah! Pitch! Don't scare me like that! What's going on?"

In reply, Pitch crosses his eyes and sticks out his tongue as far as he can. After that, he forms a heart with his wings.

Sweetie Belle immediately rubs the hoof holding the device between her eyes. "Don't say more. Gooey got corrupted?"

Pitch confirms it.

"Buck..."

"Oh oh..."

"Drat."

"Not good."

Sweetie Belle puts the device back beside her ear. "Sorry Dedede, I won't be able to come yet. Pitch just told me that Gooey got corrupted too."

«Gooey?! Oh, please, no... With the power of those hearts, he could start a new Dark Matter invasion.»

"Exactly. And that's why I must go right now."

«Well, hurry, before we get clouds of darkness above our heads! Me and Kirby will continue to chase the hearts. I'm sure you'll be able to deal with Gooey.»

"Thank you. Good luck to you," finishes Sweetie before she presses the button, stopping the call. "Okay everyone, time save another friend and stop a potential invasion of darkness."

"Yay..."

Chapter 98: Darkness Incarnate: Gooey

Gooey took residence in Dark Castle in the Rainbow Islands, so this is no surprise for Sweetie Belle when Pitch indicates the direction of the archipelago where the filly lived her very first adventure in this world. The poor bird is exhausted, having flown all the way from the islands to Dedede's castle only to see that none of his friends were there. One of the Waddle Dees then told him that King Dedede was with Kirby in another land while Sweetie Belle was last seen flying toward Floralia. Since Floralia was closer, Pitch decided to go there first, but he still passed long minutes searching Sweetie Belle all over the islands before finding her. So, now, as the group of heroes flies toward the Rainbow Islands, Pitch remains on Sweetie's head, trying to explain the situation over there with body language and yes/no questions.

Gooey and the animals were having a little picnic at the top of Dark Castle, where they fought Dedede the first time, taking in the view, when one of those purple hearts fell from the sky right on Gooey. The corruption was immediate! In just a few seconds, Gooey absorbed the heart and turned back into a regular Dark Matter, but a powerful one, like the first Dark Matter that possessed Dedede, probably even more powerful because of the heart.

The animals immediately attacked him six to one, putting a good fight thanks to their teamwork, but Gooey defeated them, and they had to run away from Dark Castle along with the few members of Dedede's army still in it as Gooey started plunging the castle in darkness. Pitch, the only one who could still fly, Coo having taken a serious beating, then went to search for help while the other animals went to rest in Grass Land. When Pitch flew away from the islands, he could already see the darkness spreading slowly, even corrupting the Rainbow Bridge between Dark Castle and Cloudy Park.

Not destroying it, corrupting it. The negativity of the heart surpasses the positive Heart Matter of the bridges, that same positivity that formed the Rainbow Sword that was able to kill the first Dark Matter. It's that serious.

And thanks to the darkness, it's spreading. If nothing is done, it could corrupt everyone in the islands, and in the world.

With that in mind, Sweetie quickly threw a pink heart at Pitch, hoping that their positivity will be enough to protect them.

Now, they approach the Rainbow Islands, and to everyone's horror, the darkness has spread over the seven islands...

"Oh no! We're too late!" shouts Adeleine.

"Everyone there must be corrupted now," says Taranza. "At least the ones who couldn't fly away."

"What will we do?" asks Ribbon. "Even if we defeat Gooey, I fear that this won't be enough to destroy that cloud of darkness full of corruption."

Before anyone can answer, Coo flies toward them along with Pitch's mother, the owl now healed, probably after eating a Maxim Tomato. And thankfully, they don't seem corrupted, probably because they were able to fly away.

"Coo! Twitch! You're alright!" shouts Sweetie Belle happily as she stops the Warp Star with the help of her magic.

Pitch flies from Sweetie's head to rub his head against his mother while Coo happily flies around the Warp Star.

"What about the others? Are they alright?" she asks then.

"Coo coo!" says Coo as he points down at the ocean with one of his claws before he flies down.

Following him, they find the remaining of the animals. Kine and Mine being fishes, and ChuChu and Nyupun being octopus, it's obvious that they could escape by the ocean. Rick, Pick, Nago, and Shiro are clinging to the fishes.

They aren't the only ones, many inhabitants of the islands followed their example, clinging to fishes to escape the darkness by the ocean, or simply swimming.

"Thanks the stars, you all escaped!" shouts Sweetie Belle in relief.

"We thought for a moment that you got corrupted," says Elline.

The animals look happily at them in return, ChuChu waving a tentacle with an expression as if to say "We are alright, don't worry." After that, they turn to the cloud of darkness.

To everyone's discomfort, eyes have appeared in the darkness, looking directly at Sweetie Belle and her friends.

Dark Matter eyes.

"Okay, not creepy at all," says Yin-Yarn. "What's the plan?" he asks Sweetie Belle. "If we enter that cloud, we won't be able to see anything at all."

"Last time we entered a cloud of darkness like that, we could more or less see inside it," informs Adeleine. "It was all red, and there were even platforms created from the darkness."

Sweetie Belle rubs her chin. "But this was probably the influence of Zero Two. Kirby and I could also see inside the darkness in which we fought Zero the first time. Those clouds were more like cocoons. But here, I'm not sure that this will be the case."

"Maybe you could use your lighting spell to light the way," proposes Ribbon.

Sweetie nods. "That's what I was thinking, but I don't think it will light much. To avoid flying right into an obstacle, we will have to walk. Well, first, we will have to reach one of the islands by swimming."

"And then what?" asks Yin-Yarn.

"Then... Then..." Sweetie Belle thinks strongly of a plan to get rid of that cloud, but she's drawing blank. Until suddenly, she gets an idea. By her expression, you could almost see the lightbulb appear above her head. "I know! I'm not sure if this will work, but we could use the power of the pink hearts to get the Rainbow Bridges back to normal, and use the power of the bridges added to the power of the pink hearts to destroy the darkness! I'm sure we can find a way to use those powers to clean the whole cloud! And also to fight Gooey, because if he's back as a normal Dark Matter, then classic attacks won't work."

Everyone else around her looks at each other, wondering if this plan can work.

"It's better than nothing," says Claycia. "We should try."

They nod, and Rick, Coo, Kine, Nago, ChuChu, and Pitch approach Sweetie Belle, determined to join her and help. Of course, Twitch tries to stop her son, but after a few tweets, and the assurance that the others will watch over him, she accepts to let him go. At least, Pitch knows how to fight, contrary to her. The other animals' loved ones have less problems letting them go.

"I knew you would join us," says Sweetie Belle. "Thank you all. But before we go..." She and the others jump from the Warp Star into the water before they throw pink hearts at the animals. "Like this, you won't get corrupted once we enter the cloud, and our teamwork will be stronger."

As she said this, Sweetie Belle suddenly feels a pang of nostalgia as she looks at Rick, Coo, and Kine. Those three were with her in her first adventure, over one year ago. Feeling tears coming to her eyes, she hugs them.

"Together, like the first time... All we miss are Kirby and Gooey, and the old team would be back."

The three animals smile warmly at her, Rick patting her, before they break the hug and turn toward the cloud of darkness.

With this, they all start swimming or flying toward it, the Dark Matter eyes following them as they approach, the animals' loved ones waving at them, probably wishing them good luck.

As they are about to enter the cloud, Sweetie Belle prepares her lighting spell, only for all of them to feel the pink heart energy resonate. Looking at each other in wonder, they release the energy, and it gathers above them, forming a very big pink glowing heart inside a cube of glass, its glow pushing away the darkness far more effectively than Sweetie's light would have done! However, the cube is so big and heavy that they need to be four to hold it, so as they swim, Rick, Kine, Nago, and Claycia decide to be the carriers.

Enough of the cloud is pushed to let them see the edge of an island, which they quickly recognize is Grass Land. It doesn't take long for the group to accost, and Yin-Yarn knits the Spiky doll back into Spikezilla so he can carry the cube while Adeleine paints wings for the fish to fly and ChuChu moves on Sweetie Belle's head.

"So, we are on the island... But where do we go from here? In which direction is the bridge?" asks Taranza.

"Rick?" asks Claycia.

The hamster looks around at the limited land he can see thanks to the light of the pink heart, only to shake his head, not recognizing where they are. It's an island essentially made of grasslands with a few trees and hills here and there, there aren't many landmarks recognizable. Mainly the small lake at the center.

"Well, if in doubt, we can walk along the coast until we find the bridge," says Adeleine.

They all accept this plan and start their journey, making sure to not go too far from Spikezilla to not get lost in the darkness. However, rapidly, they're attacked by Dark Matters firing black lightning bolts from the cloud as well as by corrupt inhabitants of the islands who couldn't escape in time. Sweetie Belle quickly goes to stand on guard beside the dragon, protecting him and the cube from the lightning bolts and other projectiles with her mirrors while the others deal with the attackers.

Of course, since this is Grass Land, the path hasn't many obstacles outside of the enemies. Mainly blocks with a few pits here and there, and it only takes them a few minutes to find the Rainbow Bridge to Big Forest, the bridge now all different shades of black and grey.

Spikezilla then places the cube on the bridge, and it absorbs all its energy, a small Rainbow Drop now orbiting around the heart inside the cube while the bridge disappears. The dragon quickly takes the cube before it falls.

"Uh... Okay, but now, how will we go to Big Forest?" asks Yin-Yarn.

...

Spikezilla facepalms.

"Let's do the train!" proposes Sweetie Belle. "We can run on the water like this."

"Yay!" shouts Ribbon.

Yin-Yarn groans. "Come on..."

"The... train?" asks Adeleine.

The animals all tilt their heads at this.

"Just use the pink heart energy in you, and you will see," says Sweetie Belle.

They all nod and do as told, and soon, a chimney appears and drops on Sweetie's head while everyone gathers in a single file, Spikezilla being the last. Somehow, even Kine and ChuChu can participate.

Before long, they run on the water.

"W-w-w-what?!" shouts Adeleine.

"Don't ask," says Taranza.

"I guess we will have to get used to this," says Yin-Yarn.

"Coocoocoo!"

"Meohohoho!"

"Twiiit twiiit!"

"You're right Pitch! Come on, everyone! Let's do this!" shouts Sweetie Belle with a laugh. "Chookackookachookachooka choo choo!" she then imitates, jumping to make choo choo with the chimney at the right time. Pitch and Ribbon join her just in time for it while the others all start laughing.

"It's so ridiculous!" shouts Yin-Yarn. "Bah, it's already ridiculous doing the train, so why not."

And so, everyone starts imitating the train.

Spikezilla doing the train was already weird to see, but hearing him doing "Choo choo!" is easily among the weirdest things ever.

The fun lasts all the way to Big Forest where they climb the small cliff.

But it stops when they approach a tree and remember that they don't know how to stop.

"WAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!" BAM!

Sweetie Belle, being at the head of the train, is the first to hit the tree, quickly followed behind by the others, all of them finishing crushed between Spikezilla and the tree that is uprooted as a result. The dragon quickly gets back up to free the others trapped under his belly as they groan.

"Remind me to find a way to stop before we do the train again," says Sweetie Belle.

"Do the same for the circle thing," says Taranza.

"Right."

One by one, they remove themselves from the formed pile and get up before looking around. They are now at the edge of the forest, which looks really eerie in the darkness. At least, the trees make perfect obstacles to protect them from the projectiles of the Dark Matters attacking them from the darkness.

Since they have gone in a straight line from Grass Land to Big Forest, then they should be where the Rainbow Bridge between the two islands connects with Big Forest. And having in mind the map of the Rainbow Islands, it means that the Rainbow Bridge between Big Forest and Ripple Field is at the left. From there, they can choose to walk along the coast like they did in Grass Land and remain at the edge of the forest, or go in a straight line and pass by the forest. The second path would be faster, but harder.

But since time is against them, they decide to pass by the forest.

At least, since they don't have to explore the islands in search of the Rainbow Drops, travelling each islands will be fast. However, because of Spikezilla's size, they can't use the black doors to move over long distances, so no shortcuts. They have to move through the forest the old way. And in some islands, it may even force them to do some detours.

Like with Grass Land, there aren't many obstacles blocking their way, mainly blocks with a few pits here and there. The main danger comes from the many enemies attacking them, the forest being perfect for ambushes. They particularly have to watch out for enemies jumping from the trees, along with many Drifters (the one eyed green parasols). Spikezilla is the one having the roughest time of the group. Because he's holding the cube, he can only use one of his claws to attack, in addition of his tail. He can't use his fire breath either, not wanting to start a fire and burn the whole forest.

And they already have enough problems fighting their way while avoiding the constant lightning bolts of the Dark Matters from the cloud, they don't need to have to deal with a fire as well.

After a small cliff followed by a pit, they reach the edge of Big Forest where the Rainbow Bridge to Ripple Field is, and this time, they traverse it before using the cube to absorb its energy, a second small Rainbow Drop now orbiting the heart inside.

And now, they are in Ripple Field. At least, the bridge leads directly to the main lake rather than to the smaller lake that's further down the cliff, and the bridge leading to Iceberg also starts from the main lake, at their right. A small swim through the lake and a few islands is all that it will take to reach it. They would prefer remaining on the cliff and walk around the lake, but again, time is against them.

So they jump in the lake where they are immediately assaulted by the corrupted aquatic fauna mainly consisting of Blippers. And when they climb on the islands, they have to be careful of the explosive coconuts. An island forming a wall in their way forces them to either find a tunnel to pass it or swim around it. Luckily, Ripple Field being Kine's home, he knows this island very well and has no problems guiding them to an underwater tunnel big enough for Spikezilla to pass.

Traversing the tunnel reveals to not be as easy as it should be. There's a big current in it, and Spikezilla is forced to go first, walking on the floor of the tunnel to resist it while using his body to shield the others behind. Every now and then, one or two Gordos are in the way, forcing him to contort his body to avoid them while also fighting the few fishes and Glunks they encounter.

When they exit the tunnel, it doesn't take long for them to reach the bridge to Iceberg, traverse it, and use the cube to absorb its energy.

In Iceberg, a tunnel through a cliff leads directly to the next Rainbow Bridge, but it reveals to be too small for Spikezilla, so they are instead forced to climb a slope to pass by above while fighting some penguins. At the top, a current pushes them from behind on icy floor, forcing them to time their jumps to not fall in pits. There's even a point where a good part of the floor is made of snow blocks disappearing when someone walks on them, and everyone who can float or fly does so while holding the ones who can't, leaving Spikezilla to run on the blocks.

They eventually reach the start of another slope going down a long way to the next Rainbow Bridge, doing some twists and turns along the way. Spikezilla smirks at Sweetie Belle before lying on his belly, signing for everyone to go on his back before giving the cube. Smiling widely, Sweetie Belle jumps on Spikezilla's head while the others all climb his back, Taranza, Rick, Nago, and Claycia holding the cube. Once everyone is settled, Spikezilla uses his claws to start sliding on the slope like a sled.

Sweetie Belle cheers as they slide down the slope, Spikezilla breathing fire at everything standing in his way or using his claws to jump above the few pits. To help him take the hardest turns, everyone on his back tilts to use their combined weight, making it easier for him to avoid falling beyond the edge during those.

After about one minute, they reach the bottom of the slope. From there, it's not long before they reach the Rainbow Bridge to Red Canyon.

In Red Canyon, they have to take a path along a cliffside that eventually enters a tunnel thankfully big enough for the dragon who's still forced to bend a little. However, this tunnels reveals to have many pits too big for Spikezilla to pass, the dragon not able to jump above them because of the ceiling being too low. Using the power of the pink heart, they form bridges, much bigger than the ones used in Adeleine's school, with ten of them forming two horizontal lengths while the last three form "bars" connecting them, forming something that looks more like a horizontal ladder. Like this, Spikezilla can slowly, carefully walk on them, one leg after another.

Thankfully, his body made of yarn makes him much lighter than a real dragon of his size.

They have to do this three times, and each time, they have to deal with falling boulders that the dragon easily destroys with a punch before they exit the tunnel. Back outside, they discover the path blocked by a really huge boulder, and even their combined strength isn't enough to push it. However, charging at it all together at the same time is enough to make it move. After a few more charges, they are able to push the boulder on a slope on which it rolls down until it falls beyond the edge at a turn.

It's not long after that that they reach the Rainbow Bridge to Cloudy Park.

For this last island before Dark Castle, they decide that it's preferable to take the long way around the volcano rather than traverse it, Sweetie Belle remembering how much of a pain it was. But taking the path of the clouds is not without its lot of hurdles, starting with many jumping between clouds, some of which are constituted of cloud blocks disappearing under them, quickly followed by a huge presence of Gordos.

But the main obstacle eventually reveals to be the big number of bigger enemies waiting for them. Every single ones that Sweetie and Kirby fought the first time as well as the ones Kirby encountered in his adventure to save Popstar from Zero and the Dark Matters: Blockys, Boboos (bigger version of the Bobos, walking balls of fire), Captain Stitchs (the big Gordos), Efreetis (the big, black hedgehog-like creatures), Habokis (big living brooms), Jumbershoots (the big brown parasols sticking out their tongue), Master Greens (the big squids), Mr Frostys, Waius, and Yukis (big living piles of snow).

They don't last long against the full power of the whole team, but they attack relentlessly the cube held by Spikezilla, and the dragon has to more than once take a hit to protect it, the Waius being the most dangerous of the bunch because of their speed.

The Ice Dragon, the real one, surrounded by one exemplary of all the previously named enemies, is the ultimate obstacle just before the Rainbow Bridge to Dark Castle. The Waiu is the first one to attack, jumping and throwing projectiles at the cube that are deflected by a shield from Sweetie Belle before Taranza is able to trap him inside his net and slams him on the ice dragon who has been charging at them. Pitch flies at the Jumbershoot and peck his eye, opening him to a charge from Rick while Nago grabs the Haboki by his handle and slams him on the Efreeti, and Spikezilla breath fire at the Ice Dragon who quickly counters by breathing ice.

Sweetie Belle creates a shield against which the Captain Stitch slams himself, getting him vulnerable, and as Spikezilla overpowers the other dragon and burns it, the filly punches the big Gordo into the Mr Frosty who has been about to throw a block of ice to Claycia. ChuChu knocks out the Yuki with a series of punches, Kine spits a stream of water at the Boboo, and Coo finishes the Waiu by grabbing him and letting him fall on the Yuki which are both crushed by a big weight sculpted and painted by Claycia and Elline. Adeleine paints her own Ice Dragon to finish the one already badly burned by Spikezilla, Ribbon uses the crystal gun on the Master Green, and Yin-Yarn knits himself the arms of a boxer before he punches the Rocky beyond the edge of the cloud they're on.

In the end, the enemies didn't stand a chance. The whole fight doesn't even last one minute. And now, they are free to go to Dark Castle.

When they traverse the Rainbow Bridge and reach the stone bridge leading to the entrance of the castle, the same one Sweetie Belle traversed with Kirby and the animals the first time, they use the cube to absorb the Rainbow Bridge's energy and to add it to the energy of the other Rainbow Bridges, completing their first objective.

When the energy of the bridge is absorbed, a sixth Rainbow Drop appearing and orbiting around the heart inside the cube, the cube starts glowing a strong rainbow light with some pink, pushing away more of the cloud of darkness, before it suddenly explodes in a huge rainbow and pink shockwave that spreads to the whole archipelago, destroying the whole cloud of darkness and saving everyone who has been corrupted. At the same time, they all can feel the energy fill them, giving them the power to hurt Dark Matters.

Except maybe one.

When the shockwave reaches Dark Castle, a terrible screech of agony is heard from the top.

Gooey.

They aren't sure that the shockwave has been enough to get the purple heart out of him, but it certainly weakened him a lot. But they have to hurry before he can recover and restart to spread darkness.

Yin-Yarn starts to knit Spikezilla back into his doll form, but before he finishes, Sweetie Belle tells him to simply give Spikezilla a size close to them so he can join them on their adventure without problems. Sweetie Belle is very worried for him, he can easily be killed, but if Adeleine or the animals can participate despite their lack of attack and/or defense (especially Pitch), then he can too.

Then, they use the power of the pink heart to create a winged star and fly to the top of the castle without having to climb it from inside. Thanks to it, it doesn't take them long to reach the top where they land, and spot Gooey.

Or rather, a small formless cloud of darkness with an eye.

When it spots them, the cloud of darkness then takes a familiar shape, the one of the swordsman form of the first Dark Matter, before pointing a sword at them.

Darkness Incarnate
Gooey

Gooey starts by firing dark beams from his sword, and the heroes immediately separate to surround him before attacking him from all sides, only for Gooey to surprise them by getting his eye back in his 'belly' before turning it back into a mouth from which comes a tongue that he uses to sweep all around him, forcing the ones too close to move back or get hit, while he uses the sword to deflect some projectiles and moves around to avoid others.

Spikezilla is however eventually able to grab his tongue before slamming him on the floor, only for Gooey to fire dark beams from his reforming eye, hitting the yarn dragon with one of them while he slashes at Rick who charged at him. But he's surprised by Nago grabbing Sweetie Belle before throwing her like a spear, her horn impaling him right in the eye. Gooey quickly proves to her that it was a bad idea, because as he's impaled in the eye, he fires from it a dark lightning bolt, electrifying the filly who quickly jumps away. Gooey fires more lightning bolts all around him, and Sweetie Belle quickly puts mirror shields to protect the others, only for Gooey to surround his sword in a purplish rainbow energy exactly like the Dark Matter clone from the HWC, before he uses the sword to easily destroy one of the shields and almost cut in two Taranza. He gets hit by some energy balls from the spider in return as he floats away, and before Gooey could follow him, he gets hit from behind by various projectiles from Sweetie Belle before Coo slams on him from above, causing him to crash on the floor. While he's on the floor, Pitch charges at him while spiraling, Adeleine paints a Waiu on which she climbs, and Claycia sculpts a rocket that Elline paints in the colors of Kirby. Coo and Pitch quickly fly away before the Kirby Rocket lookalike explodes on Gooey.

Gooey quickly recovers and fires all around him both dark energy spheres and explosive orange balls at the same time, while charging at Sweetie Belle to headbutt her, forcing her to protect herself and stopping her from creating mirror shields. With him getting so close to her, Sweetie Belle takes her weapon and forms a staff with it, covering it in the rainbow energy so it can resist the slash of Gooey's sword, and quickly counterattacks by swinging it, both of them starting an exchange. Thanks to this, she's able to keep Gooey's attention, and he gets hit at many reprises by the projectiles from the others.

Until, suddenly, Gooey materializes a second sword, catching Sweetie Belle off-guard, and the filly barely manages parrying it, but she gets destabilized enough for Gooey's next swing to get her staff away. The six animals all charge at Gooey from behind to help Sweetie Belle, but then, Gooey's body turns into a pincushion, needles coming from it in all directions, and the animals are forced to back away. Thanks to Sweetie's quick thinking, she's also saved from being turned into cheese by turning her body into metal, the needles not hurting that much thanks to it, and she quickly creates an explosion of energy around her to force Gooey away.

Gooey then surrounds himself in fire and charges at Claycia as she's sculpting something, taking her by surprise as she's rammed and burned, only for Gooey to get hit by a stream of ice followed by some lightning bolts from a painted Ice Dragon and a painted Kracko before he gets kicked away by the painted Waiu. But as he's kicked by the Waiu, Gooey surrounds himself in a freezing aura of ice, freezing both the Waiu and Adeleine on him, the Waiu disappearing. Spikezilla quickly uses his fire breath to melt the ice and free the human girl.

Gooey then starts flying around while spinning his two swords around him, but he quickly has to stop as Taranza firings energy balls from above him. But again, Gooey surprises everyone by getting out his tongue with a parasol before using it to shield himself. He then puts the parasol upside down on the floor and clings to its handle before he starts spinning it like a top while moving randomly around, his two swords spinning around him again. To make it more effective, he even fires his dark beams from them.

His attack his stopped by Sweetie Belle lengthening her staff before bringing it down on Gooey, quickly followed by Taranza creating a copy of Sectonia with his magic and firing dark lightning bolts from one of her scepters, Spikezilla breathing fire, and Ribbon piercing him with her crystal gun before firing. Gooey's eye then turns into a mouth with sharp teeth, and he tries to eat the fairy who flies away in panic. Smirking as a memory comes back to her, Adeleine paints a Bomber and throws it into Gooey's mouth, causing huge damage to him from inside.

But then, Gooey gets surrounded by a familiar purple aura, and he turns back into a formless cloud of darkness that quickly grows in size before taking a new form.

To put it simply, his new form is pretty much a black version of Zero, without the bloody eye.

So, just a giant Dark Matter without the orange orbs at the back.

But like Zero, he produces Dark Matters from his body, which he does almost immediately after his transformation, the thankfully smaller and weaker Dark Matters attacking the heroes with either dark lightning bolts, dark beams, explosive orange blobs, tongue sweeps, tongue slaps, charges, or tentatives of biting or devour them. They are all easily destroyed in one or two hits.

Gooey himself uses the chaos of the battle between the heroes and the small Dark Matters to attack the heroes with those same attacks excepted the explosive orange blobs, but Sweetie Belle always remain focused on him and always manage to save her friends while dealing damage to the Zero lookalike, sometimes joined by one or more of her friends when they can.

But Gooey quickly joins those attacks with elemental ones, starting by firing fireballs towards the sky before they start raining all over the arena, followed by him flying above someone randomly before firing down at them a continuous ice beam, Gooey sweeping the arena with it while following his target. With those attacks, Sweetie isn't able to protect everyone, so she double her efforts to fight Gooey and defeat him as quickly as possible while using her cannons to destroy the smaller Dark Matters, giving everyone more occasions to focus on Gooey.

Gooey materializes his two swords again, but now, they're bigger, about the size of the swords Master Crowned Magolor used, before he envelops them in fire and cross-swings them, sending a cross-shaped fiery shockwave toward Sweetie Belle who quickly slides under it to go attack Gooey. But then, Gooey turns himself into a spherical boulder and starts rolling toward her, and the filly is barely saved by Coo grabbing her before flying away.

After rolling around a few seconds, not producing any Dark Matter in this time, Gooey returns to normal and raises his swords before covering them in dark electricity. Then, suddenly, he plants them in the floor, and electricity spreads all over the arena, everyone not flying or floating at this moment getting electrified. He follows this by surrounding himself in fire before bouncing around, finishing by doing two fiery charges. After the second charge, he flies high in the whole enveloping his body in fire, ice, and electricity, and he violently crashes in the center of the arena, expelling the three elements out of his body in the form of streams of fire, ice, and lightning bolts. He finishes this series of attack by stretching spikes from his body in all directions, looking like a giant version of Kirby's Needle ability.

After this formidable, powerful, and very potentially deadly series of attacks, some of the heroes are on the verge of losing consciousness, but when Gooey retracts the spikes, floats up, and starts throwing cutter blades all around him while sweeping the arena, they decide that enough is enough and they all attack him with everything they have, not minding taking some cuts from the blades.

A combo of Taranza and Sweetie Belle both throwing huge energy balls at the same time finally causes Gooey to start exploding while screeching in pain, the purple heart going out of him as he recovers his normal size. Seeing that he isn't stopping from exploding, and that he's dying like every Dark Matters, Sweetie Belle quickly throws a pink heart at him, and the others follow her example. This stops Gooey from exploding, and he drops on the floor, back to his normal, Gooeyish self.

After shaking his head to recover his senses, he opens his eyes and looks around at his friends before bouncing in joy.

He's tackle hugged by Sweetie Belle followed by the animals.

---

"Well, I think this moment calls for it," says Discord before he presses the start button of a music player.

Hello darkness my old friend.

"You were waiting for it, uh?" asks Twilight with a deadpan look.

"I couldn't pass this occasion."

---

The heroes are quickly joined by Twitch as they eat some food from Dark Castle to recover from the fight, and the remaining animals are probably on their way. After some talking, Twitch flies back to warn the others about Rick, Coo, Kile, Nago, ChuChu, and Pitch joining Sweetie's party to save the world from whatever threat is at the origin of those purple hearts. Of course, Gooey also joins them.

After eating a delicious shortcake that heals her wounds, Sweetie Belle takes her communication device and calls Dedede.

"Hello again, Dedede. Gooey's saved, and the Dark Matter invasion has been stopped. Where are you?"

«Good job, Sweetie! It must have not been easy. Right now, we just started traversing that hot place full of volcanoes called Nature's Navel. You think you can join us here?»

"If nothing happens, yes. Just tell me where this area is and we will come." But then, as Dedede starts telling her where to go to join them, Sweetie Belle sees the Squeak Squad's airship approaching Dark Castle, the ship a little damaged. Sighing, she says "Hold it, Dedede, I don't think I will be able to come..."

Author's Notes:

I see Spikezilla as a glass cannon character. He's strong, but his body of yarn makes him as vulnerable as Adeleine.

Chapter 99: Prince of Thieves: Daroach

The damaged blimp hovers beside the edge of the top of Dark Castle, and as everyone gathers not far from it, some of them readying themselves for a potential battle, the entrance opens. Out of it come five Squeakers: one red, one blue, one green, and two yellows.

And that's all...

And the five of them are now bouncing erratically around Sweetie Belle.

"Help!"

"You must help us!"

"Come with us!"

"Save the boss, please!"

"The boss has become crazy! Help!"

"Hey! Hey! Calm down!" shouts Sweetie Belle above their voices as she signs to them to calm down. "One at a time. What's going on? No, wait, let me guess. Daroach as been corrupted by some purple heart?"

The Squeakers restart bouncing while repeating "Yes!" before the red one starts talking alone. "A weird purple heart fell beside our new hideout!"

"The boss got interested in it and tried to take it!"

"But the heart disappeared in him!"

"And he became crazy!"

"Now he keeps the treasure all for himself!"

"And he used Necrodeus' scepter to brainwash everyone else!"

"We are the only ones who could escape!"

"With Megasqueak!"

"Wait, I thought we called it Squeak Prime?"

"Nonono. Doc called it Megasqueak. It's Spinni who calls it Squeak Prime because he finds it more cool."

"I find Squeak Prime cooler too."

"Meh. Megasqueak sounds better."

As the Squeakers start talking to each others, Sweetie Belle and some of her friends start sweating at this.

"How did we get from 'Daroach became evil' to 'What's the best name for the mecha'?" asks Elline.

"Squeakers," simply answers Sweetie Belle.

"Hey! Forget about the name! We have more pressing matters! Like saving your friends!" shouts Adeleine, stopping the mice.

"Yeah!" shouts Yin-Yarn. "Beside, didn't your boss settle for Unisqueak? I prefer it."

"You aren't helping!"

"No, he's right! If the boss says that we take Unisqueak, then we take Unisqueak! Squeak!"

"Squeak!"

"Ok, so, back to saving the Squeaks," says Sweetie Belle. "We have no idea where your new hideout is. If you want us to save Daroach and the others, you will have to show us where it is."

"No choice."

"Yeah we have no choice."

"The boss won't be happy."

"But it's the only way to save him."

"We will just have to change hideout, again."

"Awww... But I love our actual hideout."

Sweetie Belle raises an eyebrow. "You remember that your previous hideout had Daroach's hat on top of it, right? I didn't think you cared about keeping it secret."

"Seriously?" asks Taranza.

"Uh... Maybe the boss actually doesn't care."

"You know, I was starting to have doubts when he asked us to sculpt the mountain in his image."

"Ah yeah, Doc yelled at him because of this, we could hear him all the way from the top of the hat."

"I remember. It was something about learning a lesson and keeping our hideout secret."

"No kidding," says Elline with a facepalm. "It's a hideout. A HIDEout! To HIDE! It must be kept secret! So it must be discreet!"

Claycia giggles. "And a mountain sculpted in Daroach's image is not discreet at all."

Adeleine groans in exasperation, a hand covering her eyes. "It's Daroach... Remember, the guy tried to hit on us in the party, going on about how girls like us deserve to go with a handsome guy like him."

"Yes, I remember," says Claycia with another giggle.

Sweetie Belle rolls her eyes. "That guy, really..." She looks back at the Squeakers. "We should go before we lose more time. Who knows what Daroach is now up to."

"Isn't it obvious?" asks Yin-Yarn. "Either he's preparing to hunt all the treasures of the world for himself, or he's preparing to hunt all the girls of the world."

"Squeak!" answer the Squeakers with a bounce before they climb back inside the blimp, followed by Sweetie Belle and the others.

As they take off, the Squeakers start to talk. "We're lucky we found you!"

"We were searching you and Kirby everywhere!"

"And then, we saw this rainbow light!"

"We immediately knew it was one of you!"

"Speaking of, where's Kirby?"

"Busy finding where those hearts come from," answers Sweetie Belle. "Meanwhile, I suppose I'm the one charged to make sure that Popstar doesn't explode because of them. So far, I have already saved it three times. Well, more like two because I doubt that Taranza would have been able to find a way to bring Sectonia back to life."

"Thanks for the reminder that my evil quest was doomed to fail," says Taranza.

"And even if you had succeeded, Sectonia would have killed you before ruling over Popstar all by herself. You really were stupid," Yin-Yarn says.

Taranza gives Yin-Yarn a deadpan look. "I was corrupted. I wasn't thinking logically. And Sweetie and Kirby blew up the only thing that could have brought her back to life in thousands of light-years around a few months ago! I was doomed to fail from the start, I knew it, and I didn't care back then!"

"It just shows how much you sucked as a bad guy. Adeleine and Gooey's goal at least weren't impossible and suicidal," says Yin-Yarn.

He then gets slapped on the face by Adeleine using a fan, the girl slapping him so hard that he's sent on the floor. "Stop being hard on him! He's still hurt by Sectonia's death! It's only natural that he would get such a goal while corrupted! And you can talk, but he managed to capture Sweetie Belle. Tell me you were able to do better."

"I managed to capture Dedede. Back then, he was still considered stronger than Sweetie Belle. Does it count?" answers Yin-Yarn.

"Dedede's an idiot. He's easy to fool," says Sweetie Belle. "I immediately identified the Yarn Waddle Dee as a fake when he entered the room. Dedede didn't even see that something was wrong when there was one right in front of his beak."

"Sorry Yin-Yarn, you lost this clashing contest," says Ribbon.

"Not a big surprise. The guy got easily beaten by Sweetie Belle alone," says Adeleine. "If there's someone who sucked as a villain, it's him."

"So this make Yin-Yarn the worst villain?" asks Elline.

"Erh... I don't know," answers Sweetie Belle. "Between him and Dedede, it's hard to say. Remember that as a villain, Dedede's act of villainy was to steal all the food of Dreamland. So, a country-scale of what a bully does at school." At this, she starts thinking. "Maybe we should do a battle between Yin-Yarn and Dedede to see who's the worst villain. What do you think, Yin-yarn? Yin-Yarn?"

Not hearing Yin-Yarn answering, Sweetie Belle looks in his direction, only to see him now at a corner of the room, totally depressed.

---

About ten minutes later, the blimp reaches an island that is actually just the top of a mountain showing above the ocean, with no sign of life. However, the sculpted head of Daroach at the top of the island proves the contrary: this is the Squeaks' hideout.

"The new hideout is a maze of tunnels inside that island," explains the red Squeaker. "The only entrance, also the main exit, is at the top, on the hat of the sculpted head. It's the platform for the airship, you see. But we learned our lesson from last time and we prepared a lot of secret exits everywhere in the mountain that can only be opened from the inside."

"We don't think the boss will try to escape. He will rather remain beside the treasure and protect it. But just in case..." The blue Squeaker gives a communicator to Sweetie Belle. "Take this, so we can remain in contact. We will keep watch, and if the boss comes out, we will warn you."

"Eh. When you want, you can be smart," says Yin-Yarn.

"Where is the treasure room?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"Right at the center of the mountain, a little under the level of the sea. It's the lowest part of the maze."

"This means that we will have to find our way in this maze all the way from the top of the mountain to the bottom," resumes Claycia with a sigh.

Sweetie Belle groans, rubbing a hoof between her eyes. "I hate mazes... And I feel like this one will be the worst."

"Oh yeah," says the red Squeaker. "In the case we would get invaded, we placed many traps, and we made no maps. We had to memorize everything."

"Sweet... You know what..." She grabs the green Squeakers and places him on her back.

"Eh?"

"You, you come with us. You will guide us, and thanks to you, we won't lose hours in there."

"What?! B-but-but-"

"Don't worry. I'll protect you. And also, you will be able to throw your bombs and help us fight."

"No-I-Bu-"

"Your courage will be remembered! Squeak!" shout the remaining Squeakers excepted the red one.

"We're approaching the top of the hat. Prepare to jump," says the red Squeaker.

Hearing him, Spikezilla opens the door, and everyone assembles in front of it, Sweetie at the head. She looks down as the airship soon flies just above the hat, a staircase leading inside the mountain visible near the edge. The airship is close enough to the ground that they all can jump without risks, so this is what they do, everyone quickly landing on the platform.

With a wave to the blimp as it starts flying around the mountain, they climb down the stairs and enter the hideout.

It starts with a long spiral staircase as they move down the head, two windows forming the eyes, then follows with a tunnel going in two directions: forward or to the right, the two directions going down.

"So, what's the quickest way to the treasure room from there?" asks Sweetie to the Squeaker on her back.

"Uh... To the right. But it's also where we placed the most traps between the two."

"But you will tell us about them, right?" asks Ribbon.

"O-of course. I don't wanna die. But most of them should be visible. You know, electric floors, automatic turrets, and so on. But there will be also a few crushers, for example, which you won't be able to see."

"And I suppose that I have to thank Doc for all of those."

"Squeak."

"Thought so."

"And the first one will not be far."

"And what will this be?"

Before the Squeaker could answer, she spots the trap: a succession of big, wide metal doors opening and closing in a certain pattern, with absolutely no space between the doors. One error and they would end up crushed.

"I see..."

"The first three doors should be easy to pass. You just have to run to the next one when it opens before the one you're in closes. At the fourth door, do not run to the fifth directly when it opens! The door will close almost immediately! Instead, you will have to jump back to the third door, and only then you will be able to go through the fourth door to the fifth door. You will have to immediately run to through the sixth one right to the seventh one, then jump back to the sixth one, and finally, you run through the last few doors without stopping."

Adeleine writes all of this down on a small paper, nodding. "We will have to go two or three at a time. It will take time..."

"Don't worry," says the Squeaker. "There's a button at the end to stop the doors. It will be the case for most of the traps. One of you will have to pass it, then press a button to stop it and let the others pass without dangers."

"Oh, thanks the stars," says Yin-Yarn in relief.

"But whoever decides to pass this trap will have to watch out at the other side. There's a turret, and it will fire almost as soon as they pass the last door."

"Well then..." starts Sweetie Belle before she places the Squeaker on Rick's back. "I'll go. This turret won't be a problem for me with my magic."

The filly then gets in front of the first door, and looks at it for a few seconds at it opens and closes. After half a minute, when the door opens again, she runs to it, and when the second door behind it opens the next second, she quickly runs again. Following the instructions of the Squeaker, she's able to pass all the doors, and once she's at the other side, she immediately puts a shield, stopping the projectiles of the turret mounted on a wall at her left. Once the turret stops firing to cooldown, Sweetie Belle drops the shield and fires a magical beam at it, destroying it in one shot. With the turret destroyed, she's able to press the button and stop the trap without risks.

The yellow Squeaker dropping from above and trying to headbutt her from behind doesn't count. Sweetie Belle deals with him with a simple backward punch without even looking.

The doors stop closing, letting everyone join Sweetie Belle. Once the filly has levitated the Squeaker on her back again, they continue.

More turrets follow the one destroyed by Sweetie, along with some Squeakers trying their chance against them (Gooey eating a green one to get the Bomb ability), and two more traps: an electric paved floor, the electric slabs turning on and off in a certain pattern, and a succession of moving lasers. They are easily passed, Coo flying above the electric floor to the button, and Taranza teleporting behind the lasers.

After the lasers, they reach a junction, with a tunnel going down to the left and another slightly going up to the right. The squeaker tells them to take the right one, and not far further, they find another junction, but instead of taking one of the two tunnels in front of them, they go down a ladder to a third tunnel.

If the Squeaker wasn't there, they would have definitely lost hours finding their way in this maze.

After passing a trap consisting of spiked walls of various shapes coming out of the floor and moving down the tunnel, threatening to impale them, they encounter Storo trying to stop them. The big mouse hasn't changed his fighting style at all, using his strength allied with his weight to attack by body slamming, swinging his hammer, or simply punching them. But against all of them at once, he doesn't last long, and the party quickly continues, leaving Storo's unconscious body behind.

"We may encounter him again," warns the Squeaker. "There are secret passages that only the boss, Doc, Spinni, and Storo can use a little everywhere. Storo will probably use them to find us again."

"Noted," says Adeleine.

"Googoogoo!"

"Gooey's right. No matter how many times they come back, they won't be able to do anything against all of us," says Elline.

"Yay!" shout Sweetie and Ribbon.

They pass a black door and appear in a room with a familiar trap: different parts of the ceiling came down to crush them. But at those parts of the ceiling are also added parts of the floor rising up to the ceiling, and parts of the walls too. Half a minute of avoiding being turned into pancakes later, a new black door appears, and they pass it, appearing on a platform above water.

The level of the water regularly changes, rising, then lowering. When the water reaches a certain level, it gets electrified.

"As you can see," starts the Squeaker. "this place is filled with water that gets electrified when it rises too much and reaches an electrified device. You will have to swim in it, and pay attention to when it rises. When it starts rising, you have to quickly hurry and swim to one of the many air pockets above it where you will be able to jump on a platform while waiting for the electricity to stop. And by the way, this trap can't be stopped. You all will have to pass it."

"Lucky us we all know how to swim," says Sweetie Belle.

"The birds may have more problems" says Taranza.

"They will cling to Kine," says Adeleine.

At this, they wait for the water level to start to lower itself, stopping it from being electrified, before they jump in it. While at first, reaching the pockets of air in time isn't a problem, it quickly becomes one when the pockets become more rare, and moving lasers appearing to serve as obstacles to slow them. By the time they reach the end of this path and pass the next black door, they have gotten a couple of close calls.

They reappear in a more classic tunnel where they encounter Spinni while Squeakers throw bombs at them from platforms above. Sweetie Belle is well used to Spinni's speed by now, and perfectly knows the best way to deal with him: creating a shield right in front of him to stop him. Once he's stopped, she traps him inside a cubic shield, leaving a few small holes here and there. From the holes, she then uses her ten cannons to fire at him until he falls unconscious. Simple, quick, effective, and no way to escape if you aren't strong enough to destroy her shield. The perfect technique for anyone that prefer to use speed rather than force. It also works for the ones who prefer using their brain, at the condition that they don't possess a powerful weapon or that they don't pilot a mecha.

With Spinni and the Squeakers knocked out, they continue through a few more tunnels and traps, until Sweetie Belle hears Dedede's anthem playing from her device. So she takes it and accepts the call.

«Hello Sweetie. So, you couldn't come, uh? What was it, this time?»

"Daroach," she simply answers.

«I see...»

"Right now, me and the others are in the Squeaks' new hideout, traversing a maze full of traps. Sometimes, I feel like I'm the unlucky one."

«Ah ah! I assure you, traversing a trapped maze is nothing compared to what me and the others just got through! We just finished fighting Meta Knight corrupted by one of those dark hearts.»

Ouch... "How was the fight?" asks the filly, uncertain.

«At first, it was okay, like a normal fight against Meta Knight. Just a little more violent than usual, closer to Dark Meta Knight. But then, he duplicated himself...»

Sweetie Belle sweats at this. "Meta Knight... duplicating himself...?"

«Yeah, it was as bad as you think. At least, the Meta Knights shared the damage they took. Hurting one was also hurting the others, so it was quick. Now, he's with us.»

"Those hearts can really give any power. I now fear what it will be like when I fight Daroach. Remember, he now possesses Necrodeus' scepter. By the way, you never told me what power it gave you. I'm curious."

«Ah! I got biceps!»

"...........What?"

«Ahahahahah! You should've seen me! I was even taller than usual, and my arms were real tree trunks! I could have lifted an elephant!»

«But he had nothing in the legs,» she recognizes Broom Sunglasses saying.

«Shut up! I don't have legs! Of course I can't have muscles there! However... The throne room will need some repair...»

Sweetie Belle facehoofs. "Seriously? We repaired it just a f-"

«Uh? What's that?» Dedede suddenly interrupts.

"What?"

«Waaaaahh!»

Almost immediately after she hears Dedede screaming, a huge earthquake takes everyone by surprise. It lasts for almost one whole minute before it slowly stops, almost everyone now on the floor.

"What the heck was that?!" asks Adeleine.

"It's the first time I see an earthquake since I came to Popstar," says Claycia.

"Dedede? Dedede, what happened? Dedede?" asks Sweetie Belle.

After a small silence, Dedede answers with a small voice. «A huge space fortress just landed on the planet.»

Oh, please, not again. "How huge?"

«About as huge as the Access Ark.»

"Ugh! What is it with planet-sized spaceships landing on Popstar?!"

«And this one as a big red eye at the front, with horns and bat wings.»

"Ok... This screams evil. Whoever is inside it must have something to do with those hearts. And a red eye? Reminds me of Zero."

«This is what Meta Knight thought just now. You know what it means.»

"Yup. You, Kirby, and the others go invade it to deal with whatever is inside. Meanwhile, I finish my business with Daroach, and if nothing else comes, I will join you."

«Somehow, I know that something will come. You already fought Taranza, Adeleine, and Gooey, and you're about to fight Daroach. There's still Dark Meta Knight and Marx to check, and I'm almost certain by now that at least one of them got corrupted.»

Sweetie Belle sighs. "That's what I thought too..." A shiver traverses her body. "If Marx got corrupted..."

«If Marx got corrupted, then good luck. Now, we must go. Call you soon again, maybe,» finishes Dedede before ending the call.

...

"So... A planet-sized spaceship? Again?" asks Taranza.

"Yeah... Or more like a fortress, apparently. Kirby and the others will deal with it while we make sure that the dark hearts don't cause too many problems behind."

"Which we've been doing since the start," says Yin-Yarn.

"Wait, where are..." suddenly shouts the Squeaker as he looks around. "Oh n-RUN! NOW!"

Not asking questions, Sweetie Belle start running, using her magic to push the ones slow to start just as the ceiling suddenly drops where they've been the previous second. They don't stop running as more sections of the ceiling drop behind them, until they reach a black door and pass it.

But now, they enter a room similar to the one with the ceiling, floor, and wall parts trying to crush them, and like in the previous room, they have to survive until another black door appears. But this time, the Squeaker tells them to not take it, saying that this door isn't a good one. So they remain in the room and wait a little more as it gets harder to avoid getting crushed. Eventually, a second door appears, and they pass it.

Doc is waiting for them at the other side, the old mouse piloting his UFO-like vehicle. With it, he fires some lasers that get deflected by Sweetie Belle while Gooey throws some bombs and Taranza throws some energy balls. Doc's vehicle is quickly destroyed by all those attacks, and the mouse falls on the floor slightly burned and half unconscious. Nago finishes him with a little punch.

"We're not far! From here, it will be the first to the left toward another black door, then down three ladders and a staircase to a last door," informs the Squeaker.

So they follow his instructions, having to deal with a passage full of streams of fire coming out of the walls and floor, more turrets, more moving lasers but much more numerous (even forming figures like stars or squares), spiked ceilings going down as they move down the ladders, and the staircase itself that reveals to be a conveyor belt going up while more turrets fire at them, including a statue of Daroach with eye-lasers.

And then, as they approach the last black door, the hideout suddenly shakes again, a loud crash came from somewhere.

"What now?!" asks Taranza.

They then hear the squeak Squad's anthem coming from Sweetie Belle's belt, and the filly takes the communicator given to her by the red Squeaker.

«Squeak! Sweetie Belle! The hideout was hit by a big laser!»

"What? What shot this laser?"

«I don't know! It came from... too far! From the West!»

"The West... It's the direction of Dreamland. You mean the hideout was hit by a laser shot by someone all the way from Dreamland? Who could-No, wait." She sighs. "Marx... But why..."

«Uh... One of my comrades just told me that he saw something in the laser before it crashed into the hideout.»

"Something in the laser... I have a bad feeling. I don't know if Marx is corrupted or not, but he probably fired this laser at someone. And that someone has now crashed into the hideout. We will have to go find out who it is and see if it's a threat later. Right now, we're almost at the treasure room."

«Wow! You were quick! Alright! Kick the boss' butt! I can't believe I just said that!»

Sweetie Belle ends the call before prompting the group to advance and pass the last black door, entering the treasure room.

It's a big circular room filled with treasures that the Squeaks gathered, and between two piles of treasures, sitting on a throne made of gold coins and gems somehow holding together, is Daroach.

When Daroach spots them, he starts floating, getting out his wand while Storo, Spinni, Doc (inside another flying vehicle), and a dozen Squeakers come from behind some of the piles of treasures.

Prince of Thieves
Daroach

Daroach points his wand at Sweetie Belle and fires his ice beam, and the filly and everyone behind her jump out of the way before charging at the Squeaks, the Squeaker on Sweetie's back deciding to go hide. Daroach and the Squeakers at his side start throwing bombs at the heroes, and they're destroyed by the black lightning bolts of Taranza's fake Sectonia while Gooey counters by throwing his own bombs. Doc surrounds his vehicle in electricity before charging, and Sweetie Belle counters him by doing her fiery comet attack, the two of them clashing. Claycia quickly sculpts a hammer before using it to counter Storo's own hammer before the big mouse is hit by Adeleine's paintbrush. Spinni, meanwhile, throws his shurikens while jumping from pile of treasures to pile of treasures, only to be attacked in mid-jump by Coo, the owl headbutting him before clawing him. Ribbon, Elline, and the remaining animals go to deal directly with the Squeakers as more of the small colored mice are coming.

Doc is the first to go down, his vehicle easily getting destroyed before he's knocked out by Sweetie Belle who immediately turns toward Daroach, the leader of the Squeaks being attacked by Yin-Yarn and Spikezilla to stop him from throwing his bombs. But then, Daroach takes out Necrodeus' staff, and fires some kind of dark magical beam from it at Yin-Yarn and Spikezilla. The next instant, the two of them are turned into statues of gold, not able to move anymore.

Everyone looks at the golden statues in shock, then at Necrodeus' staff, some of them gulping.

Daroach then uses the staff to fire another beam, this time at Storo's hammer. Some of the gold around then starts levitating toward the hammer, gluing themselves to it until it turns into a huge golden hammer. Storo then slams the hammer on the ground, creating a big shockwave and causing the room to shake, boulders falling from the ceiling as a result.

As many of the treasures fall from the piles as a result, Daroach raises Necrodeus' staff again, and more gold is levitated before they form golden statues of himself that start attacking the heroes with their claws.

And as if this isn't enough, Spinni takes from the treasures the three pieces of a Dragoon and assembles them before climbing on it and taking off, the Dragoon passing through the ceiling.

Sweetie Belle goes to attack Daroach while the others deal with Storo and the remaining Squeakers. Taking everyone by surprise, the Dragoon with Spinni on it suddenly burst out of a wall and charges straight at Gooey at a speed so great that everybody can barely see him before he disappears into a wall, leaving Gooey unconscious behind. A few seconds later, Spinni comes back again with the Dragoon, and this time, charges at Taranza. The spider thankfully teleports and avoids it. But the Dragoon still manages to knock out Ribbon before it exits the room again. At the same time, Kine barely avoids being turned into a statue of gold as Daroach suddenly targeted him with Necrodeus' staff without warning. The beam instead hits one of the Squeakers.

Frowning, Taranza surrounds Storo in a magical net like he did to Sweetie Belle. After a couple of seconds, he frees Storo, and the big mouse suddenly starts attacking the Squeakers around him. Storo then sweeps the floor with the hammer just as Spinni comes back again with the Dragoon. The yellow mouse is rammed right on the face by Storo's hammer, and he crashes on a wall while the Dragoon, without pilot, loses control and ends its course into a small pile of treasures. Before Storo could enjoy his victory over Spinni and the Dragoon, he's hit from behind by a magical beam, and he's turned into a golden statue too.

With most of the Squeakers now knocked out, Daroach is pretty much alone, but with Necrodeus' staff, he remains a big threat. He proves it by using the staff to fire dark lightning bolts toward the ceiling. The lightning bolts then bounce from the ceiling and fall back all over the room. While the lightning bolts rain everywhere, Daroach uses his wand to fire ice beams after ice beams, and randomly fires a magical beam at one of the heroes in the hope of turning them into golden statues.

When the lightning bolts stop raining, Sweetie Belle knocked Daroach away with her weapon in Staff-mode. While propelled by the hit, Daroach is then crushed by Adeleine's painted Ice Dragon jumping on him, before he's hit by a laser coming from a copy of Bastron's head made by Claycia. Before he can recover, Elline hits him on the back of the head in her paintbrush from multiple times.

As he's attacked by Elline, a purple aura appears around Daroach before he suddenly uses his wand to knock away the fairy paintbrush. Daroach then teleports in the middle of the room and raises Necrodeus' staff, and all the treasures in the room start flying toward him. Before long, Daroach is surrounded by all the treasures, which form a giant statue of himself almost reaching the ceiling.

Daroach then starts using the statue's two giant floating claws to pound the ground and create shockwave pillars that somehow home in the heroes. Pounding the ground also causes the room to shake again, leading for more boulders to fall from the ceiling. Heck, by now, some parts of the ceiling are starting to break away, leaving holes to whatever room or tunnel is above. After pounding the ground a few times, Daroach theme fires lasers from two big red gems forming the eyes of the statue, and at the same time, Necrodeus' staff pokes out from the statue's chest and starts firing magical beams.

Avoiding the beams as best they can, the heroes who haven't yet been knocked unconscious or been turned into golden statues use their best attacks to damage the Daroach statue, Sweetie Belle firing Ultimate Doom Lasers after Ultimate Doom Lasers without stopping, especially after seeing the statue reforming little by little if they don't damage it enough. After enough attacks, a hole to Daroach himself is opened in the statue, and they quickly attack him until Daroach uses the statue's hands to shield the hole.

By the time the heroes are able to destroy the hands, the hole has closed, and Daroach restarts firing beams from the eyes and the staff while the hands reform. Once the hands have reformed, Daroach uses them in a more direct way, trying to claw the heroes, punch them, or crush them. The statue also starts advancing toward his nearest enemy, each step sounding with a big STOMP! and making the room shake a little. One of the punches almost manages to hit Elline, but the fairy is saved just in time by Claycia pushing her out of the way, taking the hit in her place, crashing into a wall. Before she could recover, she's hit by a magical beam, turning her into a golden statue.

Despite this and Elline's desperate cries, the heroes manage to open another hole in the statue to attack Daroach directly, and by now, the statue starts to crumble, first losing its ears, then the hands.

But as everyone thinks that the fight is about to end, something suddenly comes out from one of the holes in the ceiling, and the next instant, Daroach is slashed repeatedly. This finishes him, the statues crumbling completely and burying him in a large pile of treasures while a dark heart comes out and flies away.

The being who just attacked Daroach then turns to the heroes, revealing his identity as he readies his sword while he lands on the ground.

The Lone Swordman's Shadow
Dark Meta Knight

"Oh. So that's who was in the laser," says Sweetie Belle. "I should have thought about it."

She looks around at her friends. From the starting team, only Taranza, Adeleine, Elline, and the animals remain.

She quickly points a hoof at Taranza. "Go throw a pink heart at Daroach!" She then points at Adeleine and Elline. "Adeleine! Elline! You should work together!" She finally points at the animal who are all grouped together. "You all! Attack Dark Meta Knight with everything you have to open him for me and whatever Adeleine will do!"

They all nod before Taranza teleports, the animals charge at Dark Meta Knight, and Adeleine starts painting something. At the same time, Dark Meta Knight charges forward to slash at the animals, but while he manages to slash Rick, the hamster immediately retaliates with a punch on his mask. The dark knight quickly recovers to parry Coo's claws before punching away Pitch. He slashes at Nago who protects himself with his arms while ChuChu, on his head, gives back a series of fast punches that forces Dark Meta Knight to fly back. Dark Meta Knight then quickly turns around to slash at Kine trying to headbutt him from behind, and the fish jumps back to avoid it.

After a few seconds of the animals attacking him, Sweetie Belle decides to attack with her weapon in Ten Beam Swords-mode, using an opening left by Nago using his tail to trip the knight to slash him dozens of times from all directions. Just as Dark Meta Knight manages to fly away from the swords, he's hit by two small beams, then by two more beams, and two mores again. As he deflects the next two beams, he spots Adeleine sliding on a Rainbow Rope painted by Elline. The human girl is now armed with two painted laser guns from which she fires her beams. Before Dark Meta Knight could attack her to stop her, Taranza and Daroach appear at his left and right, the two of them using a fake Sectonia and Necrodeus' staff to fire dark lightning bolts at him.

To their surprise, Dark Meta Knight already falls to the ground half unconscious.

But then, they remember that he came here inside a laser from Marx. Dark Meta Knight probably fought the jester and, like each time, got a serious beatdown in return. No wonder he's already weakened.

But then, a purple aura appears around Dark Meta Knight as he rises in the air. Dark Meta Knight then disappears inside a purple cloud that quickly divides itself into four Dark Meta Knights!

"Ugh! Of course he gets the same power up as Meta Knight!" shouts Sweetie Belle as she readies her ten beam swords, which she turns into double beam swords each covered in an element like fire, ice, water, electricity, and wind, produced from the weapon itself.

One of the Dark Meta Knight charge at her while the three others charge toward the animals, Adeleine, and Taranza, leaving Daroach free. But it doesn't last long because the Dark Meta Knight who has charged at the animals creates mirrors from which giant versions of his sword come out, knocking out Rick, Kine, and Nago with them. With half of the animals out, the Dark Meta Knight decides to focus on Daroach. But it doesn't mean that the remaining animals decide to remain here doing nothing. Coo, Pitch, and ChuChu all move after the Dark Meta Knight who just attacked them to avenge their friends.

Adeleine can't do much against the Dark Meta Knight constantly attacking her. She does her best to avoid being slashed, and manages to slap him a couple of times with the Magical Paintbrush, but her body is quickly littered with dozens of painful cuts. but then, Elline uses an easel to paint a human knight, with a sword and armor, before she transfers the painting into Adeleine, turning her into a real knight. Now armed with a sword, the girl can better protect herself, but Dark Meta Knight remains the superior swordsman in this room.

As Taranza flies around the room to escape the Dark Meta Knight attacking him while firing energy balls and magical webs, and Daroach does the same while firing ice beams at the Dark Meta Knight chasing him, Sweetie Belle faces her own Dark Meta Knight, and is the one having the less problems against him. With her ten elemental double beam swords, it's rather the Dark Meta Knight who has problems. Quickly, the Dark Meta Knight decides to give up the fight against her, and flies toward Adeleine. at two against one, without counting the weak fairy, it will be easy.

But he's suddenly slammed by one of the Dark Meta Knights trapped in ice, Daroach having trapped him before throwing him. with none of the Dark Meta Knight now attacking Daroach, the mouse goes help Taranza with the animals, and Sweetie Belle goes help Adeleine, ramming the Dark Meta Knight attacking the human girl. But quickly, the Dark Meta Knight trapped in ice is freed by the one he rammed into, and from there, the fight takes a more chaotic turn.

The knights decide to attack randomly the heroes, not focusing on only one of them, and the heroes quickly follow their example, resulting in heroes and dark knight moving everywhere while projectiles fly in all directions, from sharp shockwaves to beams, passing by tornadoes, energy balls, fireballs, spikes of ice, or lightning bolts, for the most commons. Not a second pass also without some giant swords coming out of mirrors. The worst comes when the four Dark Meta Knights simultaneously enter four mirrors, and those four mirrors divide each into three mirrors, creating a total of twelve mirrors, each with a Dark Meta Knight in it. The heroes know this attack, so they know that two third of the Dark Meta Knights are fakes that would break into mirror shards when attacked, the shards homing on them. This attack could easily be defeated because the fakes didn't move, contrary to the real one.

But it seems that Dark Meta Knight learned his lesson from his fight against Meta Knight, because none of them are moving. No way to know which ones are the real ones! So when the Dark Meta Knights come out of the mirrors one after another, the heroes have no choice but to attack them blindly until they find the real ones, meaning that they have to avoid the mirror shards homing on them, which is a lot.

But like Dedede said, this power up has one big weakness: the four Dark Meta Knights share the damage they take. And with Dark Meta Knight already badly weakened by his fight against Marx and by the first part of this fight, it doesn't take longer before they start showing signs of exhaustion, the knights slowing down, getting hit more easily, using less their magic...

The Dark Meta Knights do a last desperate attack by flying back to back from each others before surrounding themselves in mirrors from which come giant swords.

Only for Daroach to appear inside the mirror ball, just under them, before firing lightning bolts at them with Necrodeus' staff.

Three of the Dark Meta Knights disappear while the remaining one drops on the floor. He tries one last time to get up, slowly raising his head, before he loses consciousness, the dark heart coming out of him.

The fight over, they all breathe a sigh of relief.

"Eheheh. And then, corrupted Marx comes out of the ceiling," says Daroach with a chuckle.

A shiver traverses everyone else still conscious before they look up at the ceiling. After a few seconds, seeing nobody coming out of the holes, Taranza gives Daroach a small slap on the back of his head. "Don't jinx it like that!"

Author's Notes:

Since Dark Meta Knight is a copy of Meta Knight, I told myself that he would get the same power up than him. With his powers, it's extremely effective, as you could see.

Chapter 100: The Cosmic Jester: Marx

"So, Marx has really been corrupted too," says Sweetie Belle with a sigh.

"Talk about bad luck," says Taranza.

It's a few minutes after the end of the fight. Daroach has turned back to normal everyone that has been turned into golden statues, then has freed the Squeaks that were under his control. The Squeakers have immediately been sent to search some food to heal everyone while Dark Meta Knight, who has been given a friend heart, is telling everyone what happened with Marx.

Short story: Marx got corrupted too. The both of them fought, Dark Meta Knight starting the fight, and Marx won.

Dark Meta Knight crosses his arms. "I can't believe that even with this power up given by that dark heart, I wasn't able to defeat him."

"Since he's corrupted by a dark heart, he got a power up too," explains Sweetie Belle. "He's already powerful. I can't imagine how he is now."

"He must be close to Master Crowned Magolor," says Yin-Yarn.

"Before or after he gets possessed by the crown?" asks Adeleine.

"Uh..."

"I would say after," answers Sweetie Belle. "Before, Master Crowned Magolor's power and Marx's power were really close. Well, Marx couldn't do that shield, and open portals, so I would say that Marx was a little less powerful, but they had very similar attacks, like the black hole. So, now that Marx is powered by a dark heart..."

"And now, that corrupted overpowered mad jester is in the wild in Dreamland," says Daroach.

...

...

"We should go right now," says Sweetie Belle.

They all nod.

"Will you join us?" asks Ribbon to Daroach and Dark Meta Knight.

"I'm no hero, but I still owe you for helping me getting the medals... and for saving us just now, so I accept," says Daroach. "And it may be the occasion for me to find new treasures." He turns to Doc, Storo, and Spinni. "We will use the Unisqueak to go to Dreamland. Then, you three will return it to the hideout and repair it."

"Squeak!"

"I refuse," then says Dark Meta Knight, gaining the attention of everyone.

Sweetie Belle tilts her head in confusion. "Don't you want to get your revenge on Marx and whoever caused those hearts to fall on Popstar?"

After a few seconds of silence, Dark Meta Knight answers with a "Yes."

"Then come with us. Alone, you won't be able to do anything, but with our help, you will finally be able to defeat Marx," says Adeleine.

Sweetie Belle nods. "With teamwork, you can succeed where you failed before."

Dark Meta Knight growls, but as much as he hates the idea of joining a team, preferring to remain alone to deal with problems, he knows that they're right. He lost to Marx even with the power up he got from the dark heart (Marx getting a power up too didn't help), so now that he doesn't have this power up anymore, there's no way for him to win. At least, not alone. Teaming with Sweetie and the others will be the only occasion for him to FINALLY get back at Marx for being so. Freaking! ANNOYING! Also, whatever is at the origin of those hearts, if he could find a way to get that power without that whole corrupting side effect... "Very well," he finally answers.

"Yay!"

With this settled, the heroes, with Daroach and Dark Meta Knight who have now joined their ranks, exit the hideout by the same passage Sweetie and the others took to enter it to embark on the Unisqueak which landed here earlier once Sweetie Belle gave the Squeakers the green light. But before they embark, they stop to look at something that wasn't there before, far in the horizon.

A giant structure with a bottom that looks like the end of a giant double edged sword with a huge emerald inlaid in the center. Its shape actually looks more like a giant shovel fused with an anchor with sharp claws holding it from behind. Above it is a giant red eye below four horns and between bat wings that are in a position similar to Star Dream's wings when deployed. Behind the eye, wings, and horns, a huge structure can be seen with at the top, all around it, a ring of black-red chains. Also, floating above an orange light at the top is an octahedron. Not sure why. Under the level of the red eye, all around the structure, floats a huge metal ring with blue fire all around at the top. Red glowing octahedrons also surround that ring, trapped inside metallic cages of the same shape.

The space fortress, like Dedede said.

"And so, we don't go to deal with the obviously evil fortress from space?" asks Daroach.

"Kirby, Dedede, Bandana Dee, Meta Knight, and some others are already in the case, don't worry," answers Sweetie Belle. "Us, meanwhile, we must deal with Marx and save Dreamland from whatever he's now doing."

Daroach gives a shrug. "Alright, then, all aboard the Unisqueak! Direction: Dreamland!" He then looks at the girls and gives a bow while waving at the entrance of the airship. "Ladies first."

Said ladies roll their eyes, some of them giggling, before they enter Unisqueak along with the others.

"I don't know which I prefer. Attacking this fortress, or fighting the god-like nightmarishly crazy jester," comments Yin-Yarn.

"At least, with the jester, we know what we're up against," says Adeleine.

"And we don't know what's in this fortress," continues Claycia.

"Yes, as we talk, Kirby and the others may be dealing with something far worse than Marx," says Ribbon.

---

"Now Ah'm curious to see what's going on with Kirby inside that fortress," says Applejack as the ponies and the dragon are eating their lunch.

Discord looks briefly through a small portal above his paw before answering "Nothing much. They're breaking the ice with some blue-haired axe-wearing mage girl."

"Ooh! They're fighting an ice mage?" asks Pinkie with a snicker. "She must have some very cool attacks!"

"Yes, but she's giving them the cold shoulder."

"Maybe if they give her some ice cream, she will be their friend."

"Please! Stop with the puns!" shouts Twilight with a groan.

"They are really ice," says then a voice with a chuckle. Its origin, Princess Celestia herself, enters the room along with Princess Luna.

Despite some of them internally groaning at Celestia participating, the surprise of seeing her and her sister coming leads the ponies to look at them wide eyed before bowing.

"Princess Celestia?! Princess Luna?" asks Twilight.

"Rise, my little ponies. We received a letter from Discord telling us about Sweetie Belle going on a new adventure, and we decided to come."

"I thought they would like watching her again," specifies Discord.

"And it gives us an excuse to take some good time away from the nobles," says Luna.

"Luna also can't wait to see more action. After that battle against Star Dream, she was like a filly," says Celestia with a giggle. "I would even say that Luna is now Sweetie Belle's biggest fan."

"She's a filly who piloted a space battleship to destroy a planet-sized robot with powers that could distort space-time! She gained ALL my respect!"

"She has some competition," says Rainbow Dash. "Scootaloo and Apple Bloom aren't better. Too bad they're in school right now."

Luna clears her throat to stop their conversation. "Anyway, what is going on this time?"

"We aren't totally sure. All we know now is that purple hearts fell from space all over Popstar corrupting most of Sweetie's friends, so Sweetie Belle has to fight them while Kirby is searching for the origin of those hearts," answers Rarity.

"And right now, Sweetie Belle is about to go fight Marx while Kirby is attacking a giant space fortress that landed on Popstar not long ago," continues Spike.

"To be more specific, Kirby is fighting a mage specialised in ice magic," says Pinkie.

"Thus, the ice puns from earlier," says Starlight.

"Marx, this is the jester with powers close to the ones of an alicorn if i remember correctly," says Luna.

"Eeyup," confirms Applejack. "And he got a power up too. Those dark hearts give one to anyone corrupted by them."

"Pretty much like the Alicorn Amulet," says Rainbow.

"This promises to be interesting."

"It will be... Buuuut we should get the more sensitives out of the room... Some of Marx' attacks can be really disturbing," proposes Discord.

At this, many eyes turn to Fluttershy who hides herself behind her mane. "Do-don't worry for me. I can handle whatever he will use. It won't be worse than Zero Two."

"True... If worst comes to worst, I will put a blindfold on your eyes."

Meanwhile, the Unisqueak lands on the coast of Dreamland, and Sweetie and her friends disembark before the blimp takes off and returns to the Squeaks' hideout with the heroes waving goodbye at it. After a few seconds, they look around, spotting a few landmarks, like Dedede's castle at the top of a mountain, or the Dreamstalk, but they don't see Marx, or any sign of him, anywhere.

"Where do we go?" asks Elline.

"Marx could be anywhere..." says Daroach.

"At least, he's not anywhere close, or we would hear explosions and screams," says Yin-Yarn. "Even the castle hasn't been attacked yet."

"Maybe he's at the opposite side of Dreamland," proposes Taranza.

"He would be more south," says Dark Meta Knight. "When we fought, we were near the ocean, closer to the Halberd's hangar. He probably moved elsewhere since then, but we should search here first."

Sweetie Belle looks at him worriedly. "Near the hangar of the Halberd? He's probably attacking it now, we must hurry! Let's use the star!"

"The Warp Star?" asks Daroach. "It's too small for all of us."

"No, not the Warp Star. Remember the pink heart we gave? Remember the energy you felt when it entered you? Then focus on it, and you will see. You too, Dark Meta Knight."

"Pink heart?" asks Luna.

"Oh right, we forgot to mention them," says Spike.

While Twilight explains the pink hearts and their powers, Sweetie Belle and her friends create one of those winged stars that they use to fly all the way to the hangar. As they approach it, they can hear explosions, and every now and then, a laser comes out of the hangar. Many unconscious Meta Knights are present all over the exterior, and no doubt that more of them are present inside, or still fighting.

But then, in a huge explosion, coming out of a wall, appears Marx, the jester dodging some beams from Laser Balls (the orange living balls that can fire lasers) before teleporting a few times around them to confuse them. Once the Laser Balls are confused, Marx lands on one of the balls and walks on it to make it roll in the air before kicking it at the other ball. Marx then fires two lasers from his eyes, hitting the two balls who fall in the ocean around the hangar.

Once the balls disappear in the water, Marx then spots the approaching heroes and turns toward them, facing them with his two big eyes that are so big that they poke out of his head like two white spheres with very small red pupils, his wide, maniacal, two-fanged smile, and his laugh. "He he he he he!"

The Cosmic Jester
Marx

"Oh yes... This form he took when fighting Sectonia... I really wouldn't want to meet him in the dark," says Rarity.

"He is usually so adorable..." says Fluttershy.

"For a jester, he doesn't look funny at all," says Pinkie

"He looks more like a psychopath," says Rainbow Dash.

Marx teleports in front of the heroes, and Sweetie Belle immediately starts shooting projectiles from the star at him. Not minding the projectiles, Marx lowers his head so his hat faces the heroes, and the hat straightens, the pom-poms turning into balls of sharp needles, before he charges at them. Despite the surprise of this new attack, Sweetie Belle is able to move the star and avoid him, only for Marx to teleport not far to her right to charge at them again. Sweetie has to dodge this charge coming from different directions a few more times, barely able to attack in return, before Marx decides to stop and he reappears in front of her.

With a snap, his body then separates in two before disappearing, a black hole appearing in his place that forces Sweetie to quickly move far to the left to avoid it.

A shiver traverses everypony at seeing Marx' body separates like that, but they aren't surprised, having already seen this attack back in the fight against Sectonia. But it's still disturbing. Really disturbing. Especially the snap. The only ones surprised by this are Celestia and Luna, who haven't seen it before, and they look with wide eyes as Marx creates a few more black holes on the way of the winged star, forcing Sweetie Belle to maneuver with high precision between them.

Because of Marx' teleporting, high agility, and speed, and because he's not stupid, the jester remains in front of the winged star as little as possible, prefering to attack from the sides with various attacks consisting of lasers, energy arrows, and charges, where Sweetie Belle can't attack him directly without having to turn. The filly then takes a surprising decision as she looks at her friends behind her with a nod that they return.

The next instant, from the winged star with seventeen heroes comes a second winged star, and the team separates into two teams, and those two teams separate into two more teams, for a total of four teams, one of five heroes, and three of four heroes, all flying with a winged star.

And so, with four teams, it's harder for Marx to find an angle to attack without getting attacked in return, and after one more minute, the jester, to everyone's surprise, decides to escape. The heroes immediately chase him until he disappears inside a cave too small for them to fly in with the stars, which forces them to land.

They enter the cave, passing a black door to an underground area where they can't see Marx anywhere. Thinking that the jester is further ahead, they start running, only for a big shadow to appear in the ground at Sweetie Belle's hooves. She spotted it, and remembering what it is, she quickly jumps and rolls forward just before Marx charges out of the shadow, but before any of the heroes can do anything to him, the jester disappears in the ceiling of the cave. Another shadow appears then in the wall of the cave at their left, and out of it comes Marx' left wing that turns into veins spreading in front of the shadow. Once the veins disappear, the shadow disappears too, and another appears on the wall further in front of the group. Out of it comes one of Marx' wings again, but this time, like the fin of a shark, it comes at them with the clear intention of beheading some of them.

Understanding that this cave is a trap and that they won't be able to defeat Marx without causing a cave in, the heroes start running to get out of here, Marx not stopping his attacks all the way to the exit. The heroes pass the black door at the end of the cave and appear in a smaller cave where they have to climb a ladder to get out and reach the surface. They are quickly followed by Marx who turns to look and laugh at them before flying away. Again, the heroes give chase through the plains of Dreamland.

But again, Marx seems to continue simply playing with them, remaining at a respectable distance while spamming his huge laser that he spits. When one of the heroes decide to come directly at him by flying, Marx immediately teleports away to keep his distance. In the end, the only things reaching him are projectiles, and again, he easily dodges most of them.

The chase lasted for a few minutes before Taranza gets an idea and whispers it to Sweetie Belle. With a smirk, the filly nods at him before she points at all her friends who can fly accepted Taranza to come with her. After this, she levitates herself toward Marx, followed by the friends she designed, and together, they start to constantly attack Marx, not leaving him even one second. If he teleports, then they just spot where he appears and immediately join him. Marx continues trying to escape, teleporting away again and again until, suddenly, the remaining friends who couldn't fly and Taranza come from behind, forming a wheel, and ram the jesting on the back with a jump. Marx ends up flattened on the ground under the wheel of friends, where he comically floats up like a leave, only for the wheel to come and roll on him again, and again, and again.

This stops when Marx, still looking like a flattened pancake, suddenly spits another laser directly at the ground under him, propelling himself into the sky out of the way of the wheel of friends who instead roll right in the laser, getting badly hurt.

At this moment, a purple aura appears around Marx, and his whole body disappears in a purple cloud. The cloud doubles in size before it suddenly explodes just as two wings, two arms, and two legs come out of it.

Now with a pale body double his original size, Marx slowly lands on the ground, on his two new long bony legs, with claws poking out of his destroyed shoes. With his bloody red eyes, he looks at one of his new arms, long and bony as well, flexing his claws a couple of times to get the feeling of them. Finishing with this test, he looks back at the heroes, his smile, now fanged like a shark, becoming even wider, almost splitting his face with it. Somehow, his bow under his jaw has been replaced by a purple crystal-like heart necklace, and his hat is now divided into four parts instead of two: two white with purple hearts, and two blacks with red eyes. His wings are now the same color than the Master Crown in its final form, and hexagons are now all white, except the ones at the extremities that are red.

His mouth then opens, letting out a long snake-like tongue with a heart-shaped arrow-like extremity.

"He he he he he... He he hehe... Heee hahaha! GYAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! GYYYHAHEHAHEHAHEHAHEHAHEHAAA!!!!!"

The heroes step back in fear as they look at this... horror... as he continues to give the craziest maniacal laugh of history.

It's not a jester anymore.

It's not a bat.

It's a demon.

"It seems like we came just in time to witness a horror show," comments Celestia.

Luna looks at the ponies huddled together in fright and sighs. "And I will have more work tonight..."

At this instant, as Sweetie and others recover from this horrible transformation and horrible laugh and start attacking, Marx takes off, hovers a dozen meters above the heroes, and spreads his arms, dozens of balls appearing in the sky above him. The balls then start dropping, exploding upon contact, forcing the heroes to run around to avoid them. Once finished with this attack, Marx lands in the middle of the group upside down on his hat, the four parts of the hat acting like legs. To everyone's disgust, he then grabbed his eyes from their eye-sockets, spreads his arms until they are parallel to the ground, and starts spinning like a top while the eyes fire each a continuous laser. This takes everyone by surprise, and nobody expected Coo and Pitch is spared by those lasers as a result, but after the first hit, everybody quickly lowers themselves against the ground or floats/flies away to avoid getting hit again.

After a dozen turns, Marx suddenly bounces and lands in front of Sweetie Belle, arms crossed, the eyes becoming like daggers. He then gives a cross-slash at her, but the filly jumps back to avoid the attack, only for Marx to throw one of the dagger-eyes at her, and the other at Dark Meta Knight approaching from behind. Sweetie Belle simply protects herself from the dagger with a shield while Dark Meta Knight cuts the other one. The two daggers, or what remain, then disappear, and new eyes grow at their place.

Dark Meta Knight reaches the demonic jester and slashes at his back before flying up to avoid a swing from one of Marx' arms. But as the knight attacks again, Marx intercepts and stops the sword with his bare hand before grabbing him in the other hand and using him as a shield to protect himself from various projectiles from the other heroes. The arm holding Dark Meta Knight is eventually cut by one of Sweetie Belle's beam swords, saving him before she uses her magic to levitate him away while she attacks.

Marx' arm quickly regrows in a purple smoke while he bend his legs to move his body and avoid most of Sweetie's attacks. He also tries to claw her in return, along with using eye lasers and spitting ice balls, but the filly has no problems blocking or avoiding all those attacks. The other heroes quickly join her to attack Marx, and seeing the number of hit he's getting multiply, the jester teleports around a few times before trying to impale Adeleine with his tongue.

The girl is barely saved by Gooey pushing her out of the way with his own tongue before he throws a bomb at the jester, only for him to teleport again, this time flying straight above some of the heroes while throwing cutter blades. He's stopped by Sweetie Belle creating a shield on his path, giving the opportunity for Daroach to fire an ice beam at him, but Marx teleports again before he's hit.

Marx reappears again in the air, far away enough of the heroes to be able to face all of them before he fires the claws of his wings like homing missiles. Daroach teleports again along with Taranza, respectively at Marx' left and right, before they both punch him on the cheeks. Marx recovers quickly from the punches and tries to grab the two of them, but they both teleport away before Marx feels something wrapping around one of his legs. The next instant, he's pulled down toward the ground by Gooey's tongue in his Dark Matter-like form, where he's met by Yin-Yarn in an octopus form. With his eight tentacles, he gives him a storm of punches until Marx is able to counter with his own hands, feet, and even the hat. As the two are locked in a violent clash, Marx suddenly uses his tongue and wraps it around one of the tentacles before he throws Yin-Yarn right at Gooey who's still close. Marx then quickly teleports before he's hit by a charged beam from Sweetie Belle.

When he appears in the sky again, Marx starts randomly flying around while juggling with balls that he has materialized, all of them coated in an element. Every now and then, he lets one of the balls drop on the heroes, the balls creating an explosion of the corresponding element upon contact. While juggling, Marx's eyes start growing, turning into big red balls with many pupils appearing all over them. However, before they start firing lasers all over the place as Sweetie Belle has been waiting, the eyes drop from their sockets into Marx' hands, and he starts juggling with them as if they're balls, and it's only then that they start firing lasers, the juggling making them more unpredictable and hard to avoid.

The eyes eventually return to their sockets before one of the balls, coated in fire, grows to giant proportions. When Marx drops it on the ground, it doesn't explode, and instead, the jested lands on it and makes it roll around to crush the heroes, the ball leaving a trail of fire wherever it passes. Thinking for a few seconds, Sweetie Belle coats Dark Meta Knight's sword in water. The knight thanks her with a nod before he throws the sword at the ball which explodes as a result, leaving Marx stunned and vulnerable to a general assault.

Marx recovers in a few seconds and immediately splits his body in half to create a black hole, forcing everyone to quickly run or fly away to not be sucked in it. As Sweetie is busy running away from the black hole, Marx suddenly appears above her, upside down, with his hat started to spin like a saw before he drops on her with the clair attempt to cut her into shreds. Sweetie Belle quickly counters it by doing the same with four of her beam swords before she uses others to attack him until Marx stops his attempt and teleports away.

When he appears, he's almost immediately grabbed by the legs by Spikezilla who slams him on the ground before he jumps and drops on him elbow first. Marx, however, quickly recovers from this and sinks in the ground, to Spikezilla's confusion.

A shadow eventually appears near him, and out of it comes one of Marx' claws. Dark Meta Knight saves the dragon in time by parrying it, and the claw returns in the ground to reappear elsewhere. The claw successively attacks Nago, Claycia, and Daroach, before it stops coming out. In its place, Marx' tongue comes out and wraps itself around Ribbon before it starts dragging her toward a big fanged jaw that has appeared in the ground. Dark Meta Knight cuts the tongue before the worst happens. The claw comes out again to attack him as a result, but this time, Sweetie is able to cut it too with her beam sword.

Having enough, Marx comes out of the ground and immediately fires a storm of arrows at the sky. Instead of disappearing, the arrows rain all around him, and the only heroes able to escape them are the ones who can teleport. Badly hurt, Sweetie and others don't stop attacking Marx in return.

From there, Marx randomly teleports around while firing the claws of his wings again, then suddenly extend one of his arms to try to impale Taranza who quickly teleports to avoid this fate before counterattacking with a giant energy ball that misses. Pitch pecking Marx' eyes doesn't miss however, but after a quick yell of pain, Marx grabs the bird and starts trying to tear his wings, but is stopped by a big ice hammer materialized by Sweetie Belle dropping on him, getting him to release his victim.

Marx restarts teleporting randomly. One time, he appears behind someone to claw them, another time, he appears ten meters away to spit his giant laser. Things get even more hectic when Marx starts doing somersaults and other random acrobatic figures to become even more unpredictable between attacks, turning the fight into a chaotic one where the heroes don't know where to attack anymore, even if they still manage to hit him a lot. As a result of Marx using so much of his power, like in his fight against Sweetie Belle and Kirby, the world around them shift between different colors.

One by one, the heroes fall, but Marx himself is reaching his limit, visible with his legs shaking briefly after getting hit by a bomb from Gooey.

This moment is all it takes for the battle to turn completely at the heroes' advantage when a yarn suddenly wraps around his legs to everyone's surprise. Prince Fluff has joined the battle, and using the yarn, slams Marx a couple of times on the ground before he throws him at Sweetie Belle. The filly quickly reacts, lets Marx pass beside her, and punches him to the sky where he's intercepted by Dark Meta Knight charging and slashing at him from all directions for a few seconds. He finishes this attack by impaling Marx with a giant sword coming out of a mirror.

Marx' body starts shaking and twisting as the area flashes.

And finally...

"EEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

In the most horrible, ear-piercing scream ever, his body starts bouncing around with small explosions of purple smoke, each explosion causing one of his limbs to break off, arms, legs, wings, until his own body explodes in a huge purple cloud.

Marx, back to normal, drops out of the cloud, unconscious, the dark heart dropping beside him before taking off. The limbs that broke off disintegrate into purple particles disappearing in the air.

Sweetie Belle takes back her breath and looks at Prince Fluff with a big smile. "Thank you Fluff!"

Fluff rubs the back of his head, blushing. "You're welcome."

"Why are you here?" asks Yin-Yarn who uses the needles as canes to support himself. "Thanks for the help, but we didn't think that we would see you."

Before answering, Fluff looks around at the various unconscious and badly hurt heroes. "Short story, Patch Land is attacked, and I searched for help. How about we help your friends first before I tell the long story?"

"Coo..." agrees Coo with a nod as he rubs a bad injury caused by one of Marx' claws.

"And let's not forget Marx," says Sweetie Belle.

And so, while the heroes still conscious gather food to heal everyone, Sweetie Belle gives a pink heart to Marx, healing him, before she explains to him what's going on. While this happens, they can see, in the distance, the space fortress starting to crumble. sweetie Belle will have to call Dedede again to ask what happened and if he and the others have any news.

Once everyone is healed, Fluff finally explains what's going on.

"The Neo HWC is attacking Patch Land."

"Aw drat, here we go again..."

Author's Notes:

Thanks The Kelduo for the drawing of Marx' form in the second phase.

Chapter 101: CEO of Neo HWC: Susie

"EEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

As Marx' last scream suddenly blows from the portal, and the jester starts bouncing around while exploding, everypony excepted Discord, Celestia, and Luna yells in surprise and fright with one or two "What the buck?!" while jumping from their seats, causing some of them to topple. Discord and the princesses still cringe, not expecting such a scream.

The draconequus takes his broken ears and replaces them with new ones. "Until the end, he made sure to give everypony nightmares. At least, I now know what I will use for my doorbell at Nightmare Night." He then remarks Fluttershy clinging to him, shaking in fear. He sighs before patting her. "There. There. It's over."

"That was super duper scary!" shouts Pinkie. "Clowns and jesters shouldn't be scary!"

Everypony slowly recovers while Sweetie Belle gives a pink heart to Marx and the others separate to search for food to heal.

"Hopefully, they will never have to fight Marx ever again," says Twilight.

"But now, he will join their team," says Spike.

"And this means that we will probably see again some of those really creepy attacks," says Pinkie.

"Aaaat least we're getting used to that kind of stuff," says Applejack.

"I don't know if I should be glad about that," says Rarity.

At this moment, they see the huge space fortress starting to crumble. The ponies don't know what happened in there, but it must have been intense. But in the end, there are no surprises. Whoever commanded that fortress (that ice mage?) was fighting Kirby, Meta Knight, Dedede, and Bandana Dee, after all.

Not long after, Prince Fluff tells Sweetie and the others about the Neo HWC attacking Patch Land, and the heroes start walking toward Kirby's house where the sock to Patch Land is.

A sock to travel to another world. Seriously...

"I wonder how the power of the dark heart will work on Susie," says Rainbow Dash.

"Good question. She uses machines to fight, so can the dark hearts influence them too?" wonders Twilight.

---

"They want to assemble those dark hearts? Why?" asks Sweetie Belle to Dedede through the device.

«We don't know, none of them precised. We just know that they want to assemble those hearts to grant their desire that is clearly not for the good of the universe. Also, they have a superior. Some guy called Hyness, the Officiant of Doom. With a name like that, you know that they are up to no good.»

"And that guy wasn't in this fortress?"

«Nope. Seems like those three used this fortress, our new friend the Jammerjab called it the Jambastion, to search the hearts while this Hyness guy remained in their HQ or whatever. Or maybe he's also searching those hearts, but elsewhere. The Jammerjab couldn't tell us much in the middle of the action, but he promised to guide us, and to tell us more on the way.»

"So, direction space?"

«Direction space. But with our number, this is not easy. The Warp Star is too small, so we have to use those winged stars instead. The problem is that they're not as fast.»

"Better than nothing. And it may actually give us time to join you. Right now, we have to go to Patch Land to deal with Susie. If everything goes as I'm thinking, then we will be able to use the Neo HWC's mothership to join you. But, before that, I think we will pass by New Halcandra, just in case. You know, to see if Magolor has been corrupted too. And we could take the occasion to use the Lor Starcutter to rapidly join you after."

«If you're able to join us, that Hyness won't know what will fall on him! Between our two teams, the fight will barely last five seconds!»

"Don't jinx us. You imagine if Hyness decides to use all those dark hearts to boost his power? Just one of those hearts can turn anyone into a powerful being! With all of them, Hyness could turn into something probably more powerful than anything we fought until now, and as terrible as the Dark God himself. And the fight will last more than five seconds."

«.........Arf... And knowing our luck, something like that will happen. It always happens. But, eh! We will still be able to kick his butt!»

"Of course we will! We are approaching Kirby's house right now. We will hurry to deal with Susie and, maybe, Magolor, and we will join you for the big finale. Good hunt," finishes Sweetie Belle before ending the call just as they reach Kirby's house.

"You know, it's very convenient that of AAAAALL the worlds out there, the Neo HWC just so happens to attack Patch Land," expresses Marx.

"As convenient as almost all of us getting corrupted by a dark heart," replies Adeleine.

"And now, we're getting a remake of the HWC Invasion," says Daroach.

"At least, it won't be as horrible," informs Sweetie Belle. "Without Star Dream, they won't be able to mechanise Patch Land like they did to Popstar. And last I heard, they weren't able to produce Invaders Armors yet. We should mainly encounter Haltworkers."

Prince Fluff confirms it with a nod. "I saw no mechas while they were invading."

The door to the inside of Kirby's home is already open, certainly left like that by Fluff as he exited the house to search for help, so the first ones reaching it enter while the following ones are forced to remain outside because of the lack of space. Kirby's house is a very small house.

"This house is so cute!" says Ribbon who has been able to enter.

"A cute house for an adorable puffball," says Sweetie with a giggle.

Meanwhile, Prince Fluff activates the sock on Kirby's nightstand, opening a portal in it. "Alright! The portal is open! We can now jump in it and go to Patch Land."

"Aah. I can't wait to return home!" says Yin-Yarn.

"Remember, Yin-Yarn, even if I've forgiven you for what you did, some of Patch Land's inhabitants haven't," warns Fluff.

"Because they haven't seen the new me yet! I'm a reborn person! They will love me!"

"You helping stopping the invasion should help," says Taranza.

"Yes! I will become a hero in their eyes! Nyahaha!"

"Or a funny sidekick," says then Marx to Yin-Yarn's annoyance.

"You are the funny sidekick, jester!"

"Nope! I'm a funny demigod!"

"More like a debatable funny troll," says Adeleine.

"No, he's an annoying pest," says Dark Meta Knight.

"I love you too Darky!" replies Marx.

Dark Meta Knight starts unsheathing his sword, only to feel a hand on his pauldron. He turns to see Nago, the cat shaking his head with a "Meow." This calms the knight who still lets out a growl as he puts back his sword.

One by one, they jump in the portal, and they come out of it in what is clearly the living room of a very rich person. Of course, everybody knows that it's a living room inside Fluff's castle, in Patch Land. What confirms it is that everything in the room is made of various fabrics stitched together. It causes the feet to sink a little in the floor in the places made of less solid fabrics which, for anyone not used to it, feels weird and asks some time to adapt and be able to walk without falling. It's like walking on a bed.

"Welcome to Patch Land!" shouts then Prince Fluff once everyone has come out of the sock. "This is my castle, in the land of Quilty Square. I would like to give you a tour, but we have more important matters to deal with."

As he finishes talking, Sweetie Belle walks toward a window to look at what's going on outside. When she reaches it, she frowns at what she sees. "And we should hurry. They're already building factories. Ugh... In this world of yarn and fabrics, they're even more ugly. However, I don't see the mothership."

"A report I got from Bronto Burts says that the mothership is exactly at the opposite side of Patch Land from here, right at the frontier between Treat Land and Water Land," informs Fluff.

"Of course..." says Elline with a groan.

"This means that to join the mothership from there, we can choose to pass by Grass Land, or by Space Land. I don't recommend the second choice however, there are more dangers," continues the prince. "The only real danger we will face in the first choice will be Hot Land."

"The less dangers we face, the faster we will reach the mothership, so I suppose that the first choice is the best," says Sweetie Belle.

"Not like we would mind facing the dangers of the other path," says Yin-Yarn.

Sweetie Belle nods with a giggle before saying "And this Space Land sounds nice to visit."

"I will be glad to give you a tour once this is over," says Fluff.

At this, the prince waves at them to follow him before he exits the room and guide the team outside of the castle, starting their journey on Patch Land. They don't pay attention to the factories and other buildings being built, not wanting to waste time destroying all of them, and follow Fluff to Grass Land. Barely a few minutes after exiting the castle however, they start being attacked by some Haltworkers, as well as by inhabitants of Patch Land that have been brainwashed. For those last ones, they try to be careful because of how frail they are.

It doesn't take long before they reach the frontier between Quilty Square and Grass Land, which looks as if the two lands have been stitched together, which is the case. The stitches are even visible. Even the sky is stitched!

Outside of the regular attacks from Neo HWC's minions, traversing Grass Land isn't eventful at all. The path is rather straight, with almost no obstacles, and the few times they encounter a dead end that would force them to do a detour, Prince Fluff wraps his yarn around a rope to pull a part of the decor and create a passage for them. Thus, they quickly pass an area full of stone buildings and fountains without problems, same with hills full of flowers. In those hills, some of them even take the occasion to have some fun hanging from dandelion seeds and letting themselves being carried by the wind.

That there are still dandelions despite the Neo HWC invading Patch Land proves how much the reborn company has lost its power. Normally, by now, the whole planet would be mechanized, with the only trace of remaining flora being trapped inside glass domes. But now, the planet looks barely touched, and the few buildings being built aren't even finished yet. Where before, mechanizing a whole planet was just a question of a couple of minutes, now, it would probably take months, or even years to reach the same result. If Sweetie Belle and her friends are fast enough, this whole incident will be more fear than harm, and Patch Land will not lose too much.

Things get a little harder when they reach what Prince Fluff calls the Rainbow Falls, where the heroes are forced to walk in small rivers constantly pushing them toward waterfalls falling into pits, but as long as they don't stop and don't get too close of the edges, this is not really a danger.

They don't pay attention to the beanstalk beside which they pass before they reach the frontier between Grass Land and Hot Land, a desert and volcanic land. Seeing the ground suddenly passing from the green grasslands to the yellow desert in one straight line of stitches is definitely one of the strangest things Sweetie has seen in this universe.

After a quick passage through a desert full of rather small pyramids and quicksands with some sand tornadoes, they reach the heart of this land: the volcanoes. A group of small ones with, at their center, a giant one, with a thermal power station being built. Rather than traverse it, like Kirby and Fluff did the first time from what the prince says, they decide to get around it, moving between the smaller ones.

Like expected, there are many rivers of lava on the way, and more than once, for the ones not able to fly, they have to do some platforming to traverse them, even using some local creatures as platforms. A couple of times, Prince Fluff gains them time by wrapping his yarn around a rope and pulling it to close one of the volcanoes for a few seconds as you close a purse, blocking the lava and letting them pass easily.

It's no more crazy than cutting a volcano with a fish, but it sure is a close second.

They ignore the cave and pass not far beside a jungle before they reach the frontier between Hot Land and Treat Land.

Treat Land... The land that Sweetie has been excited, but at the same time scared to visit, because this land is pretty much like Lollipop Land, a land filled with sweets and candies, but worst. At least, in Lollipop Land, there aren't literal mountains made of cake. This will be so hard to resist...

And like in Lollipop Land, there are even places made of toys! And one of those places is not far right in front of them, among the sweets. A place filled with giant toy blocks, giant toy soldiers (humans, of course), giant toy cars, some giant stuffed bears, and even giant toy robots. Between that and the sweets, this land is a real heaven for foals.

And this place hasn't even been touched by the Neo HWC. Probably because Susie has no interest in toys.

Traversing it is more dangerous than planned. Fluff warned them about the heavy risk of being crushed by the soldiers and robots, but Sweetie certainly didn't think that there would be so many of them. Finally, this place isn't as foal friendly. Eventually, Sweetie just said 'Buck it" and destroyed the soldiers and robots in the way, gaining time and making the place a little less dangerous.

And now, they have to traverse the cake mountains, mines created by the Neo HWC visible in some of them. Not a big surprise. Nobody could resist free cake.

And certainly not Sweetie Belle, as much as she wants.

---

"Why did you blindfold me?" asks Celestia.

"To stop you from drooling!" shouts back Luna.

"Stop drooling too, Pinkie!" shouts Rarity.

"I can't!"

---

It's a team of heroes with half of them stuffed of cake that enters an area made of giant musical instruments. That's new, and really fun. Sweetie can't help herself but to play a small song a couple of times when she walks on the keys of giant pianos. And then, there are the giant drums that are even more fun to bounce on than to bounce on a bed. This certainly would be awesome, and really fun way to play a song! Too bad they are pressed by the events.

Soon, they leave the area behind to traverse more of the land of sweets, including an area filled with chocolate, with buildings made of chocolate, or literally giant cupcakes! But it's also filled with Haltworkers, forcing the heroes to fight their way. After this chocolaty heaven, they traverse, of all things in this land, a mushroom jungle, with trampoline mushrooms and swinging mushrooms. It's not long after this jungle that they finally reach their destination: the Neo HWC's mothership, just at the frontier between Treat Land and Water Land, like Fluff said.

The mothership is FAR from being as big as the Access Ark. It's actually closer to the size of the Halberd, maybe a little bigger. The ship is also egg-shaped, standing on four legs, with the logo of the company, a small pink N hiding the upper-left part of the H of the original company, visible above each of them. The entrance, looking like the one of the Access Ark, is at the bottom. However, this time, learning a lesson from the invasion of Popstar, the entrance is guarded by ten laser turrets.

Too bad for Susie, against all of them, those turrets will be useless. Still, nice try.

Like before, the heroes separate into four teams, each forming a winged star, and they fly to the entrance before they move toward the turrets, avoiding their projectiles. Very soon, all the turrets are destroyed, and the heroes enter the ship without more hindrances.

The inside of the ship looks closely like the first part of the Access Ark, without the statues. The paintings, both of Haltmann and Susie, are also smaller, to better fit in the smaller hallways. Many Haltworkers are present to protect the ship, but like always, they are easily eliminated, Marx opening black holes above groups of Haltworkers to suck them in and deal with them in record time. The only problem is that they don't know where to go to find Susie's office. They know they have to climb, but which hallway to take? Which black door? Which room they have to pass? The worst part is that when they pass a black door, there's no way to know if they appear in a higher floor or not. At least, while the ship is big, it's not that big, so it shouldn't take them long to find their way.

So it starts with them taking randomly a hallway among the four proposed from the entrance room, hallway that reveals to be full of laser turrets. At the end of the hallway, they pass a black door that leads them to a storage room full of what has been gathered so far from Patch Land. To Sweetie's surprise, the room is guarded by a Fake General, which she learned from Susie is called a Security Force. Of course, the robot doesn't stand a chance against their overwhelming power, and the fight doesn't even last five seconds.

After the destruction of the Security Force, they pass another black door and appear in a new hallway. Suddenly, lasers are fired from the eyes of the paintings and start sweeping the hallway following different patterns, forcing the heroes who can't teleport to be cautious while also having to jump above a few pits. Further, they reach a fork, with one of the two new hallways leading to a staircase going up, which they choose. The staircase leads right to an elevator moving up, passing two floors before they reach its limit at the start of yet another hallway.

Another fork waits for them, two of the proposed ways, at their left and right, leading right to black doors. Instead, they take the way right in front of them, which leads to another staircase, only for this path to pass beside more black doors, some of them at the end of more hallways. Eventually, the path stops in a small round room with five black doors.

"Too much doors!" yells Yin-Yarn.

Sweetie Belle sighs. "Even the Access Ark wasn't as annoying..."

They decide to take the first door to the left, only to seemingly appear in the same room with the five doors, with the same hallway leading to more doors. The heroes briefly look at each other in confusion before taking the second door to the left, only to appear again in seemingly the same room. Half of them groan in despair.

Suddenly, Dark Meta Knight coats his sword in energy before slashing two times at a wall, creating a small cross-shaped indentation.

"Good idea," says Daroach with a nod. "We will now see if we reappear in the same room."

Thus, they pass the door at the center, and reappear again in what seems to be the same room. Dark Meta Knight, however, points at the wall, showing that the cross isn't here anymore.

"So, those doors all lead to identical rooms?" comments Claycia.

"I hope we haven't returned to the first room without knowing," says Ribbon.

"Hihihihi! We would be really unlucky! I'm gonna check!" says Marx.

The jester then takes his bat-like form before flying down the hallway. A couple of minutes later, he returns, laughing loudly.

"We're unlucky!" he shouts.

Most of the heroes facepalm at this, some of them groaning.

"Also, I took the occasion and passed some of the doors on the way. They all lead to laboratories, and they're dead ends."

"So, now we have to find out which hallway to take," says Taranza.

More groaning.

It turns out that the good hallway is the one where Dark Meta Knight made the cross earlier, all the others leading to dead ends. At the end of this hallway, however, is another elevator. From it, the heroes traverse a succession of factories, some of them guarded by a Security Force or by some traps similar to the ones found inside the Access Ark. And the more they advance, the more they encounter traps, laser turrets, Haltworkers, and Security Forces, showing that they are in the right way.

Eventually, in the same manner than in the Access Ark, a big elevator leads the team right in front of a portal-like door to Susie's office.

The office... looks pretty closely like Haltmann's office, but more pinkish with some white. To Sweetie's disbelief and everyone else's confusion, there are also four robotic-like statues of Mecha Knight, each in a different color, red, blue, yellow, and green.

And sitting on the chair behind the desk, facing them, is Susie, her eyes now purple. The pink-haired girl calmly gets up and walks around the desk before stopping in front of it, giggling a bit, and pointing a finger at them.

CEO of Neo HWC
Susie

She then takes her device and press a button, causing her armor, or Business Suit, to drop beside her. However, this armor looks a little different from her original armor. It's now pink and peach, with more detailed designs, including hearts on the arms.

She starts the fight by releasing a dozen of those explosive drones before doing the classic move of charging at them while spinning the arms of the armor, the drones homing in on the heroes while they dodge. The heroes counterattack immediately with all they have, but this new Business Suit reveals to be more resistant than the one Sweetie fought the first time, about as resistant as Haltmann's own suit.

Susie follows her charge by rapidly and randomly jumping around, until she's stopped by Gooey jumping in her suit beside her and licking her visor, covering it in drool. As Susie gets rid of the drool with a "Eww!" the others take the occasion to attack again the armor.

Angered, Susie takes her device and press another button. The next instant, the four Mecha Knights statues activate, revealing themselves to be real robots, before they activate their respective energy swords. Each of the swords reveal to be made of a different element corresponding to the color of the Mecha Knight: fire for the red one, ice for the blue one, electricity for the yellow one, and wind for the green one. Once their swords are activated, the Mecha Knights fly from their pedestals and land on the floor, ready to attack. But then, Susie comes close to the Fire Mecha Knight, and with one swing of his sword, the robot surrounds the Business Suit in some fiery aura.

Susie then restarts charging at the heroes, this time in a zigzag pattern, while spinning the arms, only this time, the spin creates a fire tornado around her. Once she finishes with the charge, she then jumps and hover in the air before firing the screwdriver-like foot all around her, the screwdrivers creating explosions of fire on impact. She also fires more of those drones, which also explode in fire on impact.

At the same time, the Mecha Knights all start attacking, each targeting someone before charging at them to slash them, their different elements giving them different advantages, from trapping someone in ice for the blue one to paralyzing someone with electricity for the yellow one. Outside of that, they have exactly the same movesets than the Mecha Knight+, including the one where they grow the sword by giving it more energy.

Dark Meta Knight regrets then to not have the ability to separate himself into four anymore.

Every now and then, with the help of one of the Mecha Knights, Susie changes the element of her suit, changing the effects of her attacks. The spin attack with the wind element is particularly surprising, because it actually gives to suit the ability to fly, like a helicopter, and she takes the occasion to fly above the heroes while firing screwdrivers, the screwdrivers not exploding, but spinning around to create small tornadoes. The Fire, Ice, and Spark Mecha Knights even take the occasion to use their respective elements to turn the tornadoes into fire tornadoes, ice tornadoes, and spark tornadoes.

But when Pitch manages to destroy Susie's visor, causing her to lose her focus and become vulnerable, Sweetie Belle and Marx both fire a huge laser beam at the suit, heavily damaging it, to the point that it starts sparking, at the verge of exploding.

But then, the dark aura appear and encompasses in a cloud both Susie and her suit before growing to almost two times its original size. When the cloud disappears, it reveals a new armor, looking as if the Business Suit and Susie have fused. It retains its colors, but now, the armor looks exactly like Susie, with her bottom part being exactly like the one of the Business Suit. However, instead of having disembodied arms/hands, it possesses two arm-cannons. The armor also possesses wings looking exactly like the ones of Star Dream (but pink and peach colored), and a purple heart has appeared on its torso. Above the heart, on the shoulders, on the back, and on the head are also yellow glowing spots, for some reason.

The armor's red eyes then flash, followed by the eyes of the Mecha Knights flashing too, and the four robots deploy their tail, exactly like Mecha Knight+. The Spark Mecha Knight then gives the Mecha Susie the Zap element before joining the other Mecha Knights in attacking the heroes. But now, the teamwork of the robots has gotten better, much better. Their coordination is now perfect, quickly working together to trap the heroes and hit them.

While the heroes are busy with the robots, Mecha Susie suddenly charges at them, without spinning its arms. It doesn't need to to do damage with its size, speed, and the Zap element, leaving behind it a trail of electricity that remains for a few seconds. From its cannons, it then fires lightning bolts to paralyse some of the heroes before it jumps toward them, lightning striking where it lands. From there, it starts attacking in perfect coordination with the Mecha Knights.

Sweetie Belle leaves her friends to deal with the Mecha Knights and fires a few lasers directly at Mecha Susie. To her shock, the lasers do nothing to it. However, one of her lasers about to hit the yellow spot above the purple heart is deflected by the Ice Mecha Knight with a swing of its sword. Sweetie Belle looks at the yellow spot, then fires more lasers at it. As predicted, the Mecha Knights go to protect it, so Sweetie Belle uses mirrors to deflect some of her lasers and target the yellow spots on the shoulders. The robots aren't able to protect them in time, and the yellow spots are slightly damaged by the lasers.

The filly smiles. "You saw this, guys?!"

"Yup," answers Adeleine. "We must target those yellow thingies!"

"But first, let's deal with those tin cans. It'll make our job easier," says Marx.

They all nod and return to fighting the Mecha Knights, using their numbers to overwhelm them and pass their teamwork and defense to deal damage. Mecha Susie doesn't let them destroy its robots without a fight however, and after getting the Blizzard element from the Ice Mecha Knight, it starts firing huge shards of ice from its cannons while sending drones by dozens, the drones releasing icicles that fall below them. The Mecha Knight also remain close to Mecha Susie, using sword beams, sharp shockwaves, tornadoes, and their tail to attack from a distance while remaining under the close protection of the big mecha, and to protect it from any projectiles about to hit the yellow spots.

Sweetie Belle personally destroys the first of the Mecha Knights, the ice one. While it's busy clashing with one of Marx' wings, she attacks it from behind and impales it with one of her beam swords. Of course, the other Mecha Knights try to protect it and stop her, but Sweetie uses her remaining beam swords to force them to defend themselves, also opening them to her friends. As for Mecha Susie, it actually fires two lasers from its eyes at her, but nothing that a mirror can't deal with. And so, the Ice Mecha Knight explodes.

The Spark Mecha Knight quickly follows, Claycia taking the opening given by Sweetie Belle to fire at it with the Bastron Cannon. The Mecha Knight flies out of the way of the laser, only to be hit by Daroach's ice beam, trapping it in ice. Almost immediately, it's pierced by three giant sword coming from three of Dark Meta Knight's mirrors.

Mecha Susie takes the Sizzle element from the Fire Mecha Knight while keeping the Blizzard element before placing the end of its cannons against the floor. From them, it then fires two giant balls, one of fire and one of ice, leaving trails of fire and ice behind them. However, a big energy ball from Taranza successfully hits the yellow spot on the left shoulder and destroys it, causing a small explosion that damages Mecha Susie.

Taranza doesn't have time to celebrate. He's immediately slashed on the back by the Fire Mecha Knight, but the robot itself has its foot wrapped by Prince Fluff's yarn, and it's thrown against a wall where it's attacked by the animals. Before the Mecha Knight can recover, Yin-Yarn, now looking like a giant scorpion, comes and impales the robot with his tail, destroying it just as the yellow spot or Mecha Susie's right shoulder explodes after taking too much crystal projectiles from Ribbon. The last Mecha Knight goes to protect Mecha Susie, only to be slapped by Spikezilla's tail and end in the jaw of a giant painted snake with the head of a dragon, where it's crushed by the sharp teeth.

Adeleine and Elline give each other a high five with a "Yay!"

This leaves only Mecha Susie who starts firing lasers from the 'feathers' of the wings while jumping around, an explosion of fire or crystallized ice forming each time that it slams on the ground. Sweetie however manages to destroy the yellow spot above the heart with an Ultimate Doom Laser while Marx also destroys the spot at the back with his own laser.

The purple heart then comes out of the torso and separates in two, one of the halves surrounded in purple energy while the other is surrounded in blue energy. The two halves then dashes around, threatening to ram the heroes, before they collide, unleashing a huge explosion. The heart does this attack two more times while Mecha Susie continues firing lasers, fireballs, and ice balls. Once the heart stops attacking, it also fires two lasers and sweeps the ground with them, creating huge shockwaves wherever they pass.

Mecha Susie fires more hearts from its torso, excepted that those ones eventually break in two, releasing huge straight blasts, before it fires yet another heart that also breaks in two. This time, however, the heart creates a heart-shaped shield in front of the head, protecting the yellow spot on it. Meanwhile, Mecha Susie's wings start doing circles in front of the heart-shaped hole in the torso, where a huge quantity of energy is accumulating. After a few seconds, it fires a gargantuan beam, and the mecha starts sweeping the room with it, chasing the heroes as they try to escape. It's so powerful that it traverses the floor, walls, and ceiling, creating holes in them!

But while the mecha fires its laser, Marx quickly destroys one of the halves of the heart creating the shield, and Dark Meta Knight soon destroys the other, destroying the shield and leaving the yellow spot vulnerable right for Sweetie's Ultimate Doom Laser. It's a direct hit, and the yellow spot explodes.

It creates a chain reaction through the whole mecha, its body crumbling explosion after explosion, the purple heart also crumbling into dust. Finally, in a huge final purple explosion, Mecha Susie explodes, ejecting Susie and the dark heart. Like before, the heart flies away through one of the holes left by the mecha's giant laser.

Sweetie throws a pink heart at Susie, healing her and bringing her back to consciousness.

"This... definitively was the worst experience of my life," says the girl.

"Aww, it was alright, I think. Not worst than getting sent into a planet-sized comet exploding upon impact leaving you half dead," says Marx.

"Thank you for reminding us how much you're a monster," says Adeleine.

"You're welcome. Hihihihi!"

Susie looks around her at the damage caused by the fight. "Ugh... Now I will have to repair all this! Whoever is at the origin of those hearts, I would like to give them a piece of my mind."

"Speaking of..." Sweetie Belle proceeds to explain everything she knows about the current events.

"So, Hyness, uh? Very well," says Susie before she takes a tablette and tap something on it. "I add his name in my list of people that I must visit to have a 'talk'."

"You don't even know where's this guy," says Taranza.

"We will find out sooner or later, right? You told me that Pinky and the others are about to find their HQ."

"But before, we would like for you to transport us to New Halcandra, if you don't mind. We want to see if Magolor has been corrupted too," says Sweetie Belle.

Susie frowns. "This would be very bad news if that's the case. Oh well, that's good, I have to return to New Halcandra to repair the damage done to... Ugh... The Death Egg. I shouldn't have left Magolor name my ship."

Marx immediately falls on his back laughing, to Susie's annoyance.

"But first, you must call back the Haltworkers mechanizing Patch Land," says Fluff.

"Of course, of course," says Susie with a wave of her hand at him. "But removing the infrastructures will have to wait. This would take too long."

Fluff accepts this with a nod.

It takes ten minutes for all the Haltworkers to return to the Death Egg, and the mothership takes off the next instant. A few minutes after the take off, Sweetie Belle receives a call from Dedede that she answers.

"Hello again, Dedede. I suppose that you have some news."

«Yep. I have one good news, and a LOT of bad news.»

Sweetie Belle sighs. "Start with the good news."

«With the help of the Jammerjab, we found the HQ of the bad guys.»

"Sweet! And what are the bad news?"

«Where to start... Welp, first, the Jammerjab told us that they name themselves the Jambastion Religion, and Hyness is effectively their leader, with the three Jambastion Mages directly under him. Secondly, their HQ, named Jambandra Base, dwarfs absolutely anything we've seen until now. To put it simply, we could put at least ten Popstar inside it and still have some place.»

"You're kidding!"

«I wish! And to make it worse, more of those Jambastions are circling it, and it's even protected by a powerful force field stopping us from reaching it. The Jammerjab warned us about it and guided us to some nearby planets that we will have to explore to destroy whatever's creating this forcefield.»

"The usual routine."

«Ahah, yeah. But now, let me tell you the worst news: those dark hearts are actually pieces of something called a Jamba Heart. Hyness did a ritual with it, but something went wrong and the heart exploded into all those little dark hearts that dispersed in the cosmos. Hyness then sent the mages to gather them.»

A cult doing some ritual on a heart... Sweetie Belle is starting to have a very bad feeling.

«By gathering those dark hearts, this cult wants to reform the Jamba Heart, and free their God trapped in it. Guess which God I'm talking about.»

Oh... Oh no...

This Jamba Heart is the source of all those dark hearts, spreading their negativity in the universe. And if there's a God trapped inside it, then this God must be the source of this negativity. There's only one God trapped inside a heart that's so negative.

"The Dark God..."

Author's Notes:

Sorry for the long wait, but Susie gave me problems...

Also, I've been bunch reading Undertale Inverted Fate because the fight against the Determinator should be finished soon enough (I hope).

Chapter 102: Master of Magic: Magolor

Could this be the day? What she's been preparing herself for for around one whole year?

Could this be the day where she and the others will fight the Dark God and rid the Dream Universe of its biggest threat?

Are they ready to face such a foe?

This can still be avoided. The Dark God isn't free yet. If they can stop Hyness, then the Dark God would remain trapped in the Jamba Heart. And now that they know its position, they could even make sure to hide the Heart somewhere where nobody would find it.

But the Dark God would remain a threat in the long time. If they hide the Heart, someone still could find it in the future. In one hundred years, or in one billion. Maybe they should let Hyness free the Dark God so they could defeat him.

But then, they would take the risk of the Dark God winning the fight and destroying everything. He's still a Celestia darned God after all! Everything they've fought until now doesn't compare to him! Crowned Magolor, Flowered Sectonia... Heck, even Clockwork Star Dream would certainly get crushed like ants against him! Already, Sweetie and her friends almost got wrecked by Marx boosted by a simple piece of the Dark God's power! Do they even stand a chance?

Well, against Marx, the heroes weren't complete. Since then, Marx himself, as well as Prince Fluff and Susie joined them, and Magolor will soon. And let's not forget Kirby, Dedede, Bandana Dee, and Meta Knight, who they should join soon. All together, their total power will be double, or even triple, of their power against Dark Heart Marx. Heck, with Kirby, it may even be the quadruple. And that's not counting that Kirby and the others aren't alone. So they may have a chance.

But it still would be better, in the end, if they stop Hyness. Rather than free the Dark God now, they could free him later when they will be more prepared. Like... when Sweetie and Kirby reach adulthood. When they will be backed by a whole armada of battleships (Dedede did say that he wanted to build more, and Sweetie wouldn't mind too, without forgetting Magolor who will have time to rebuild more of the civilization of the Ancients, and Susie who should be able to get Neo HWC back in its former glory). When they will get more friends to join their group, or small army. When they will be stronger...

Thus, they would fight the Dark God on their terms.

Before stopping the call, Dedede also warned Sweetie Belle that the Jambastion Cult hopes that the Dark God would lead them to a new and peaceful world. He would destroy this universe and create for them a new one without all the horrors. How foolish... The Dark God only cares for destruction. This cult will be destroyed along with everything. Well, in a way, he would indeed lead them to a better world. Just not the world they think.

Sweetie doesn't know what would lead those guys to have such a goal, but they must be stopped.

But first, while Kirby and the others deal with the forcefield of Jambandra Base, she will recruit Magolor into their team. And fight him if he's been corrupted by a dark heart.

"I have doubled the production of Haltworkers and weapons," says Susie. "If we assault this Jambandra Base, we will need the biggest army possible. Too bad I couldn't reproduce yet the Invader Armors, they would have been very useful."

"We will have to do without them," replies Sweetie Belle. "If only I could send a call to everyone back at Popstar. The guys at the castle and the Meta Knights could have come with the Warhammer and the Halberd."

"I still have contact with my boys," says Daroach as he shows a phone. "I can tell them to spread the news. If Unisqueak has been repaired, they could even come with it too."

Sweetie Belle nods. "The only problem is... We don't know exactly where Jambandra Base is. We will need a map like Magolor gave me, but I left it in the castle. We will have to ask him one."

"Don't you have a map like that too, since you explore the universe?" asks Fluff to Susie.

Susie simply answers by pointing at the desk, or what remains of it. "It was destroyed in our battle."

"Maybe whoever Magolor has been able to assemble could come too," says Adeleine.

"Oh yeah, he was searching for other descendants of the Ancients to build New Halcandra," says Sweetie.

Susie shakes her head. "Sadly, he hasn't been able to find many until now. The only ones he has been able to bring back with him is the clan in which he was born, barely a hundred people with a single ship. At least, the ship is well armed. This clan was a clan of nomads before coming to New Halcandra, so they had to defend themselves a lot against the dangers of space. And of course, they're all more or less powerful mages."

Sweetie Belle gives a big smile at this. "So we will see Magolor's family? I can't wait to meet them!" She frowns and turns to Marx. "No pranking them! Pranking will be for after we deal with the Jambastion Cult!"

Marx gives a shrug with one of his feet. "At least, it gives me more time to get ideas. But I'm sure they're already used to pranks with someone like Magolor among them." His smiles then grows. "Some of them may even be pranksters."

"Oh boy... this would either lead to the biggest prank war of the universe, or to the biggest prank massacre... If it's a prank war, then I warn you, I will be my own team, and nobody will be spared."

"I could say the same thing! Hihihi!"

"And if it's a prank massacre, then if you ever target me, I will make sure to turn it into a prank war. Anyway, how long before we reach New Halcandra?"

"Half an hour," answers Susie. "We're lucky this ship always knows where New Halcandra is."

---

"Ugh... So, what do we do while we wait for them to reach New Halcandra?" asks Rainbow Dash.

"We take a break to do something else," says Applejack.

"Or we discuss about the fact that THEY'RE ABOUT TO FIGHT THE DARK GOD! FINALLY!" shouts Pinkie Pie excitedly.

"They may fight him," says Starlight. "They may be able to stop this Hyness before."

"Pfff! Come on, you know better than that by now," says Discord. "This adventure will end with a fight against the Dark God. It would be too anti-climatic otherwise. Especially now that it involves the Dark God himself."

"Not all adventures end with a big climax," replies Twilight. "Our first encounter against you ended really anti-climatically. You didn't fight back, or even moved to dodge."

"Trust me, if I had known that you had somehow returned to normal, I would have given you a climactic battle. Or I would have teleported away to wait for my hour."

"But you could have seen that we were back to normal. We weren't pale anymore," says Pinkie with a giggle.

Discord stares at Pinkie Pie before another Discord appears beside him and says "She has a point, you doofus."

"Ahah! He was blinded by his ego!" says Rainbow.

Discord creates a pot and a kettle facing each other. "Pot, meet kettle." Both objects bow at the other, the kettle taking its lid like a hat. Discord bends toward Fluttershy and whispers "I ship them," at her, making her laugh.

"Hey! I've gotten better!" shouts back Rainbow.

"But it happened," replies Discord.

Rainbow looks away without answering, but her blushing betrays her.

"Anyway, Sparklebutt, you're right. Not all adventures end with a big climax. But tell me one adventure of Sweetie Belle that hasn't ended with a climax."

Twilight thinks for a moment. "Dark Crafter was kinda weak compared to Claycia."

"But it still ended with a battle in space, with Sweetie and her friends chasing Dark Crafter in a newly created spaceship to finish him."

"Yin-Yarn?"

"You could barely call that an adventure. More like a massacre."

"Dark Nebula?"

"..........Ok, I don't find anything for him. So, it happened once. Only once. There's no way that this will be the case for this adventure. Not after all that! Every fights until now, Sweetie Belle fought pieces of the Dark God, so this must end with a fight against him. It would be very disappointing otherwise."

"I agree," says Luna. "I just hope that they are ready to fight him. I still can't imagine how powerful he must be."

---

As Susie said, almost half an hour later, Sweetie Belle can see New Halcandra in the distance as they approach it. Like Sweetie remembers from the time Magolor showed it to her with the map, New Halcandra is a ring-shaped artificial world, the ring being big enough that Popstar could pass through it. And yet, despite being artificial, it possesses clearly visible grasslands, forests, oceans, mountains, deserts, and of course, cities. To be more exact, there is a huge city spreading on the whole world like a web, the oceans, grasslands, and other more natural places being the holes in the web.

All of this, however, is only on the exterior side of the ring, the side around which a small artificial sun and a small moon are orbiting to do the day and the night. The interior side is purely metallic, with some prods pointing toward the center of the ring. Some of the prods are destroyed, like the city that is in ruin, as a result of the second act of the civil war, when the Magic Clan took revenge with the help of the Dark God.

It's always awe-inspiring to see how powerful the Ancients were. The Clockwork Stars, the Master Crown, and now this, an artificial planet possessing natural biomes like a real planet. But Sweetie quickly recovers from her wonder and asks Susie "What are those prods?"

"They're for the main portal. You see, this planet hasn't the form of a ring for nothing. This whole planet is a portal door, to create portals big enough to pass things like Clockwork Stars or even planets from an universe to another. Well, that's what Magolor told me. Frankly I have no idea why the Ancients would need to pass whole planets from an universe to another. And I can't fathom how they could even move planets. Were they using giant reactors to push them?"

"You didn't ask Magolor?"

"I asked! But even him didn't know! It's one of the few things that were lost after their near-annihilation."

The Death Egg flies toward the ring, approaching a small area that doesn't seem as ruined as the rest, some of the buildings look like they have been partially restored, or are even totally rebuilt. Among those buildings, the ship stops above one circling a giant landing pad, perfect for it to land on. After hovering for a few seconds, the feet of the Death Egg touch the ground, and everyone exits it.

"They're barely one hundred, and yet they were able to do so much in so little time?" asks Taranza.

"Actually, Magolor was able to gather many other races to help him rebuild this world. So even if he only found about one hundred of his peers, they're in truth a few thousands working together and living among those ruins. Magolor isn't stupid, he knew that rebuilding this world with only others like him would be impossible, or would take centuries, if not millenia," informs Susie. "I don't know how many descendants of the Ancients there's today, but I suppose that they aren't that many. Even if there are descendants of the Magic Clan who moved from their past and made peace, like Magolor's clan, there are some that still searched to avenge their ancestors. The same can be said for the descendants of the Techno Clan. Many didn't forgive the Mage Clan for bringing the destruction of their civilization. It led to more fights, and more deaths, and in the end, their number tragically diminished over the millenia."

"And Magolor searches to gather all of them to rebuild this civilization? Seems like impossible with such a strong hate."

"It's possible," rebuts Susie. "While many descendants remained hateful, many others gave up that hate. And while many would still be wary, it's possible for the descendants to put behind their past and cohabit again. Magolor and his clan are willing to do it, so probably others want too. That's his hope."

Suddenly, Dark Meta Knight unsheathes his sword and points it toward the sky above the building in front of him. "We have company. Flying objects are coming."

Everyone looks at the direction pointed by the sword to see a small swarm of small propelled spherical one-eyed robots approaching them. There must be at least fifty of them.

"Security drones. They are the main defense built by Magolor to protect everyone," informs Susie. "Those are the flying version. there are a few other versions." As she finishes talking, the drones circle the heroes, and machine guns come out of their bottom, pointed right at them. "And they seem hostile."

"You don't say..." says Daroach.

"So, robot trashing?" asks Marx.

"Robot trashing," confirms Sweetie with a nod.

With a laugh, Marx teleports behind some of the robots before he fires his energy arrows, already destroying a few of them. The others immediately take action as the drones start firing lasers from their guns, Sweetie Belle and Dark Meta Knight creating mirror shields to protect everyone while the others run or teleport. Susie takes out her own gun, the same kind than the ones used by the Haltworkers, and fires energy projectiles at the drones with it with perfect precision. Sweetie also uses her cannons to rapidly destroy the remaining ones. In just a few seconds, all the drones are destroyed.

"Well, I think this confirms it. Either a maniac came and hacked the drones to cause problems, or Magolor got corrupted by a dark heart and is using the drones to take control of New Halcandra," says Susie.

"We will assume this is the second possibility," replies Sweetie.

"But then, where's Magolor?" asks Adeleine to Susie.

"No idea."

"He's at the portal to Halcandra," suddenly says an old voice coming from above. After the previous attack, everyone immediately prepares weapons or spells to attack whoever this voice belongs to as they turn toward him.

The origin of this voice reveals to be an egg-shaped being slightly bigger than Magolor, and only wearing a grey cloak with a white scarf hiding his whole body except his eyes and the wrinkles around them. An elder of Magolor's clan.

When he sees everyone ready to attack him, he raises his hands as he slowly floats down in front of the group. "Calm down, calm down. I'm not an enemy."

Susie quickly recognizes who he is and puts down her gun, followed by the others. "Old Gandaro, it's nice to see you."

"Same, Susie. I see that you brought strong people with you, and I think that I recognize Sweetie Belle among them. We may finally have a chance. It was as if those drones were just a small nuisance to you."

"You sure gave those bots a good beating!" shouts someone else, drawing the attention of everyone toward two more beings floating down. "I particularly love your weapon, kiddo," he says to Sweetie Belle.

The one who just talked is at least two times bigger than Magolor, entirely dressed in yellow and green with a belt full of weapons, from guns to swords. He even possesses what seems to be a rocket-launcher and a flamethrower on his back! Beside him is who seems to be a female of Magolor's clan, judging by the nurse outfit that she wears and the eyelashes. She's also the same size than Magolor.

"Thank you, mister," replies the filly.

"No mister with me, pipsqueak. Call me Lockwar, or General. That's what I am."

The nurse then bows at them. "And my name is Shimago, nice meeting you."

After some quick presentation from the heroes, Susie asks Gandaro the much awaited question "Has Magolor been corrupted by a dark heart?"

The old mage answers with a sigh. "Yes."

"Like we feared," says Sweetie Belle.

"I was with Magolor talking about if we would change the place of the portal or not when the unthinkable happened: a piece of the Jamba Heart, or what you call a dark heart, fell right on him. If you don't know, the Jamba Heart is-"

"We already know what's the Jamba Heart, gramp," interrupts Marx.

"Oh, what a surprise, I thought that only us, descendants of the great civilization of the Ancients, knew what the Jamba Heart is."

"Some cult calling themselves the Jambastion Culte got their hands on the Heart and tried to free the Dark God, only to fail and break it into those pieces," resumes Sweetie Belle. "Some friends of us managed to befriend a member of this religion, and he explained everything."

"Ooh... This is what I thought."

"So some crazies are trying to bring back the Dark God?!" yells Lockwar. "This is war! To arms!" he continues as he takes his rocket-launcher.

Shimago stops him by pulling on his head, getting the general to bend toward her in pain. "Calm yourself you big hot head. We must first stop Magolor."

Sweetie Belle nods. "She's right. We're here for that." She turns to Gandaro. "You said he's beside this portal?"

"Yes. He's planning to invade Halcandra with his army of drones. I, of course, tried to stop him with the others, but Magolor is the most powerful mage of all of us, and with his powers boosted by the Jamba Heart Piece, we could do nothing. The three of us are the only ones who could escape. Everyone else has been captured and is forced to build a palace for him."

Sweetie Belle turns to Susie. "Do you know where the portal is?"

"Yes," answers the pink haired girl.

Lockwar gives a big laugh. "You have guts. I like it. Yes, I suppose that we could immediately attack Magolor. But remember, he's in the middle of his army of drones, getting ready to assault Halcandra. I don't doubt that you would be able to destroy all of them if what I heard is true, but I think that it would be better if we save first the others. We may not be as powerful as Magolor, but we are still mages. We can deal with the drones while you focus on kicking Magolor's butt. What do you think?"

Sweetie Belle looks at all her friends to see what they think of it before she nods. "If we can avoid having to destroy all the drones before fighting Magolor, then I suppose we can free the others."

"Alright! So, they're building the palace beside the drone factory. We could use the occasion to shut it down and stop their production. Should make our job easier."

And so, with this plan in mind, the heroes, joined by Gandaro, Lockwar, and Shimago, exit the building with the landing pad and start their way toward the drone factory. Almost immediately, they are attacked by more drones. The flying ones called Flying Eyes, but also balls on spider-like legs that can climb walls named Walker Eyes, balls on two wheels that move very fast named Wheel Eyes, balls on a single, powerful leg that can jump rapidly and in long distances named Jumping Eyes, and bigger balls walking on two strong legs and armed with rocket-launchers named Heavy Eyes.

To avoid losing too much time fighting waves after waves of drones, the group decides to enter a hole and pass by the underground, less protected but more dangerous, filled with pits, wild and dangerous animals and some basic traps like spikes, crushers, flamethrowers, or electrified floor. After traversing a few corridors, they reach an area guarded by some drones easily destroyed. Those drones have been guarding a big door that is, from what Gandaro says, an entrance to the drone factory.

They enter the basement of the factory, mainly storage rooms filled with materials, guarded by some drones but mainly by more traps and a few turrets. However, when they reach the staircase to the first floor, they encounter, of all things, a Security Force.

At this, most of the heroes stare at Susie.

"What? I helped rebuild this place. Of course I placed a few Security Forces to defend it."

They make short work of the robot, and climb the staircase. Following the mages, they traverse many assembly lines well guarded by many drones and a few more Security Forces before they reach a room with a big red button. Spikezilla presses it, and the whole building becomes silent.

Thanks to this, they are less swarmed by the drones as they walked toward the exit. Once outside, it doesn't take long for them to find the construction site of the palace, and the prisoners building it, both of Magolor's clan and of the other races, closely guarded by many drones. All the mages wear some collar, and it's not hard to guess that they can't use their magic because of it.

As they remain hidden behind a wall and look at what's going on, Taranza spots something on a platform, teleports, and comes back with a newly obtained key. "I bet that this opens those collars."

"Then you go open them while we deal with the drones," says Sweetie Belle.

Lockwar takes two swords that are actually energy swords and yells "First kill's for me! Yaaah!!!" before charging at the drones and cutting them.

"Hey! Leave some for us!" shouts back Marx.

"There's enough for everyone! Just hurry up!"

"With pleasure!" replies Marx. Taking his bat-like form, he then charges at the drones and uses his wings to cut them in half. He's quickly joined by the others excepted Taranza who teleports to the prisoners to free them and Shimago who remains behind to heal the ones who will be hurt with her healing magic.

Each mage freed by Taranza immediately joins the battle, and soon, energy balls are raining over the drones who counter with barrages of lasers and rockets. In the fire of the action, with the destruction of more and more of the drones, the other races, Waddle Dees, Waddle Doos, Bronto Burts, Comos, Blade Knights, and much more, are rebelling and starting to free themselves before joining the fight under the protection of the mages and Simirrors. With their number, it only takes a couple of minutes before all the robots are destroyed with only a few injuries quickly healed by the healers among the mages.

With the battle over, Gandaro quickly explains the plan to everyone else. Once done, happy that they are all gonna join in the fight, the old mage returns toward Sweetie Belle and the others.

"We are all ready to go. The portal is on the first floor of a tower among other portals that don't work anymore. The tower is circled by many drones, and Magolor himself should be inside the tower, or at the top, overseeing his army as it assembles."

"We're going right now," says Lockwar. "We will let you, heroes, decide what you'll do. My advice would be to traverse the battlefield without minding the drones, enter the tower, and go directly for Magolor. But if you want to help us destroy some of the drones before, we won't mind. But remember that we decided to free everyone in the first place so we could fight the drones in your stead."

"We will just fight the drones that get in our way," says Sweetie Belle.

"Of course, while charging toward the tower, we won't mind having some fun on the way, right Darky?" says Marx before bumping Dark Meta Knight who only grunts in return.

At this, the newly formed army starts walking or flying through the streets toward the tower.

---

The door to the room opens, drawing the attention of the ponies, dragon, and draconequus. Scootaloo then enters the room, followed by Apple Bloom and the other fillies and colts from their school, who quickly bow when they spot Celestia and Luna.

Pinkie waves at them. "Great to see you joining us!"

"It's already school end time?" asks Applejack.

"Eeyup," answers Apple Bloom.

"Thanks for the message Discord," says Scootaloo. "We aren't too late I hope."

"Nah, don't worry, the adventure isn't finished yet," says Spike. "But you've missed a lot."

"Like what?" asks excitedly Dinky.

"Like Sweetie and the others fighting a giant golden statue of Daroach or a big robot Susie!"

"Or doing the train! Choo choo!" adds Pinkie.

"And now, you arrive just in time to see a big battle against an army of robots," says Rainbow Dash.

"So cool!" shouts Button Mash.

"Wait, why is Sweetie Belle in the middle of all those Waddle Dees and other... things?" asks Diamond Tiara.

"Oh, it's Sweetie's army to fight the robots," answers Pinkie.

"She has an army?!"

"She has an army since the day she became queen of Floralia," says Spike. "But this army was one captured by the robots and their master that she just saved."

"And who's their master? The HWC again?" asks Apple Bloom.

"Not at all, dear. Their master is Magolor," answers Rarity.

"What?!"

"Of course he would betray Sweetie again!" shouts Scootaloo.

"It's more complicated than that," says Twilight before she starts resuming all they know of what's going on and what happened until now.

No need to say that the little ones are excited after learning that Sweetie may end up fighting the Dark God.

---

"Okay! We're approaching the tower!" shouts Lockwar to Sweetie and the others. "Let us charge first so we take the blunt of the enemy forces. Once the battle is under way and the drones are focused on us, you will be able to charge directly to the tower, and you shouldn't have to fight too much on the way."

"Alright," replies Sweetie Belle. "Actually, I have an idea." She then whispers something to the others. Whatever she whispers, it makes Dark Meta Knight looking at her as if she has two heads.

"Are you serious?"

"I am," says the filly with a giggle.

"She is," says Adeleine.

Dark Meta Knight groans, putting a hand on his mask. "I refuse to take part in this."

"Come on! It will be fun! And it will be fast!"

"No!"

"Darkyyyy?" says Marx.

"Don't try to..."

Dark Meta Knight interrupts himself as he sees Marx staring at him with his big, round eyes as if he is staring right at his soul, not blinking, not moving...

"What are you doing?"

He continues, staring, smiling, still not moving, not saying anything...

"Stop it."

Dark Meta Knight starts sweating. For some reason, Marx staring at him like that without doing anything else is making him very uneasy.

"Stop it!"

But he doesn't stop, and despite everything, Dark Meta Knight can't stop watching.

"Alright! Alright! I will do it!"

Marx laughs. "Nice! What Sweetie proposed seems really fun, and it would have been so sad if I couldn't do it with my bestie!"

While this happened, Lockwar has started the charge, the tower now in sight. Soon, the whole area around the tower becomes a battlefield opposing thousands of drones to the mages of Magolor's clan and their allies, also numbering in the thousands. It quickly becomes a big mess of weapons cutting metal, of stuff exploding, of projectiles, both physical, energical, and magical, flying around, and people crying in pain after getting hit by a laser or an explosion. The healers are working hard making sure that nobody succumb to their injuries, and again, Simirrors are doing their best to protect as many of their allies as possible with their mirrors, some of the mages doing the same with simple shields.

Sweetie Belle and the others wait a little at the entrance of the place around the tower before they start gathering the energy of the pink heart. The next instant, they form a long train charging right through the battlefield with Sweetie at the head and a very embarrassed Dark Meta Knight at the back.

They have to avoid a few explosions caused by lost rockets, and Sweetie has to use a shield more than once to protect themselves from lost projectiles. Some drones even target them directly despite the battle, but they're quickly destroyed by an ally. Thanks to their speed, it only takes the heroes half a minute to reach the entrance of the tower and charge through the doors.

Not able to stop in time, they continue running, ramming more drones and even Magolor on the way, before crashing into the portal door to Halcandra (thankfully still off), the crash damaging it.

At least, Magolor won't be able to send drones to Halcandra anytime soon.

"I'm never doing it again!" shouts Dark Meta Knight.

"Oh come on. It was fun. Don't lie to yourself, you loved it," says Marx.

"Guys. Forget about this. We've an angry egg mage right there," says Elline.

At her words, everyone turns toward Magolor who has recovered and looks angrily at them, even shaking his hands in rage at them.

Master of Magic
Magolor

But to everyone's surprise, instead of fighting them, Magolor starts floating up a ramp spiraling up the inside of the tower. Is he trying to escape?

"After him!" shouts Fluff.

They give chase, the ramp revealing to connect to many more portal doors, many of them damaged. As he climbs the ramp, Magolor starts attacking them with various magical projectiles. Mainly the black orbs, but also purple fireballs. He also summons the weird spikes like in the battle against his crowned self, from the floor of the ramp, but also from the wall beside it. In return, he gets attacked by all kinds of projectiles from the heroes chasing him, and the small star-shaped shield he sometimes summon to protect himself doesn't help long.

After some climbing, Magolor changes tactic and starts targeting the ramp directly under the feet of the heroes to destroy it, forcing them to focus on not falling for the ones who can't fly. He also starts unexpectedly charging at them while spiraling. He even sometimes flies below the ramp under them to fly through it and ram them by surprise. Toward the end, just after firing a barrage of black orbs, he even summons a small black hole that forces the heroes to stop advancing, and he takes the occasion to fire dark lightning bolts from his hands.

But in the end, this isn't enough, and they eventually reach the end of the ramp, under the ceiling of the tower. Just as it seems that there's nowhere for Magolor to escape, he actually somehow manages to use his powers to phase through the ceiling!

Quickly recovering from the surprise, Sweetie Belle uses her Ultimate Doom Laser to blow a hole in the ceiling, and everyone quickly flies or help others fly to the roof of the tower where Magolor is waiting for them.

The mage starts randomly floating around while attacking with his magical projectiles before he suddenly flies toward Sweetie Belle, and to everyone's surprise again, he summons an Ultra Sword and attempts to cut her in half with it, but the filly quickly rolls to her left to avoid this fate. Magolor follows it by sending a dragon of fire at Marx who teleports away to not end in ashes. The mages uses the Ultra Sword again to parry Dark Meta Knight's attack before attempting to slash him, but he's suddenly wrapped by Gooey's tongue and gets sent toward Rick who gives him an uppercut that sends him flying toward Daroach who's ready to claw him.

Magolor is able to put a star shield to protect himself before he turns himself into a giant snowball and attempts to roll over some of the heroes. His attempts are stopped by Elline drawing a Rainbow Line on his path that leads him right into a giant pot sculpted by Claycia and heated by Spikezilla's fire. Claycia quickly closes the lead, and Adeleine even paints a giant boulder on it. After a few seconds, however, the pot explodes with Magolor roaring as the purple aura surrounds him.

The next instant, he changes form, taking exactly the one he took after putting the Master Crown, but without the Master Crown this time. Once transformed, he opens a portal, and out of it comes the Lor Starcutter. As the ship starts to fire star-shaped projectiles from beyond the edge of the roof, Magolor summons two Ultra Swords, and after coating them in ice, he starts swinging them at the heroes.

Dodging both Magolor's attacks and the Lor's projectiles as it flies around the roof reveals to be hard, but thanks to Magolor's own training building he built back in Dreamland, and the fight against him he programmed in it to train, most of the heroes are used to fight him and already know all his attacks, managing to overcome everything he sends against them and attacking him in return without leaving him time to breath. Magolor putting a star shield doesn't do much. Marx and Taranza just teleports behind him, and the others use their numbers to overwhelm him and circle him, attacking him from the sides and behind. Magolor quickly multiplies the use of copies of Kirby's Super Abilities to fight back, but the heroes just return with their most powerful attacks without stopping moving in the hope of avoiding them. Not even using the Lor Starcutter to try to ram them works to push them back.

And then, suddenly, he teleports further up above the roof before opening a portal. Instead of flying or firing a laser in it like he usually does, something actually comes out of it.

A crystal.

A crystal with something trapped in it. Something pink, round, with wings.

With a move of his hands, Magolor creates runes around the crystal. The next instant, it's destroyed, freeing the being trapped in it and letting everyone seeing more clearly what it is.

He looks like Meta Knight, but pink, with angel wings, and two golden horns coming out of his mask. The mask has a plus-shaped opening, the horizontal one looking like a croissant, and it's also while, like the rest of his armor. Instead of having a sword, he possesses a pink spear, as well as a pink and white shield.

As the being looks around himself, Magolor starts laughing maniacally from behind him, drawing his attention.

And then, he gives Magolor a single powerful slash of his spear, and the mages starts exploding in purple energy while screaming in pain before he recovers his normal appearance and drops back on the roof, unconscious. But the being isn't finished as he spots the Jamba Heart Piece coming out of Magolor when he explodes.

He impales the heart, and in a powerful burst of energy, destroys it, to everyone's pure shock.

Sweetie Belle quickly runs toward Magolor and throws him a pink heart to heal him. When the mage recovers, she immediately looks back at the angel-like knight and asks to Magolor "Who is this?!"

Magolor looks up at the knight, shaking in terror. "It's... It's... Oh God, what have I done?! We're dead! We're so dead! That stupid heart! Why did it make me do this?!"

"Who is this?!!" repeats Sweetie.

"This... This is who started this whole nightmare! The Child of the God who rebelled and planted the seed of the civil war!"

"What?! That's him?!" yells the filly, looking at the knight in shock. The knight looks back at her and the others, seemingly analyzing them.

"Yes! This... This... This is...

The Most Powerful
Warrior
Of The Universe

Galacta Knight!"

Author's Notes:

Sorry for not being original with Magolor, but I couldn't imagine better. I hope that the end of the chapter makes up for it. You've been waiting for him for a long time, uh? Well, be ready. Until now, the fights were weak compared to what's coming.

Chapter 103: The Most Powerful Warrior of the Universe: Galacta Knight

The most powerful warrior of the universe.

Just that.

The guy managed to eradicate almost his whole species, and faced the full might of the Ancients, destroying countless planets, before being sealed.

'Powerful' is too weak to describe how monstrous this Galacta must be.

And here, at the top of a tower in the middle of a battlefield, as explosions and screams can still be heard from below, Sweetie Belle and her friends are about to face this warrior.

Even the Lor Starcutter, who seems to have recovered its freedom from Magolor's control, has decided to fly away, leaving the heroes to deal with Galacta while it goes to help the others fight the drones. Either it really doesn't want to fight Galacta, or it fully trust in them to win. The Lor Starcutter was probably present at the time of Galacta's rampage, so it probably knows his power.

And Magolor is having a panic attack.

"He will destroy New Halcandra and everyone on it and there's nothing we can do to stop him because he's too powerful for us and he will crush us and this will be the end and-" Slap!

"Calm down, Magolor!" yells Sweetie Belle after slapping Magolor to stop his cries. "We have overcome every enemy we encountered until now, including beings that seemed impossible to defeat at first glance, like you possessed by the Master Crown!" She turns to look back at Galacta Knight as he slowly descends on the roof, circled by all her friends ready to attack. "We can defeat him!" She looks back at Magolor, giving him a smirk. "Defeating enemies dozens of times more powerful than us has become our specialty."

Before she can say more, or Magolor can reply, they hear a growl coming from Galacta Knight, getting their attention on him. The knight, who has now landed on the roof, is looking down, a shadow hiding his eyes. His growl eventually turns into laughter. The kind of laughter that says "I'm gonna enjoy it!"

Then, without warning, he charges toward Gooey, spear ready.

"Gooo?!" Gooey was not ready for this, Galacta's charge taking him by surprise. Thankfully, he's saved from the knight's spear by Dark Meta Knight parrying it at the last second. The force of the blow, however, is such that Dark Meta Knight is pushed back and rams Gooey before they're both sent beyond the edge of the roof. If they couldn't fly, they would have fallen.

Galacta Knight then turns to look at all of them, especially at Magolor, pure hate visible in his eyes.

"I will kill you."

Recovering from their surprise, everybody starts acting

Galacta Knight raises his shield to block the fire from Spikezilla, before he uses his spear to parry one of Sweetie Belle's swords. He quickly flies up to avoid the other swords, only to find himself in front of Marx about to spit his giant laser. However, Galacta slashes the laser, cutting it in two before he charges toward the jester to attack him. Marx teleports away, and Galacta quickly changes target, sending a shockwave from his spear at Taranza who also teleports to avoid it. Magolor, who has decided that it's better dying while fighting than dying while doing nothing, comes from behind and uses an Ultra Sword to slash the knight's back, but he still gets blocked by Galacta's shield before the knight sends a shock wave at him. Magolor quickly puts a star shield to protect himself from it, but the shockwave almost manages to break it.

Galacta Knight raises his spear, causing a lightning bolt to fall from the sky right on Adeleine as the girl has been painting something, before he gets circled by Sweetie's ten beam swords. Despite Sweetie attacking him with all of them, Galacta still manages to parry them without getting hit, but the filly is still able to get him by surprise with a magical beam among this storm of slashes. Galacta Knight quickly recovers from the beam and flies right through a gap between two swords to charge directly at Sweetie Belle and attack her. The filly materializes an ice sword and readies it to parry him, only for Galacta to use his shield to move the sword out of the way before attacking with his spear. His attack is stopped by one of Sweetie's own shields, but the shield doesn't stop it long before it breaks and the spear continues its course to impale her. The shield has still given Sweetie enough time to bring her ten beam swords back at her and use half of them to stop the spear while she uses the other half to attack the knight.

Galacta flies back to avoid them, only to get hit by a dark lightning bolt from Gooey. Despite that, Galacta still cuts Daroach's ice beam, then also cuts the laser from Claycia's Bastron Head Cannon. Prince Fluff is able to wrap his yarn around his foot, but this reveals to be an error, because instead of Fluff slamming Galacta Knight on the roof, Galacta sends Fluff to ram Rick and Yin-Yarn. Galacta follows it by raising his spear, and out of it comes a beam that he uses to sweep the roof so rapidly and chaotically that some of the heroes aren't able to avoid it. In return, the knight is hit by a few projectiles from Susie's gun while also being slashed by one of Sweetie's swords.

Galacta stops his beam and swings his spears, creating several sword-shaped beams that home in some of the heroes, and he repeats the process a couple of times before slashing Dark Meta Knight who has been coming from behind. The dark knight counters by invoking four giant swords out of mirrors, one of them sending Galacta backward into a storm of arrows from Marx. Galacta quickly swings his spear, sending a bigger shockwave that cuts through the arrows and hits the jester, to his surprise.

A crescent projectile hits Galacta from behind, and he quickly turns around to deflect others before charging at their origin: a Painted Waiu ridden by Adeleine. But Sweetie Belle gets in his way and starts trading blows with him. While this happens, Galacta quickly uses his shield to block Dark Meta Knight's sword, then quickly spins to slash both the dark knight, Sweetie Belle, and also Coo who has been coming, Sweetie Belle being the only one able to parry this. More projectiles from Susie's gun, as well as crystals from Ribbon's crystal gun, hit him then, and Galacta raises his spear, causing two lightning bolts to strike the two girls. The knight then gathers energy in the spear before dropping, planting the spear in the roof. Out of the spear comes a tornado that takes Sweetie Belle by surprise and sweeps her away along with Spikezilla.

Yin-Yarn, taking the form of a giant scorpion, attacks him with the stinger of his tail, but again, the knight blocks the attack with his shield, so Yin-Yarn continues with his pincers, only for Galacta to point his spear at him before unleashing from it a lightning bolt that shocks Yin-Yarn. A bomb then rolls at Galacta's feet, and before he can understand what it is, the bomb explodes, blowing him toward the sky where he quickly recovers and spots the responsible: Daroach smirking toward him while tossing repeatedly a bomb.

"Eh! Talk about the most powerful warrior of the universe!" says the mouse proudly.

"He is just testing us, or playing with us," says Dark Meta Knight to him.

Daroach loses his smirk and stops tossing the bomb. "Oh..."

At this, Galacta Knight chuckles. "That's true... But this fight reveals to be more entertaining that I first thought. You're strong, I'll give you that. Some of you haven't even shown yet their full power too." At this, he looks at Sweetie Belle. "But if you still think that you stand a chance against me, then you are fools." He raises his spear, and the next instant, he's engulfed in light. "I AM GALACTA KNIGHT! FIRST SON OF THE GOD CREATOR VOID! MASTER OF THE FOUR MATTERS!"

The light disappears, revealing Galacta Knight with a pure white armor lined and marked with gold, and longer horns.

Aeon Hero
Galacta Knight (Light)

"Behold! The very power that helped to seal father!"

"Say what?!" yells Magolor.

Galacta Knight doesn't say more, instead rising his spear again, causing dozens of lightning bolts to strike the roof! He then rises it again, and this time, dozens of column of fire come out of the roof! Another rising of his spear, and giant spikes of ice appear all over the roof!

In just a few seconds, the knight has turned the fight into a massacre!

Despite all this, the heroes resist and counterattack with everything they have, even Sweetie Belle going all out with all kinds of projectiles while charging at the knight and attacking him with a double beam sword. But Galacta Knight seems to have gained speed, because he's able to dodge most of the projectiles sent at him, and parries or blocks anything else while flying around.

After a quick clash against Sweetie Belle, he manages to bonk her with his shield, the shield giving a small burst of energy that sends her beyond the edge of the roof before he starts slashing left and right at the heroes circling him, hitting them directly or with very fast and numerous shockwaves. The heroes don't give up despite the injuries and continue attacking Galacta who then decides to rise his spear again, gathering energy, before planting it in the roof, creating a dozen tornadoes circling him and forcing the heroes back. Sweetie Belle quickly comes back at this moment to attack again, only for the knight to fly up high in the sky where he raises his spear again. He is then surrounded by dozens and dozens of sword-shaped beams that start raining all over the roof.

Once the rain of sword beams stops, he comes back, flying all over the roof while still rising his spear, creating three beams like earlier, sweeping the whole roof with them. Marx then appears right in front of him before spitting his giant beam right on his face, but Galacta Knight resists the beam and sends back his own beam from his spear, badly hurting the jester who crashes near the edge of the roof. Galacta then gather energy in his spear, and with one big swing, sends a giant shockwave toward the half unconscious Marx who's barely saved in time by Dark Meta Knight who grabs him and take him out of there. The shockwave then passes right through the roof, cutting a portion of it that falls.

Rick suddenly comes from above, falling right on the knight and headbutting him, but it barely does anything to him as he kicks the hamster back toward Coo, the owl being the one who dropped Rick. This, however, opens Galacta to a series of attacks from both Sweetie Belle, Gooey, and Daroach, attacking respectively with sword and beams, tongue, and Necrodeus' staff. Galacta takes Sweetie Belle by surprise by slapping her face with one of his wings, then slashes the filly to send her away, before he forces Daroach to teleport with some shockwaves.

And then, he... He cuts space, opening a hole from which comes a huge beam that takes everyone on the way, Gooey, Nago, and Claycia, by surprise, hurting them so badly that they lose consciousness. The roof under them is also destroyed, and they're saved from falling by Taranza, Magolor, and Elline. The beam also destroys some buildings further behind. At the same time, Susie decides to call her Business Suit (the normal version) and uses it to charge toward Galacta Knight while spinning its arms, only for Galacta to cut it in half with just one swing.

Seeing how the situation is getting out of hand, Sweetie Belle prepares herself to use a Soul Song, but Galacta feels it and charges toward her. Sweetie Belle sees him coming and parries his spear with some difficulty, only to be bonked by the shield again, and like before, it releases a burst of energy that sends her flying far.

Galacta returns to fight the others, avoiding a stream of water sent by Kine before firing back a lightning bolt. Magolor then creates a small black hole beside him, but it has no effects on the knight who simply raises his spear and causes dozens of lightning bolts to rain all over the roof again before swinging his spear repeatedly to send more sword beams.

By the time Sweetie returns on the roof, it's to her horror that she sees the majority of her friends unconscious or half unconscious. Magolor still tries to impale Galacta with dark spikes, but the knight avoids them easily before headbutting the mage who drops on his back. Galacta Knight then raises his spear above Magolor, the sharp end pointed right at him.

"You and your people can go to hell!"

He brings down the spear.

Sweetie Belle punches it to deviate it, taking Galacta Knight by surprise since she wasn't here the previous instant.

Something is different with the filly. Not only her eyes are glowing, but her mane is now... not on fire, but green and ethereal. Same with her tail. And Galacta can feel it, she's leaking soul energy in huge quantity. She has a hoof ready for a punch, glowing with energy.

"DON'T YOU DARE. KILL. MY. FRIEND!"

At the word 'friend', she punches him right on the mask. Galacta is sent flying away of the roof, through the air above the now calm battlefield, and right into a skyscraper, causing it to collapse. Sweetie Belle immediately levitates after him, Galacta coming out of the rubble of the building, and the two collide, Sweetie's momentum getting them away from the tower, passing through another skyscraper, before Galacta uses his shield to get Sweetie away from him.

The filly quickly recovers, her ten cannons surrounding her in two arcs at her sides reminiscent of Star Dream's wings. She fires from them beams that home in at Galacta who manages to deflect or avoid all of them before rising his spear. Sweetie starts approaching Galacta, flying left and right to avoid the lightning bolts while firing more homing beams, until she grabs one of the cannons, a huge green beam sword coming of it before she swings it at Galacta Knight. The knight barely manages to parry it without being sent flying, only to be punched again. He resists the force of the punch, and counters by pointing his spear at her before firing a beam that sends her back.

Galacta swings his spear to send dozens of sword beams after her, but Sweetie Belle recovers, covers her hooves in energy, and punches all the sword beams into oblivion before firing an... Ultimate Force Blast? Despite its power, Galacta is still able to block it with his shield, moving it to send the blast flying toward a skyscraper. Galacta then remarks that Sweetie's ten cannons are forming a circle around him, and quickly flies up to avoid the beams coming out of them, only to fly right toward Sweetie Belle who has been waiting for him with a punch. The knight is sent toward the ground and crashes violently, forming a small crater. Sweetie Belle quickly follows her punch with dozens of energy balls that she forms from the air and exploding when impacting with their target, covering the area around Galacta Knight in a cloud of smoke and dust.

A huge beam comes out of the cloud, the same one that Galacta created by cutting a hole in space, and Sweetie quickly creates ten layers of shields around her before it hits. All the shields are destroyed, but by the time it reaches Sweetie Belle, the beam has lost its power, and it doesn't injure her too much. Galacta comes after the beam, and Sweetie takes a beam sword before the two clashes. The filly tries again to punch him, but Galacta protects himself with his shield this time, only for Sweetie Belle to put her back legs together before firing a big beam from them that sends Galacta Knight against a building. Sweetie then covers her front hooves in fire before swinging them at the knight, creating birds of fire that fly after him, but they are all destroyed by Galacta slashing them with his spear covered in water before he flies behind another building.

Sweetie Belle chases him, only to barely avoid a huge shockwave passing through one of the skyscrapers and that cuts it in two. She quickly flies away to avoid the building falling on her, then fires many beams at Galacta Knight once she spots him, only for him to take cover behind another skyscraper. Instead of flying around it, she passes right through it, tackling Galacta Knight before she throws him in the air above her. She then fires her Ultimate Doom Laser, much bigger and colored green, totally engulfing the knight with it.

Feeling that this isn't enough to kill Galacta Knight, she follows the beam into space where she finds Galacta Knight behind his shield, badly injured. The knight slowly lowers the shield as well as the spear as he starts growling, his body shaking in rage.

Then, with a yell, he raises his spear, and he's engulfed in darkness.

When the darkness disappears, Galacta has changed appearance again, much more significantly than the first time. He's now black, with black wings, grey horns, and a grey spear. His mask and armor are now purple with grey markings and linings, and his shield is also purple and grey.

Aeon Calamity
Galacta Knight (Dark)

"When I'm done with you, not even your soul will remain!"

Sweetie Belle forms a vertical circle around her with her ten cannons, all pointed at Galacta Knight, before she forms two green swords of pure energy.

And they charge, and clash, again, and again, and again. Between each clashes, they fire beams, fire, ice, lightning, the projectiles countering each others. After a few clashes, Galacta Knight gathers energy in his spear before sending giant shockwave that Sweetie has no problems avoiding. But the shockwave ends up slicing New Halcandra in two!

Sweetie Belle gasps at this, and looks back at Galacta Knight, her eyes glowing even more, and her skin starting to disappear at some places, replaced by an ethereal green skin.

Galacta sends another similar shockwave at her, only, this time, Sweetie reforms her staff, and a giant green sword comes out of it before she brings it down, cutting the shockwave in two. She then grabs the giant sword like a spear and throws it at Galacta Knight, the weapon flying at the speed of lightning. Galacta's eyes grow wide, and he barely places his shield in time to block it, only for his shield to explode on impact before he's thrown back by the shock. And as he's thrown back, Sweetie flies after him, grabbing her weapon on the way with her magic, before she thrusts it toward Galacta Knight who uses his spear to deflect it to his left. He quickly uses the opening to thrust back his spear at her, but she blocks it with one of her gauntlets. She still gets thrown back a bit by the force of the blow.

Galacta Knight uses it to fly away, quickly chased by the filly. While flying, Galacta Knight cuts holes in space, firing dozens of those 'space beams' at Sweetie Belle who is able to slalom between them, even using her weapon to slice one. Growling, Galacta starts slicing space again, opening a giant hole the size of the Lor Starcutter. With an "Eep!" Sweetie Belle flies down to avoid the huge beam that results of it. The beam ends up blowing up New Halcandra's Moon!

Seeing that Galacta is starting to slice space again, Sweetie quickly sends a giant block of a shield after him, the block-shield slamming him from behind. Galacta has still managed to cut a hole in space, but not as big as he wanted, the beam resulting from it only blowing a big crater on New Halcandra, thankfully not where Sweetie's friends are. It causes, however, the part of New Halcandra hit to move away from the other.

Galacta Knight roars in rage before he raises his spear, summoning hundreds of giant pink needles with heart-shaped extremities all around him that immediately fly after Sweetie Belle. Sweetie Belle spreads her forelegs, her horn glowing green like never before, gathering a huge quantity of Dream Matter to create hundreds of beams all around her that she sends at Galacta Knight, the beams clashing against the heart needles.

Roaring again, Galacta Knight flies through the clashing beams and needle to attack directly Sweetie Belle with his spear, the spear getting surrounded by energy, making it look like it's many times bigger. Sweetie Belle parries it with her giant beam sword, the clash creating a shockwave.

"You... Curse you... Curse you all..." grumbles Galacta Knights before he fires a beam from his spear at Sweetie Belle.

Despite the beam, Sweetie Belle lights her horn, blinding Galacta Knight with a big flash of light. Using this, Sweetie Belle flies behind Galacta and grabs him, using her magic on his arm to make sure he can't use his spear, before she flies back toward New Halcandra with him. They both drop like a meteor toward the surface, passing through a couple of ruined skyscrapers before crashing.

Their crash leaves a huge crater, with Sweetie Belle on top of Galacta Knight, the knight returning back to normal. Seeing this, Sweetie Belle steps back, returning to normal too, breathing heavily, exhausted. She looks at her hooves in wonder, the whole fight playing again in her mind, especially that... power.

"What... was... Was that...?"

Before she can ponder more, Galacta Knight groans, and slowly gets up, dropping his spear. "C...Curse you..." He turns toward Sweetie Belle, advancing, step by step.

The filly stares at him in surprise. "You... You want to... continue...?"

"I... will not... let myself... getting sealed... again..." replies Galacta Knight before punching her.

Sweetie Belle recoils from the punch, but she punches him back, making him recoil too. "You started this... The Civil War... The Dark God... Zero... The corrupted Mirror... Star Dream... It's all your fault..."

Galacta Knight growls. "The story... is written... by the winners..." He punches her. "I didn't start anything!"

She punches him. "Yeah! Right!"

Galacta takes a couple of steps back after the punch, his mask dropping. He growls again. "I... only wanted... freedom... I wanted... to stop... serving father... He was okay... But not the others... Those stupid fanatics... They took their weapons first... And then, they called their dogs... I only defended myself..." He falls on his back, finally reaching his limit. "And then... those bastards... when father was about to destroy them, and the universe... they freed me... because they knew... that I was one of the few... who could face him... And despite everything.... I didn't want the universe... to be destroyed... So I fought him... with the help of three companions... and we sealed him... using those Heart Spears... like I used earlier..." He takes a big breath. "And when it was done, I was sealed again! They were too scared of my power! They feared that I would restart my 'rampage'! Those... Those..." He puts his hands on his eyes. "I just want to be left in peace!"

During Galacta Knight's rant, Sweetie Belle fell on the floor too, listening without saying anything. From what he says, he was not the monster depicted, but in the end, he's still at the origin of all grieves. This leaves Sweetie Belle conflicted, but right now, she's too exhausted to think about this. She's so exhausted that she can feel her consciousness slipping away.

The last thing she sees before she closes her eyes is a butterfly fluttering toward the now unconscious Galacta Knight.

Author's Notes:

For info, when Galacta Knight used the Heart Spears, he wanted to seal Sweetie Belle. He was at this point where he just didn't care anymore and wanted to end this at all cost.

Chapter 104: Assault on Jambandra Base! Officiant of Doom: Hyness

Silence. Pure silence.

As Sweetie Belle falls asleep, victorious over the freaking most powerful warrior of the bucking universe, everypony just looks, not a word spoken.

And then, a butterfly lands on the unconscious knight, who disappears in a burst of particles of light absorbed by the insect before it flutters away.

After a few more seconds of silence, Starlight is the first to break it. "What. The buck. Just happened?"

"A butterfly disintegrated Galacta Knight," answers Discord.

"No! I mean, yes! But before that!"

"Sweetie Belle defeated the most powerful warrior of the universe."

"I mean what happened with Sweetie Belle? Why did she start to... change?"

At this, Celestia puts a hoof under her chin, starting to think. "Her skin was turning the same shade of green than her magic. Her mane and tail turned into that same color. And ethereal, like my mane. It... was as if Sweetie Belle was losing her physical envelop to become a being of pure magic."

"Ohohohohoho! I think I know what it was," says Discord who starts rubbing his paw and claw excitedly.

"And it was...?" asks Luna.

"I won't tell! Try to find out by yourself, I will not ruin it! But come on, it's not hard to guess. And please, if anypony guesses what it is, keep it to yourself to not spoil!"

"Oh please!"

"Tell us Discord!"

"What is it?!" the foals start asking.

"No! No! Don't insist! And stop doing the puppy dog eyes, it won't work on me."

"It works when Fluttershy does them on you," says Apple Bloom.

This silence Discord for a couple of seconds before he shouts "No, they don't!" and turns around, arms crossed.

"Well, whatever it was, it made her powerful enough to win a fight against a guy who could cut a planet in half," says Rainbow Dash. "Princess Luna, sorry to say, but I think you will lose your bet."

"Ah! As if! She doesn't control this power! I can still win!" replies Luna. After a small pause, she adds "Maybe I should start training. I think I'm a little rusty."

"Yes, you should," says Discord. "Oh, and don't worry, you won't need to fear this power, Sweetie Belle won't use it against you. Not unless she wants to risk destroying Equestria as a collateral damage."

"Unless you go fight in space, like they did," says Pinkie. "You would just have to make sure that Sweetie doesn't fire one of her giga beams toward the planet."

"Mmh... Alright, Sweetie is getting overpowered, that's nothing new, and the fight was the most awesome thing ever. Can we talk about the butterfly that just killed the most powerful warrior of the universe?" asks Spike.

"I will never look at a butterfly the same way," says Fluttershy.

---

They saw that meteor fall, and they immediately knew that this meteor was Sweetie Belle, having seen her fly toward space after that huge laser. From what her still conscious friends told, she was fighting none other than Galacta Knight himself! That's very worrying. Most of the time, the only outcome when fighting the Demon Knight is death, especially when fighting him in one versus one. But somehow, Sweetie Belle still put up a very good fight against him. She forced him to use some of his most powerful attacks, resulting, according to the reports, in New Halcandra getting sliced in two and in the Moon getting blown up. It's a miracle that New Halcandra hasn't been blown up.

Some healing magic was all it took to completely heal Magolor and his friends, and while most of them are tired, especially after fighting Galacta Knight, they will all be alright in no time. Once they made sure of that, Gandaro, Lockwar, and Shimago, followed by a small group of other mages, decided to go to the impact area where Sweetie fell and, hopefully, bring her back alive. At least bring back something to bury at worst.

After a few minutes, they reach the area, finding the expected crater. To their relief, they find Sweetie Belle in one piece at the center of the crater, alone, no trace of Galacta Knight. Since New Halcandra is still here, even if not in one piece anymore, then Galacta probably decided to leave it at that and go away.

They hope.

They quickly verify if the filly is still alive, and to their surprise and joy, she is! Shimago immediately uses her healing magic to heal her injuries, but it becomes clear that this fight exhausted her, the filly not waking up.

Problematic, because she and her friends need to quickly go to Jambandra Base to stop those idiots from freeing the Dark God. The last thing they want is to lose time waiting for her to recover her stamina, which may take hours, or even days. Thankfully, they've something for that, in their ship.

---

"So, how long will it take for her to wake up, Shimago?" asks Magolor.

"It will depend. Hopefully, just a few minutes," answers the nurse. She looks back toward Sweetie Belle, who's now inside a vat full of a special liquid containing all the nutrients that a body needs, helped with some magic, for a quick recovery after a hard work, or even to rapidly heal if no healing items or healers are near. The mages' ship, the Starwalker, is full of them, just in case. "At least, it shouldn't take her more than an hour."

"At least, that's that. In general, we never wake up after a fight against the Demon Knight," says Lockwar. "Seriously, corrupted or not, I never thought that you would be stupid enough to free this guy!"

"Don't remind me..." replies Magolor with a groan. "I almost died, twice."

"We all almost died," says Taranza.

"And we were all together against him. And yet, Sweetie Belle was able to face him alone and survive," says Adeleine with disbelief. "How did she do it?"

"You will have to ask her once she wakes up," says Marx.

"Until then, we should all prepare for the assault of Jambandra Base," says Lockwar. "I don't believe that we will have to do that. Jambandra Base was built to protect the Jamba Heart and was extremely well guarded. How was this Jambastion Religion able to conquer it?"

"From what I was told by the heroes, the Jambastion Religion uses the knowledge of our ancestors, the Magic Clan. The way they described this Jambastion reminded me of their mighty fortresses," says Gandaro with a sigh. "There's probably at least one of us among them."

"You mean, descendants of the Ancients from another clan?" asks Susie.

"Yes. And it's the most logical explanation of why they want to free the Dark God," answers Ganduro as he looks down in sadness. "Some of us are still full of hate, even after all those years."

"Well, I already know what I will do," says Magolor. "Jambandra Base is circled by many of those Jambastions, right? If we go using the Lor Starcutter, we will probably end up facing them. If we are followed by the Death Egg and the Starwalker, it's even certain. So I will go and ensure that..." He winks. "we can face them." At this, he floats away, finishing with "I'm taking the Lor!"

"And of course, he doesn't tell us what exactly he will do," says Yin-Yarn.

Susie sighs. "We will discover soon enough." She then turns to the others. "Meanwhile, I will repair the Death Egg."

"Oh yes! And once it's repaired, send it immediately toward Jambandra Base," says Gandaro. "We will do the same with the Starwalker. By the time Sweetie Belle wakes up, we should reach it, and the heroes will join us with the Lor Starcutter."

"Good point," replies Susie.

---

About ten minutes later, Sweetie Belle has been transferred to a building so the mages could take off with the Starwalker to start their journey toward Jambandra Base, leaving Sweetie Belle's friends behind to wait for the filly to wake up. The Death Egg has also been repaired, and has taken off without Susie, the girl deciding to remain behind with the heroes. Now, only Magolor is still missing as they rest in the same room than the vat, some of them, like the animals or Gooey, getting some shut eye while others, like Dark Meta Knight, are doing various activities to prepare themselves for the future battle, or simply to pass time.

And then, they hear Dedede's anthem playing from the vat, recognizing it despite the liquid and the glass. Daroach briefly teleports inside it, the vat having barely enough space for both him and Sweetie Belle, and takes Sweetie's communication device before teleporting out and answering.

"Dedede?"

«Uh? That's not Sweetie Belle.»

"It's Daroach. Sweetie Belle is sleeping. She had a hard fight."

«Really now? Well, I hope she will not sleep too long, because we just destroyed Jambandra Base's forcefield. We're about to enter the fortress.»

"Give us a few minutes. We will come with the Lor Starcutter."

«You should rather come with the star, unless you want to fight your way through a dozen Jambastions, plus whatever defenses Jambandra Base possesses.»

"Eheh. Don't worry about us. We will manage."

«If you say so... Anyway, hurry up, or we will defeat the bad guy without you,» finishes Dedede before ending the call.

Marx taps on the glass of the vat with his foot. "Hey! You heard that, Sweetie Belle?! Hurry to wake up, or we will miss the fun!"

"Even if she wakes up now, we still have to wait for Magolor," says Susie. "What is he doing?"

"Yeah, what am I doing?" suddenly says a voice behind her.

"Iiiiiih!" screams Susie as she jumps away in surprise, turning around in mid-jump to see that the voice comes from a giggling Magolor who wasn't here before. After taking a few breaths to calm her heart, she looks at the mage with a need to kill. "One day, I swear!"

"Where were you?" asks Adeleine.

"Oh, I did some... gathering. You will see," answers the mage.

---

When Sweetie Belle wakes up, it feels like she's inside a filled bathtub, except she isn't drowning, because, of course, this is the Dream Universe. And to her surprise, she feels as good as if she had slept a whole week! She would even say that she feels like Pinkie Pie after drinking some coffee.

Opening her eyes, she quickly understand why it feels like she's inside a filled bathtub: that's because she is really inside something filled with water. Some kind of giant glass tube? Oh, and this 'water' is strangely green. Where the heck is she?

She then spots a red button with a message written above pointing to it: Press it. So she presses it, and the next instant, the giant glass tube is emptying itself of this green 'water'. Once the tube is empty, a door opens in the glass, letting her get out.

She's immediately welcomed by her friends, some of them hugging her.

"Welcome back, sleepy head," says Daroach.

"About time you wake up," says Marx.

Sweetie Belle looks back at the tube... vat, where she just woke up in confusion.

"What is that?"

"A recovery vat," answers Magolor. "Gandaro and the others found you unconscious in a crater. Shimago healed you, but you weren't waking up. Instead of waiting for days for you to recover, they put you in it, and thanks to it, it only took a little less than half an hour for you to wake up."

"That's fantastic! I should ask Gandaro if I can take one or two to bring back to my castle."

Magolor gives a small laugh. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind, not after stopping me and surviving against Galacta Knight. Well, you couldn't stop him from cutting New Halcandra in two, but at least, New Halcandra is just cut in two. And lost its Moon. It could have been worse."

"Galacta... What happened to him?"

"You don't know?" asks Claycia.

"Uh... The last time I saw him before I fell asleep, he was unconscious in front of me. If Gandaro and the others found me, then they certainly found him too."

Magolor tilts his head in confusion. "No, they said they found you alone in the crater." Then, his eyes widen. "Wait! 'Unconscious'?!" Suddenly, he grabs Sweetie Belle and shakes her frantically. "ARE YOU SAYING THAT YOU DEFEATED GALACTA KNIGHT?!!"

When Magolor stops shaking her, Sweetie Belle shakes her head to recover her senses before answering with a giggle. "Yes. I defeated him. I'm not sure how." Actually, she knows how she did it, but she will need to test it to make it certain. And if it is really what she thinks it is, she wants to keep it a secret so she can use it as her trump card against Kirby. She then puts a hoof under her chin and asks to herself "Why wasn't he here anymore?"

At her answer, everyone, even Dark Meta Knight, looks at her in shock, stopping moving, some of them with their mouth agape. This makes Sweetie Belle look away with a blush, rubbing the back of her head. "Uh... So... Now that I'm awake, should we start to go toward Jambandra Base to join Kirby and the others?" She looks back at the others with worry. "Unless we're late and Kirby already stopped Hyness."

At this, the others recover from their shock, and Daroach replies. "Oh, yes. Don't worry, last time Dedede called, fifteen minutes ago, they were about to enter Jambandra Base. If they had defeated Hyness, he would have called again. Speaking of..." Daroach takes Sweetie's communication device from his cape and gives it back to her.

"Thanks."

"I already sent the Death Egg toward Jambandra Base," says Susie. "Gandaro and the other mages also went with their ship, the Starwalker. With the Lor Starcutter and its portals, we will join them in no time."

"They probably already arrived and are waiting for us. Of course, we will not appear too close of Jambandra Base, or we will be attacked directly," says Magolor. "So, are you ready for the final battle?"

"Yes!" immediately answers the filly with a big smile.

The next instant, she finds herself with Magolor just in front of her muzzle, looking at her right in the eyes. "And once we're done with the Jambastion Religion, you will tell me everything that happened against Galacta Knight. I want to know how you managed to beat him, and even if you don't know, I will find out."

"O-okay..."

---

The Lor Starcutter comes out of a star-shaped portal. Jambandra Base is now visible far away, a space station as huge as Dedede said, shaped like a cone circled all the way by many rings and arcs, with a second, smaller part floating above the top.

And as said, it's circled by about a dozen Jambastions.

Not far from where the Lor appeared, the Death Egg, as well as another ship are waiting, the second ship a little smaller than the other, and shaped like an elongated blue star with a smaller star 'traversing' it perpendicularly at the back. The Starwalker.

Soon, as the Lor joins the two other ships, the crew receives a call from the Starwalker. Magolor presses a button, and Lockwar appears at a corner of the screen.

"Glad that you could join us! I had more and more difficulty stopping myself from charging into battle! Now we can go kick those-"

"SHE DEFEATED GALACTA KNIGHT!" suddenly yells Magolor.

...

"Say what?"

"Sweetie Belle! Defeated! Galacta Knight!"

Lockwar's eyes can be seen moving from Magolor to Sweetie Belle, then back to Magolor. "Is this a joke?"

"No!"

"Come on, stop joking."

"This is not a joke, trick, fraud, lie, or whatever else you can think of! She did it!"

"Stop it Magolor!" shouts Sweetie Belle. "We're about to start a battle! We've no time to talk about that!"

Lockwar looks back toward Sweetie Belle. "We will talk about it later, but if what he says is true, then you'll have my eternal respect, kiddo. And I'll make sure to put a golden statue of you somewhere. Anyway, before we go into battle, a little exposition of what is awaiting us." At this, Lockwar presses a few buttons, and the next instant, an image of a Jambastion appears on the screen. "There are ten of those Jambastions circling Jambandra Base. We don't know much about them, but if they're anything like the old fortresses of the Magic Clan, then they should have a core somewhere. If we destroy the core, then-"

"We know. Dedede already told us about this," says Sweetie Belle. She then points at the image, at the top of the Jambastion. "It's somewhere at the top, under the floating octahedron, but we will need to destroy the hull to reach it."

"So we target the top in priority, thank you. But, of course, this will not be easy. Again, if those Jambastions are like the old fortresses, then the red octahedrons around them are actually magical cannons that can fire homing magical projectiles. The floating octahedron is also a weapon. The archives call it 'Wrath of the Void', a weapon that can gather Dark Matter and fire a huge corresponding beam that could annihilate any of our ships in one shot. Thankfully, it takes time to charge those things, so as long as we keep an eye, everything should be okay."

Lockwar then presses more buttons, and the image is replaced by one of Jambandra Base. "We shouldn't have to worry about Jambandra Base's biggest weapon, Judgement." The image zooms to the bottom of the station. "I don't know what went to the mind of the guys who built this station, but they decided that not only it would be the prison of the Dark God, it would also be a giant laser cannon. Maybe the Techno Clan thought that the Magic Clan would come with an even bigger station or ship to free their God. Well, no matter the reason, this station IS a giant laser cannon, and it's powerful enough to destroy anything. Of course, against our puny little ships, this cannon would be overkill, and it would take too much time for the station to maneuver to fire it at us. Our speed would also make it easy to dodge." The image moves up to the top of the station. "I don't know how long ago this Jambastion Religion took control of the station, but long enough that they've been able to do some redesign. Those eye-designs, bone-like whatever they are, and red stuff were definitely not there at the origin, but one thing hasn't changed: the surface is littered with thousands and thousands of cannons, especially on the arcs and at the top. Trying to dodge them will be like trying to dodge rain. Whatever happens, don't approach too close of the station unless you wish to die."

He presses a button again, and the picture changes to show Jambandra Base at a different angle, revealing a much smaller station (still much bigger than the Jambastions) linked to it by a bridge. "Thankfully, you won't need to. We did some scouting around the station and found out that those idiots moved the Jamba Heart to this place, that they built probably for their ritual to free the Dark God. It means that all you will have to do is fly around the station to reach it. Yes, it will be longer than flying straight toward it passing by this space between the two pieces of Jambandra Base, but at least you won't be killed by a rain of lasers. Of course, you'll have to pass the Jambastions first." Lockwar then presses a button, and the image disappears. "Since we haven't much time, I don't recommend that you participate too much in the battle against the Jambastions. We will try to gather all ten of them at this side of Jambandra Base, freeing the way for you to fly toward this smaller station without risk. Actually, you could even use a portal to gain time! Once the ten Jambastions are gathered, you leave us deal with them and go immediately."

"But this would be suicidal! You would be killed!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

"To ensure that the universe isn't destroyed, we are ready to sacrifice ourselves. I know there are probably your friends already working in avoiding it somewhere inside this station, but we don't know if they reached Hyness yet, and we don't know how much time we have left. We must act as quickly as possible."

"And don't worry, Sweetie Belle, they won't be alone," says Magolor.

"What do you mean?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"You will see, they should arrive soon."

"General! We're detecting five ships approaching!" suddenly shouts someone from Lockwar's side.

The next instant, the Lor detects the approaching ships too, and it reveals them on the screen, at the opposite side of the window with Lockwar. To everyone except Magolor's surprise, the ships are the Halberd, the Warhammer, Unisqueak, Bastron, and a triangle-shaped painted ship a little bigger than this last one. Another window opens to show Landia, still separated as four dragons, also coming. The Lor then receives four calls that Magolor immediately accepts, opening four windows with Captain Vul, Lololo and Lalala, Doc, and Paint Roller in them.

"Captain Vul here! Seems like we arrived just in time!"

"Here are Lololo-"

"And Lalala!"

"-and in the absence of all the other superiors in King Dedede's army, we took position as temporary captains of the Warhammer!"

"Yo headmistress Adeleine! We heard that you will need our help, so we painted this little beauty and came as soon as possible!"

"We also received the call, boss! We will finally be able to put Megasqueak to test!"

"It's Unisqueak!" yells Daroach.

"Wait, what?" shouts Adeleine before she turns toward Magolor. "That's what you did? You called reinforcement?"

"Yep!" answers proudly the mage. "Sadly, the fairies couldn't come because they don't have any spaceship, but they wish us luck. The robots of Shiver Star too."

"Wait a minute! Bastron? But Kirby and I destroyed it!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

Claycia and Elline blush before rubbing their head sheepishly. "We rebuilt it, just in case..."

"After the invasion of HWC."

Meanwhile, Doc presses something, and the next instant, the metallic blimp changes form, twisting and shifting until taking the form of a giant mecha mouse. The hat of the ship now truly serves as a hat on top of the mecha's head, while the metallic balloon has turned into the head and the body and the gondola has turned into the limbs.

"Megasqueak ready to take action!"

"I said it's Unisqueak!"

"Well, Magolor, I think we owe you one," says Lockwar.

"Thanks! But now, you have to repeat everything you just said to them," says Magolor with a giggle, making the general groan.

And so, after a second round of the exposition...

"Alright! Now we should be able to start this battle! Is everyone ready?!" shouts Lockwar.

"Yes!"

"Of course!"

"You bet!"

At this moment, something is selected in the screen without anyone pressing any buttons, and a song starts playing.

Sweetie looks at the screen with amusement. "Really, Lor?"

Adeleine raises an eyebrow. "Since when the Lor possesses a playlist of songs from Shiver Star?"

"Since the party a few months ago. The humans made some really good songs, so why not share them?" answers Sweetie Belle before she walks toward a chair further behind facing the screen recently added by Magolor for the captain of the Lor Starcutter. At first, Magolor made it for him since he considered himself as the captain, but the Lor refused to obey him as long as he was on this chair. However, when Sweetie Belle first sat on it before taking off earlier, the ship immediately followed her orders, to the mage's annoyance.

Once Sweetie Belle sits on it, a smaller screen with the communication windows appear at her left, leaving the main screen to fully let them view the action outside. "Lor Starcutter... Let's go."

At her words, the spaceshift immediately starts flying toward Jambandra Base.

"Hey! Don't start without us!" shouts Lockwar. "Alright boys! Time to show this Religion to not mess with our universe!"

"Aww yeah!" yells Lololo.

"Showtime!" shouts Lalala.

"Ahahahahah! The Halberd will help saving the universe for the third time!" shouts Vul in joy.

"The events with Dark Nebula don't count," says Sailor Waddle Dee offscreen. "He wasn't even a threat to the universe."

"Shut up!"

"Time to reveal your powers, Megasqueak!" shouts Doc in ecstasy.

"It's Unisqueak!"

"Yo! Those buffoons have no chance against us!" shouts Paint Roller.

All the ships start approaching the closest Jambastion, the fortress stopping to circle Jambandra Base when its crew detects them. A few seconds later, red projectiles of energy are fired from the red octahedrons, the projectiles flying right toward the closest ship: the Lor Starcutter.

"Dispersion!" yells Vul.

Every ships immediately separate, avoiding the risk of becoming the unexpected target of a dodged projectile, and making it easier to dodge without risking to collide with another ship. This let the Lor avoid the red projectiles without worry. The Jambastion fires more of those projectiles while a black energy is starting to be gathered above the floating octahedron at the top.

"Its Wrath of the Void is charging!" yells Lockwar. "Be ready, everyone!"

"We should target that thing to stop it," proposes Lalala.

"Good idea, pinky!"

"We're on it!" shouts Doc before the Unisqueak starts accelerating, overtaking all the other ships. As a result, it becomes the main target of the red projectiles, but its agility reveals to be far too much for them, the mecha gracefully flying around them. It eventually reaches the floating octahedron and starts firing at it with cannons at the arms and torso. While this isn't enough to destroy the octahedron, the Unisqueak is quickly joined by the Lor Starcutter which starts firing. A laser from the Halberd's Main Cannon 2 eventually finishes the octahedron just before it can fire, the octahedron exploding.

With the Jambastion deprived of its most powerful weapon, every ships start firing at its top, hoping to quickly destroy the hull and reach the core.

However...

"Jambastions coming from larboard and starboard!" shouts someone from Lololo and Lalala's side.

"So, it called its friends?" asks Paint Roller. "No problems!"

"It's exactly what we wanted," says Sweetie Belle. "But if the other nine Jambastions are starting to come, I fear that it will be too much, even with all of us together."

"Ahah! Let them come! We have a secret weapon!" shouts Doc. "Be ready," he then says to someone offscreen.

"Watch out!" yells Lockwar just before the two closest approaching Jambastions fire two huge black beams easily bigger than any of the ships. The beams target the Death Egg and the Starwalker, but the two ships manage to get out of the way in time, the Death Egg still losing a foot.

Rather than waiting for the two Jambastions to approach more, some of the ships separate from the others to attack them, trying to destroy the Wraths of the Void before they can fire again. Meanwhile, the hull of the first Jambastion is finally breached, and the Landias immediately enter and fire a storm of projectiles at the core, destroying it. With the core destroyed, the Jambastion stops attacking and starts to crumble.

"And one down!" shouts Vul.

"Nine to go," continues Lockwar.

At this moment, various creatures start flying from the crumbling Jambastion and from Jambandra Base to attack the ships directly, forcing them to change the target of some of the cannons to attack them. Meanwhile, more Jambastions are starting to come from both sides of the space station.

"I think it's time for us to use our secret weapon!" shouts Doc before the mouth of Unisqueak opens. "Go!"

Out of the mouth comes something so fast that everyone only see a blurred red and white trail. Whatever it is flies around for a few moments before it charges toward one of the Jambastions at a speed exceeding everything they can think of. The thing eventually reaches the Jambastion and flies right through its top, seemingly destroying the core on the way because the Jambastion starts crumbling just after.

"Wait! A Dragoon?!" shouts Sweetie Belle in surprise as she recognizes what it is.

"Exactly!" shouts proudly Doc. "Remember, Spinni used it in our battle against you."

"Oh, right! And so, it's Spinni who pilots it?"

"Nope, I'm right here," says Spinni as he shows himself behind Doc.

"But then, who...?"

She's answered by the Lor showing an image taken of the Dragoon and its pilot: Mirror Kirby.

"Mirror Kirby is here too?!"

"Yep!" answers Magolor. "The Lor can go anywhere, so going to Dreamland's Mirror World was no problem!"

"Bwaahahahahaha! That's perfect!" shouts Lockwar. "I think you should go now, Sweetie Belle, every Jambastions probably left their position, and the way to the small station behind Jambandra Base must be clear! We will manage." However, as he says that, Bastron is destroyed by a giant black beam from one of the Jambastions.

"Bastron!" yells Claycia.

"......Don't worry, we will still manage," says Lockwar, sweating.

"Trust us!" says Lololo.

"We will not let the Warhammer being destroyed!" says Lalala.

"And the ship we painted is the top of the top, those lasers don't scare us!" shouts Paint Roller.

Sweetie Belle sighs. "Alright. You heard that, Lor? Let's go."

At this, the Lor Starcutter opens a star-shaped portal, and disappears in it, leaving the others to deal with the eight... seven remaining Jambastion.

The Lor comes out of the portal near the smaller station, and it starts flying toward it. Seems like the Jambastion Religion hasn't even placed a single cannon to protect it when they built it, so the heroes approach the station without encountering any obstacles. Like planned, not even the Jambastions are here to stop them, the last of them disappearing behind Jambandra Base far away.

When the Lor reaches the middle of the top of the station, it starts hovering above a big place where the heroes spot Kirby, Dedede, Bandana Dee, Meta Knight, and over twenty other creatures fighting a yellow-haired girl using lightning. Not far, on an altar looking like a flower, is a big purple crystal heart not fully complete, the heart missing a small part. In front of it is a white cloaked figure doing... something, arms raised, while regularly looking back above their shoulder at the fight happening behind.

The fight is interrupted as the fighters spot the Lor Starcutter hovering above them, Kirby and his friends waving happily at it. The area is too small for the Lor to land however, but Sweetie Belle doesn't mind it.

"Lor, open the exit," orders Sweetie Belle before she leaves her chair. "Let's go, everyone."

"Are we really gonna do it?" asks Adeleine with a deadpan look.

"Don't worry, Ribbon will hold you," replies Sweetie Belle. "And, well, after making them wait all this time, our entrance must be as dramatic as possible," she adds with a smirk, making some of her friends laugh.

Sweetie Belle is the first to jump from the Lor, using her magic to safely land beside Kirby's group. Her friends all follow, landing one by one, Ribbon holding Adeleine, Coo holding Kine while ChuChu rides on him, Prince Fluff slowly floating down in the form of a parachute, and Susie using a propeller.

"Reinforcement is here!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

"Took your time!" shouts back Dedede with a laugh. "And you brought quite the dream team!"

"And nice entrance!" shouts Broom Sunglasses.

Sweetie Belle giggles before she looks at the other creatures. "And I see Kirby took advantage of the pink heart to make more friends. Typical of him."

"And again, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Kirby used the pink heart to befriend almost everyone we encountered on the way, even members of the Jambastion Religion. Those guys are just the ones who decided to follow us," says Bandana Dee.

Sweetie Belle rolls her eyes. "Why am I not surprised. By the way, nice seeing you here Cape Knight, you too Knuckle Joe. And I suppose that most of you come from Dedede's army."

Said members of Dedede's army wave at her.

Twenty four beings in total. With Broom Sunglasses, Cape Knight, and Knuckle Joe, there are too a Beetley, a Bio Spark, a Birdon, a Bonkers, a Bugzzy, a Burning Leo, a Chef Kawasaki, a Chilly, a Como, a Driblee (some big blue tadpole), a Gim, a NESP, a Parasol Waddle Dee, a Plugg, a Poppy Bros Jr, a Rocky, a Sir Kibble, a Vividria, a Waddle Doo, and a Wester. By elimination, the cloaked purple being with a staff must be the Jammerjab. Funny enough, for some reason, they all wear a hat of their corresponding ability, like the Bomb ability's cone hat for the Poppy Bros, or the Sword ability's green hat for Cape Knight.

Which brings their little army of heroes to a grand total of forty nine members. Fifty if Yin and Yarn are counted separately. This is ridiculous!

And opposing them, the Lightning General herself, leader of the three Jambastion Mages, Zan Partizanne. At first glance, she looks like a human, but then, it appears that she possesses disembodied hands, and no visible legs and feet. While her face is partially hidden behind her dark purple dress, it's easy to see that she also doesn't possess a nose. On her beret, the Jambastion Religion's emblem is present, showing her allegiance, and the yellow present on her, from her hairs, to lining and markings on her clothes, passing by two little curving marks coming from her eyes, show her affinity to the lightning element.

And the poor girl's body is littered with all kinds of injuries, cuts, bumps, burns, frostbite... She's at the verge of dropping unconscious, her breathing heavy. And right now, she's looking at all of them as if it is the end of the universe.

Again, poor girl. She has already been fighting a losing battle before, and now, every little hope she still had to win have just been destroyed by their arrival.

But, as if getting a second wind, Zan Partizanne suddenly materializes behind her a golden ring with three drums, and uses them to fire dozens of robs of electricity all over the area.

"Poyo!" shouts Kirby possessing a new ability with a red hat: the Staff. He twirls the staff above him, the staff being coated in water, while he jumps left and right to avoid the orbs. Then, he swings the staff while lengthening it, not only hitting Zan with hit, but also causing her ring to electrocute her before exploding, stunning her. Sweetie Belle then jumps in front of her to give her an uppercut that send her flying in the air, where she's attacked from all sides by many projectiles, from beams to kunais passing by fire, ice, lightning, and or even web.

By the end, she's propelled near the base of the staircase leading to the Jamba Heart, smoking, sticking with web, and electricity coursing her. Despite all this, she's able to raise her head to look at Hyness, reaching out to him with an arm, before weakly saying "Help... Hyness..." and finally falling unconscious.

Hearing her, Hyness looks above his shoulder, and seeing Zan knocked out, turns around. "Juh? What is this... interference?" He then proceeds to slowly walk down the stairs.

Seeing him coming, the heroes gather in front, waiting to see what he will do.

"This is it," says Meta Knight, sword ready.

---

The way Hyness is walking down the stairs, without making a sound, his dropped arms moving left and right at the rhythm of his steps, is making everypony looking really uneasy. They don't know why, but this guy has this... atmosphere around him... It's as if each step he's taking is getting them one step closer to their doom. His body entirely cloaked, the sleeves even reaching the floor, only revealing of his body his tiny, yellow, glowing eyes makes it even worse.

"I think we have our winner for the tournament of creepiest bad guy," says Pinkie while hugging as many scared foals as possible.

Hyness reaches the bottom of the staircase, arriving just in front of the unconscious mage. He looks down at her and they barely hear him say "You... You seem to be in my way," before he slaps her out of the way, to everypony's shock.

"Oh! He dares!" shouts Rarity.

"If I could I would punch him!" shouts Rainbow.

After advancing a little more, Hyness stops in front of Sweetie Belle and the others before he starts talking. "Well then… It seems… we do not have enough energy… to revive our Dark Lord… Must we… allow ourselves… to fall… into oblivion?" he says, not sure if he talks to himself or to the heroes. "No," he suddenly shouts, taking everypony by surprise after having talked so calmly since he started. "NO! No no no no no! NONONONONONONONONO!!! NOOOOO, I SAAAAY!!!"

"Woah, this guy misses a few screws," says Applejack.

Suddenly, Hyness starts erratically moving, doing circles with the top of his body while moving his head and his arms in all directions as he continues his rant, talking so rapidly that if they haven't been used to Pinkie, they probably would have missed a few words.

"We are the masters of a power driven to the far reaches of the universe, and we have but one desire! Can one such as you possibly fathom how dearly we have clung to this dream across the aeons? How could you! You couldn’t! Never ever ever! We who once faced those who were in such fear of our power that they sealed us away and banished us to the edge of the galaxy! US! As if THAT loveliness wasn’t enough, they tried to erase our very existence from history! RUDE! Only through our magic were we able to overcome their science and achieve great prosperity! We alone were responsible for stopping that repulsive nightmare of a galactic crisis, yet this is how you repay us! This won’t stand! It won’t be forgiven! It won’t be forgotten! Never ever EVER! Those who called us mad, are you listening? You left us at the edge of the galaxy to be forgotten, then went along your merry way, probably living somewhere pretty and peaceful! But know this! Your future is a farce! You have none! We, masters of a matter most dark, vow to be restored, as foretold in the book of legend, which everyone thought was just a fairy tale! It WASN’T! We have already obtained the vessel that contains our Dark Lord, and he will soon awaken and shower us in compassion! Look! The vessel of our Dark Lord is filling up even as we speak! Now the time for his greatness to enter our world has come! Welcome to a new history! A new age! The age of awesome! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DARK LORD! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" he yells before he finishes by rising his arms, bending his body to his left and screaming "Grace us, Gloriously Dark Looooooord!"

"Okay, what the heck?" shouts Rainbow Dash.

"Is this so surprising that he's crazy?" asks Discord. "The guy wants to free a God to destroy the universe thinking that he will lead him to a better world."

However, surprisingly, while Hyness' rant and obvious craziness has disconcerted some of the heroes, especially among the new ones, Sweetie Belle and most of the others remain focused, barely rising an eyebrow or staring at Hyness wondering why he isn't in an asylum.

Hyness then floats up, seemingly calming down. "You see it now…don't you? Anyone who interrupts our revival ceremony… We must kindly ask that they…" He raises his arms. "PLEASE DISAPPEAR FOREVER!"

Finally, he points his right arm at the heroes, beginning the fight.

Hyness fights... surprisingly slowly, floating around fluidly and regularly sending black orbs looking like Magolor's. And yet, despite his slow flying, he always manage to avoid the projectiles sent his way. Attacking him directly with weapons or whatever else works better, but it's hard to say if he takes damage, the guy not even flinching when he's hit.

Eventually, he decides to get more serious, starting by creating an emblem, the same than the one of his hood, from which he fires countless sharp picks to impale the heroes. He immediately follows it by summoning two huge pillars of fire, followed by a pillar of lightning between them, the lightning releasing a shockwave. Not finished yet, he summons dozens of that emblems, colored blue, that release a freezing wind around them, trapping in ice anyone caught in it.

Yep, this guy means business. He starts alternating between all those spells while keeping this cold calmness, as if for him, the heroes are just a small nuisance deserving to be crushed under his shoes before he can start working again. In brief, he's barely trying.

But things change when Dark Meta Knight, Taranza, and the Birdon manage to stop Hyness from moving for a few seconds, letting enough time for Meta Knight to send a tornado at him. The tornado not only sends Hyness further in the air, but it also knocks the hood away. However, Hyness' body is now bent backward, so nobody can see his head.

"Juh? JUH… JUH!" Then, suddenly, he bends his body forward, revealing his big-nosed, chameleon-eyed blue face with two ears/horns and yelling "JUHYAMBAVITRIGOKOPOKOJAAAH!!"

Nobody is spared, both among the heroes and among the spectators. At best, they jump or flinch in surprise, at worst, they run away at the opposite extremity of the room yelling like little girls/fillies.

The only one not affected is Discord. "My... No wonder he wears a hood, with a face like that."

Screaming incomprehensible words, Hyness then does some weird dance, invoking Zan Partizanne as well as two other girls, one with blue hairs, the mage of ice Francisca, and one with red spiky hairs, the mage of fire Flamberge. To everypony's horror, he then drains their life force, the mages visibly becoming black with red eyes while Hyness' injuries he gained in the battle until now disappear.

"That's a new low!" shouts Twilight.

The shock turns into anger, Sweetie Belle saying "Guys... No mercy."

"Oh, don't worry, we will show none," says Bandana.

That's under the encouragement of the ponies, and shouts of "Punch his big-nosed face!" or "Make him pay!" especially from the little ones, that the fight restarts, the bodies of the mages starting to circle Hyness.

He immediately starts doing another dance, swaying his head side to side, before he starts throwing the three mages one by one at the heroes, to their total surprise. Even more surprising, when the mages hit the ground, making them groan in pain, depending of their element, it causes crystals of fire, ice, or electricity to come out around them. As soon as the mages hit the ground, Hyness brings them back to him, using them as shields to take the blunt of the projectiles fired toward him, or giving elemental damage to anyone touching them while trying to hit Hyness with direct attacks. He then tilts his body left and right while rising his arms, and the next instant, he grabs Zan Partizanne and starts swinging her around like a club, getting again the heroes by surprise by the cruelty of this move. After a few swings, he then violently slams the girl on the ground, creating more electric crystals to pop out in front of him. After that, he does the same with Flamberge. The targeted heroes, now knowing the move, try to get away, but Hyness, despite everything, is a smart guy, following after the running heroes to still hit them.

After that, Hyness spins his head twice, to everyone's horror, and starts using the elemental spells he used earlier, only this time, he rapidly switches between them, passing in a few seconds from the pillars of fire to the freezing wind, the electric pillar, and then, he bounces his head and shoulders before firing the sharp sticks.

Then, he spots Sweetie Belle, who hasn't stopped firing magical beams from her horn since the start of this second phase of the fight, not daring to come too close to not get hit by one of the circling mages. Without warning, Hyness charges toward her, and to everyone's surprise, again, he grabs her. He then puts an arm under her neck and barrel, grabs her tail with the other, and starts rapidly moving her tail up and down. Somehow, despite herself, this causes Sweetie Belle to fire magical beams from her horn, and of course, her friends are the targets.

"W-w-what?!" she shouts.

"Hey! That's my move!" yells Pinkie.

Dedede ducks down to avoid the beams. "Stop firing at us!"

"I can't! He's somehow forcing me to fire! Wait..." Thinking quickly, she turns her body into metal, her weight causing both her and Hyness to drop to the ground. Released from his grip, she turns toward him and punches him right on the nose, sending him flying and crashing into a wall. "That's for using me to hurt my friends, you sicko!"

Hyness quickly recovers from the punch and returns. And again, he surprises everyone by doing a circle with the mages before they start rapidly rolling around, turning, rolling, and turning again, left and right, back and forth, crushing more than one hero who couldn't get out of the way in time.

After many long seconds, they stop rolling, Hyness making them float instead, rolling in the air faster and faster until the circle 'explodes', projecting the three mages at three different directions too rapidly to react and dodge for the few unluckies on the way. As for Hyness, he remains in the air, having gotten himself dizzy, giving the perfect occasion for the heroes to attack him with everything they have. Some of them, the most hurt, rather take the occasion to heal themselves with food painted by Vividria and Adeleine. Some of them even let themselves getting in Kawasaki's pot so he can invoke more food.

Hyness reveals to be very resistant, the storm of attacks not being enough to knock him out before he recovers from his dizziness. He immediately spins his head once before he places the three mages against his body, hiding himself between the three of them, which creates a shield around them. Safely hidden, he starts to regularly come out to throw dark orbs, starting with small ones, but eventually charging giant ones. The moments where he comes out to attack are the only ones where he can be attacked, the shield disappearing. After a few hits, the shield formation is broken, stunning Hyness again.

This time, the heroes decide to attack him all at once. Using the power of the pink heart, they assemble together to form with their bodies a giant drill, the ones armed of swords or spears at the front while the ones able to fly are at the back. Once the drill is formed, the flying ones start spinning it before pushing the formation toward Hyness. He's hit just as he starts recovering, taking the full brunt of the attack! However, instead of being pierced, he's projected right into the Jamba Heart while the mages drop here and there. It doesn't knock it from the altar, but it causes the both of them to drop on it, the heart falling right on Hyness, cracked, purple energy escaping it.

Crushed by the heart, Hyness starts yelling, in pain, in hate, in anger... Before everyone's eyes, even the mages as they start waking up, dark energy starts to come out of him, enveloping him and the Jamba Heart in a dark cloud, his screams disappearing. Then, as everything around them starts shaking, the fabric of space and time around the cloud breaks apart, opening a hole in which the cloud disappears. Nothing remains of Hyness and the Jamba Heart.

"Lord Hyness!" yell the three mages before they fly into the hole.

"What?! They're still following him after what he's done to them?!" shouts Luna.

Celestia sighs. "They're blinded by their loyalty..."

"But what happened?" asks Apple Bloom.

"Oh, well, you see, Hyness was so mad that he simply broke. I think that in contact with the Jamba Heart, his evil escaped his heart and consumed the both of them, and the result was so powerful that it broke the frontier between the Dream Universe and the Other Dimension, already pretty damaged, opening this hole," explains Discord.

Meanwhile, Bandana Dee asks "What should we do?"

"What a question," replies Dedede. "We enter that hole."

Magolor nods. "We can't let Hyness and the Jamba Heart escape."

At his words, everyone nods. However, before they can start advancing toward the hole, they spot a butterfly fluttering down in front of them.

"Uh? What's a butterfly doing here?" asks Marx.

"Wait, I think I recognize this butterfly," says Sweetie Belle.

"Is it...?" asks Starlight.

Suddenly, the butterfly is enveloped in light, transforming.

When the light disappears, the new being, looking like a black Child of the God with red butterfly wings and a red helmet, opens his eyes, staring at the heroes.

???

Author's Notes:

Sorry, I couldn't find an extended version of Hooded Hyness Theme

Chapter 105: Reborn Butterfly: Morpho Knight

Sweetie Belle looks at this new butterfly-winged being in disbelief. It (he?) just came out of nowhere! Why would a butterfly suddenly come and turn into this? And if this is the same butterfly she saw on New Halcandra before losing consciousness, then what has he done to Galacta Knight? No doubt he's the reason why Galacta wasn't here anymore. And why is she freezing since he appeared? This cold is beyond anything she can think of! She feels it right into her soul. An unnatural cold not of this world, even colder than darkness. And yet, despite this cold, she's sweating heavily, this being ringing alarm bells in her, and looking around, Sweetie can see that she's not the only one. Everyone is their group is feeling the same, even Meta Knight, Dark Meta Knight, and Marx! If Marx, of all beings, is sweating, then this means this is bad.

What, and who, is this being? And what does he want?

Kirby advances carefully, staff ready to defend himself. "Poyo?"

The butterfly being slowly floats down to land, not answering for many long seconds.

Until finally...

Call me Morpho Knight... a dark, ashen voice says, seemingly coming from everywhere, but actually coming from their minds. I have come today... to judge if this universe will end... or not... I always knew this day would come... And I knew, Son of the Void, from the day you appeared... that you would be the key... From this day, I observed you... I saw you grow, develop your powers, make strong allies... However, as of now, you... All of you... can't hope to save the universe... If you were to enter that hole, you would fail... You aren't ready...

"What are you saying?" barks Dedede. "Of course we are ready! We prepared a whole year!"

You prepared, but you are not ready... If you were to continue, you would end up fighting the Fallen Officiant, and with the power of Destruction in him, he would destroy you... And this universe, and countless others, would follow... However... There is still a chance for this universe to survive... At this, the named Morpho Knight spreads his arms. And thus, I come to you, to test you... Resonating with this vessel's screams of the many years spent living, and training hard, I now possess the necessary power and skill to see, whether or not, if this universe still has a chance to see another day... Morpho Knight then readies himself, taking position to fight. Defeat me, together, and your chances of avoiding annihilation will rise.

Many of the heroes, more notably most of the ones befriended by Kirby in this adventure, gulp before they all ready themselves.

Sweetie Belle can already say that this will be a hard fight. If what she understood is correct, then this butterfly thing pretty much took possession of Galacta Knight to use his power to test them. But while she knows Galacta's powers, she doesn't know Morpho's powers, and how he will use Galacta's powers to fight. This thing is clearly nothing they fought until now, anything is possible.

Dark Meta Knight is the first to attack, charging at Morpho Knight, ignoring his instincts screaming at him to not do this. He should have listened, because it only takes one second for Morpho Knight to defeat him: half a second to push Dark Meta Knight's sword out of the way with just a swing, and half a second to slash him with enough force to project the knight back in front of the heroes, badly injured and burned, Morpho's sword having a fire effect.

The Vividria immediately goes to work to paint some food for him to heal while the others look in disbelief. Marx then looks at Morpho in rage. "Nobody almost kill my buddy." He teleports, appearing above Morpho Knight before attacking him by spitting one of his ice bombs. But then, Morpho Knight teleports right behind Marx, avoiding the ice bomb, and immediately slashes him on the back, causing Marx to drop.

Morpho then teleports in the middle of the group of heroes, quickly slashing at the Burning Leo, before he teleports again, this time, slash the Plugg. This continues for a small moment, successfully slashing ChuChu, the Jammerjab, and the Bonkers before anyone could react. Daroach is able to avoid the same fate by teleporting away, and Meta Knight quickly charges at Morpho before he could teleport again to attack him, but he's not fast enough, and Morpho is able to teleport away to attack the Como. His attack is stopped by Kirby parrying him with his elongated staff, and Sweetie Belle uses the occasion to fire some beams from her cannons, only for Morpho to fly up to avoid them, causing her to almost hit the Como as a result, the spider rolling to dodge them. As Morpho flies up, however, the Birdon is able to take him by surprise and to ram him from behind.

But Morpho Knight quickly recovers before anyone could attack him again, and he teleports, avoiding the Bio Spark's kunais before slashing the Vividria, stopping her from painting food to heal the wounded. Adeleine takes over the role, starting to paint food, only for Morpho to attack her too. Sweetie Belle has seen it coming, and immediately puts a shield to protect the human girl, only for Morpho to easily cut the shield and slash her despite it. He then teleports away just as he was about to be rammed by Meta Knight, continuing to attack the heroes one by one while escaping almost any attempts to hit him, still teleporting too rapidly for most of the attacks to hit him in time, even Sweetie's beams. Ruthlessly, he slashes, and slashes, and slashes again, leaving the small army of heroes helpless.

And yet, all he does is teleporting and slashing! Skills that Sweetie Belle and Kirby are very used to fight! And they probably would have no problems countering this if it was just the two of them, they would just have to watch each other's backs. But here, with their number, it's impossible to predict who will be the next target.

Normally, force is in number, but here, it works against them!

But despite this, they don't lose hope. As they watch more of their friends get injured, their determination to win this fight, knowing that if they lose, this is the end, not only for them, but also for the universe, rises. They can't lose!

Deep in them, resonating with their determination, their hopes, their friendship, the power of the pink heart grows. A pink light starts enveloping the heroes, and immediately, they all know what they must do, and what others will do.

It's as if they are now one.

Sweetie Belle invokes her own easel and starts painting food to heal the others. Morpho immediately attacks her, only to be stopped by Cape Knight who parries him before he's suddenly hit by Dedede's hammer almost at the same instant, the hit sending him flying right into Knuckle Joe's punch. Meanwhile, Kawasaki invokes his pot, and some of the closest heroes still up jump in it for him to create food while Magolor and Daroach teleport beside him to stand guard. Adeleine and Vividria are healed first so they can help in healing the others and Sweetie starts covering the weapons of everyone in different elements, fire, ice, spark, wind, and water, adding damage and effects.

Morpho tries again to attack the healers, but is again stopped by other heroes guarding them, so he returns to his normal tactic of choosing a random hero to attack. However, as soon as he appears behind someone, one of more close heroes immediately react to stop him, and if he remains one second too long, then all the heroes turn toward him ready to attack, and the last thing he wants is to receive a storm of attacks from over half a hundred of heroes!

In just a few seconds, everyone is healed, and Morpho hasn't been able to hit anyone, taking himself some really bad hits instead. His teleport-slash-teleport-slash-etc tactic doesn't work anymore.

So, Morpho Knight decides to stop it, and instead, teleports in the middle of the group, sound waves released from his wings. Everyone hit by them find themselves enveloped in some mist before they start attacking their own friends! As the heroes are confused by what's going on, Morpho Knight continues teleporting around while releasing those sound waves, turning more heroes against their friends, as if turning around the power of the pink heart. The fact that it has something to do with the pink heart seems to be confirmed when Sweetie and Kirby discover that they're both immune to those waves, probably because they both got an 'original pink heart' while the others got 'secondary pink hearts'.

After turning about half the heroes against their friends, Morpho Knight stops releasing the sound wave and uses the chaos caused by the heroes fighting each other's to charge energy in his sword before releasing it to create a few tornadoes. In the chaos, not many heroes are able to dodge them, and the ones turned by the waves don't even try to avoid them, causing many of them to be swept by the tornadoes. As they are sent in the air by the tornadoes, Morpho Knight fires sword beams at them, adding more damage.

Kirby quickly finds a solution to stop the friends turned by the waves from attacking the others: he simply sends pink hearts at them to bring them back to their senses. The others quickly follow his example while Sweetie Belle goes deal directly with Morpho Knight to stop him from attacking, followed by Marx and Meta Knight. Sweetie Belle gains Morpho Knight's attention by attacking him with some beams, making him teleport. However, when he appears, Marx teleports behind him, and the jester kicks him on the back, sending him toward both Sweetie Belle and Meta Knight, each with a sword ready. The two friends perform a cross-slash on the butterfly, but he quickly recovers before teleporting away. Marx teleports again behind him to repeat his action, only for Morpho to teleport again and appear behind Marx before he cuts his back.

By then, however, all the heroes are back to normal, and they all start attacking Morpho Knight with everything they have. Morpho tries to avoid the assault by teleporting at the opposite direction, but NESP quickly spots him, and everyone immediately turns to attack him again. But, as he's circle, he releases more sound waves, turning any heroes attacking him directly with their weapons against their friends, before he teleports away again.

While the heroes are busy throwing pink hearts, Morpho Knight raises his sword, engulfing it in light while taking it with his two hands. The next instant, the sword separates into two identical swords. As the heroes finish saving the corrupted ones, Morpho Knight then swings the swords, sending swarms of red ghostly faces to attack them, their haunting screams not of this plane making the heroes' skin crawl. Nothing works against those ghost things, so all the heroes can do is try to avoid them until they disappear, but the number of ghosts makes it really hard. Some of the heroes are still able to pass through the ghosts to attack the butterfly.

But then, after sending some last few ghosts, Morpho Knight's swords suddenly grow in size, becoming as big as the giant Ultra Sword Kirby used as his ultimate attack against Magolor before he was possessed by the Master Crown. Small vortices then appear among the heroes, attracting them as Morpho starts swinging his swords. Between the vortices, and the ghosts still hindering them, many heroes can't avoid the swords in time, but thankfully, the weapon users among the heroes all gather to use their combined strength to parry them, working as a single entity to counter the butterfly.

While the weapons are clashing, Knuckle Joe grabs Beetley, Bugzzy grabs Rocky, Wester wraps his whip around Spikezilla, Gim wraps his yo-yo around Burning Leo, and Prince Fluff wraps his yarn around NESP. The first ones then throw the second ones toward Morpho Knight one after another, Knuckle Joe throwing Beetley first, horn first. Morpho teleports in time to avoid him, only to be hit by Rocky with a big stone fist. Rocky then uses Morpho's body to jump, leaving the place for Spikezilla to grab the butterfly and smash him on the floor where he's crushed by Rocky in his boulder form. Morpho teleports away, only to be hit by Burning Leo charging as a big fireball almost as soon as he appears. NESP comes next, and Morpho quickly swings one of his giant swords at him, only for NESP to teleport behind him before using his psychic powers to 'punch' Morpho Knight with his mind and throw him on the floor, right in the middle of all the elemental users minus Burning Leo. They all fire at him, quickly followed by the remaining heroes using all kinds of projectiles.

Despite the many attacks, Morpho is able to teleport out of there and reappears among the heroes before he restarts swinging his giant swords again, not giving them time to assemble to counter him, forcing them to try to dodge. Vortices, however, appear again to make their attempts harder, and Morpho restarting randomly teleporting around while swinging his swords causes many of the heroes to be badly injured as a result, the swords even causing the ground to burn!

While the healers still up redouble efforts to heal the injured, Kirby, Sweetie Belle, Meta Knight, Dark Meta Knight, Cape Knight, and Magolor assemble and use the power of the pink heart to invoke a giant sword looking exactly like Kirby's Ultra Sword. Holding all together the big handle of the sword, they start swinging it to parry Morpho's sword, stopping his rampage. At the same time, Bonkers jumps on Dedede, and they both start spinning toward Morpho Knight with their hammer. The butterfly teleports to avoid them, only to be grabbed in the tentacles of a big red octopus of yarn before being slammed on the ground where he's punched by the octopus as well as a familiar squid of clay with an eyepatch. Out of the way, Yin-Yarn and Claycia give each other a fist bump.

The octopus and the squid are eventually cut to shreds by Morpho's giant swords, but he finds himself slashed again and again by the giant sword of Kirby and company. Meanwhile, Sir Kibble grabs one of his cutters and gives it to Poppy Bros Jr before they are both grabbed by Susie with her armor. Susie then starts spinning the arms of her armor while charging at Morpho Knight, Sir Kibble and Poppy having their cutter ready to slash him, giving this attack the form of a slashing tornado. From the opposite direction, Dedede and Bonkers, still spinning, also come. The hammer users reach Morpho first, their hammers sending him right into the blades of the cutter tornado. Bonkers then jumps toward him, followed by Dedede, and he crushes Morpho Knight under his hammer before Dedede smashes his hammer on Bonkers' hammer, giving more power to the attack.

Sweetie Belle then starts charging her Ultimate Doom Laser and fires just as Morpho is able to push away his attackers with his swords. Seeing the laser coming, Morpho Knight crosses his swords and is able to block it, only being pushed back a bit. He then starts gathering energy and fire at the point where his swords cross, and fires an even bigger, planet buster-like laser of fire back at Sweetie Belle, pushing back her laser. Sweetie Belle is however joined by Kirby, who starts using the power of the pink heart to boost Sweetie's laser, turning it pink. One by one, all her friends join her to boost it, the ones who can fire their own laser joining them to hers to boost it even more. The pink laser totally overpowers Morpho's, and the knight finds himself enveloped in it.

And yet, when the laser stops, leaving a big hole in the wall of the place, Morpho Knight is still here, still alive. But his swords are gone, and except for his wings, he doesn't move at all.

This universe still has a chance... they suddenly hear him say in their mind.

Surprised, the heroes look at each others, confirming that they have heard it right, before Bandana Dee asks "Does this mean that we won?"

As if to answer his question, Morpho's form starts to disintegrate, energy shaped like butterflies escaping him. But as he disappears, he swings his right arm, opening four star-shaped holes near the staircase to the hole where Hyness and the Jamba Heart disappeared.

You still have a lot to do to save the universe... As we speak, Hyness is merging with his power, and if nothing is done... his mind will be lost forever... You could perfectly wait for this to happen, but then... you would definitively lose the support of three potential future and powerful allies who would greatly increase your chances... To save him, you will need the very power that you have been growing since the beginning of this adventure... The one that you needed to use to win against me... The power of the Heart Spears... Positivity in its purest form... But in a much bigger quantity...

When Hyness accidentally broke the Jamba Heart... he also broke the Heart Spears that were used to seal him, breaking them into many pink hearts that dispersed everywhere with the pieces of the Jamba Heart... Now, however... because of Hyness' actions, the barrier between the two dimensions is breaking... and as the fusionning process progresses, it worsens... Breaches are starting to appear more and more... Everywhere... And the pieces of the Heart Spears already fell to the other dimension... You will have to gather them... and reform the Heart Spears... if you want to stop Hyness from succombing to the darkness... and save all of them...

"But how do we reform the Heart Spears?" asks Sweetie Belle.

Normaly, with enough power, you can create your own Heart Spears... like the heroes of yore who saved the universe in the past did... But none of you have this power... He looks at Sweetie Belle and Kirby. Yet... This is why you must gather those hearts... a total of 120, including the two pieces in you... and assemble them to reform the spears... The how should come naturally to you... He waves at the four holes he created. Those holes will lead you to those hearts... but watch out... Each of those path will end with an encounter against a terrible foe... familiar to you, and yet, very different... Those foes are manifestations of the negativity of the other dimension... given even greater powers by the Jamba Heart itself... And they now guard a certain number of pieces of Heart Spears...

"Manifestation of the negativity of the other dimension..." says Meta Knight.

Magolor facepalms. "Of course! Of course!" he turns to Sweetie Belle, Kirby, Dedede, Meta Knight, and Bandana Dee. "You remember what I said about the other dimension becoming like a crazy, evil mirror version of this one?"

"Oh, yeah... The 'evil clones'," says Bandana.

"So... Evil clones given powers by the Jamba Heart?" ponders Sweetie Belle.

"Probably the same power that the Jamba Heart Pieces gave to us when we were corrupted," says Meta Knight.

Sweetie Belle looks at him in worry. "So, it could be..." She waves at him and all the others who got corrupted by a piece of the Jamba Heart. "clones of any of you when you got corrupted, but even more powerful?" She looks at Marx, sweating. "Some of you were already extremely powerful..."

"You can add Whispy, Pon and Con, and Kracko. They were corrupted too," says Cape Knight.

Once you have the four Heart Spears... then says Morpho Knight. You will be able to use them to break the Jamba Heart and stop the process... You will still have to fight Hyness, but he will still have some of his mind... Once he's defeated, the accumulated power of the four spears will be enough to free him of the influence of the God... and the God himself will be forced out...

"And we fight the God," says Meta Knight.

"I would have preferred to avoid fighting the Dark God," says Magolor. "but at this point, I suppose that we have no choice."

Remember... starts Morpho Knight as he closes his eyes. The power of the Heart Spears... The power of friendship... is the key... to end this... once and for all...

With those words, Morpho Knight disappears in a bright red light, countless butterflies coming out of it. When the light disappears, a last butterfly flutters away, leaving behind Galacta Knight who drops on the floor, unconscious, his mask back on his face.

"Galacta Knight?" shouts Magolor in surprise.

"So this is where he was," says Daroach.

"Is this...?" asks Meta Knight.

"Yes," confirms Sweetie Belle. "This is the Child of the God who... You know..."

"Oh?! So he's the guy who started this whole craziness?!" shouts Dedede as he prepares his hammer. "Leave him to me! I'll turn him into paste!"

Before he can advance however, he's stopped by Sweetie Belle who puts a hoof in front of him before shaking her head. "Don't."

"But..."

"Remember what Morpho Knight said. Friendship is the key. And this guy..." She looks at Galacta Knight in sadness. "He needs friendship more than anyone... Well... I can think of someone else who needs friendship as much, maybe more. But Galacta... What he said to me when I defeated him..." Meta Knight looks at her with wide eyes at this. "He isn't a bad guy. He was just forced to do horrible things because he had a goal, and others weren't okay with this goal and got in his way."

"What was this goal?" asks Meta Knight.

"Freedom," simply answers Sweetie Belle.

Meta Knight ponders this for a few seconds, remembering the history of the Children of the God, what they were, before he closes his eyes and sighs. "I see..."

"So, he may have a good reason for his actions, but they still caused all this," says Dedede. "The Civil War! The God becoming a Dark God and almost destroying a whole dimension! All the worlds that Zero plunged into darkness! What happened to the Great Artist's creations because of Dark Crafter! Sectonia! Haltmann! This whole problem with this cult! All the suffering! The deaths!" He points at Galacta Knight. "He's the origin of all this!"

At his words, they all look at Galacta Knight, knowing that he's right. Many of them are indirect victims of Galacta's actions. Dedede got possessed by the Dark Matters, three times, and Sweetie Belle and everyone in Dedede's army got possessed at least once, without forgetting the civilians who either got possessed or got brutalized by the possessed. For the ones who were able to escape the Dark Matters, they then had to deal with the invasion of the Haltmann Work Company. Both events caused many victims on the planet. Meta Knight had his people almost exterminated and forced to the exil. Of course, it was in the past, he wasn't even born then. But without counting it, he was still almost imprisoned by Dark Meta Knight under the orders of Dark Mind, Zero's mirror counterpart, and his lineage had to live with the burden of Dark Nebula for some time.

Adeleine also got possessed by the Dark Matters, twice, and Ribbon got her world invaded by them. Daroach was possessed by Dark Nebula, and Magolor was possessed by the Master Crown (without forgetting that his people were forced into exile). Yin-Yarn was corrupted by Dark Crafter, and Claycia got her sisters corrupted (and killed) too, and she was forced to live hidden for her protection until she was found and possessed by the dark being. Prince Fluff had his world threatened by Yin-Yarn. Taranza had his best friend corrupted and he was forced to kill her. Susie was sent to another dimension, and while she was away, her father was brainwashed to the point that he couldn't recognize her before his soul was absorbed, almost deleted, and destroyed.

And now, more recently, some of them were corrupted by those Jamba Heart Pieces.

But some of them don't have the same feelings. If it wasn't for Galacta's actions, Gooey and Dark Meta Knight wouldn't be here.

And Kirby too.

Sweetie Belle sighs. "Yes... and no." When she sees most of her friends look at her, some with eyebrows raised, she continues. "I thought about this for a time, and it's actually everyone's fault. Galacta Knight wanted freedom, and so, sort of started this. The Children of the God, loyal servants that they were, too loyal, didn't want to let him go, and so, fought Galacta to stop him. The Ancients followed them, Galacta's actions being seen as heretical. And the God? He could have simply used his powers to stop them, and could have told them to let Galacta go, but he did nothing, I'm not sure why. If the Children weren't so close minded, if the Ancients weren't so fanatical, if the God had just acted, all of this wouldn't have happened. We can't just blame someone because they just wanted something that anybody would want: to be free to do what they wanted. He didn't even want to do any bad things! He just wanted to stop serving the God and to live his life. But at the time, it was too much to ask. And no, the God had no problem letting Galacta go, Galacta told me this. And in the end, everyone involved in this ended badly. Galacta was sealed, the Children were almost exterminated, the Ancients lost their civilization, and the God became the Dark God. No need to add more."

Kirby smiles at her and nods with a "Poyo!" before he walks toward Galacta Knight.

"See? Kirby agrees with me."

"He would become friends with Zero himself if that thing comes back and decides to stop being evil," says Dedede.

"True," says Sweetie Belle before she follows the puffball just as he raises his arms to create a pink heart. He then throws the pink heart at Galacta Knight.

The heart immediately heals all the injuries that Galacta got in his fight against Sweetie Belle, and the pink knight slowly wakes up and groggily sits. He then looks at Kirby and Sweetie Belle in silence before saying a single word. "Why...?"

To his surprise, he's then hugged by the two of them. "Because you need it."

Galacta Knight remains silent after that, too shocked to answer. He eventually closes his eyes, accepting the hug silently. Nothing is said and done for a whole minute.

Until Meta Knight approaches them and clears his throat to gain their attention. "I hate to interrupt this, but we must hurry before Hyness finishes merging with the Dark God."

Galacta Knight looks at him in confusion. "Someone is merging with father?"

"Yeah... We should first put him to date. He has a few millennia to catch up," says Sweetie Belle.

---

After some explanations.

"So now, you must go to reforge the Spear Hearts to stop the merging process."

Meta Knight nods. "And after that, we will have to fight Hyness again, and finally, the Dark God himself."

"So, can we count you in?" asks Dedede, still insure of counting Galacta Knight as a friend. At best an ally of circumstance.

Before Galacta could answer, Sweetie Belle suddenly speaks. "Wait! Galacta Knight, are the Heart Spears those pink needles things with a heart that you used against me in your dark form?"

"Dark form?" asks Magolor.

"Yes, they are," answers Galacta Knight. "Sorry by the way, I used them to try to seal you."

"Don't worry, it's in the past. Anyway, if you come with us, we won't need to gather all the pieces of the Heart Spears! You can invoke them and break the Jamba Heart!" She's answered by Galacta Knight staring at her hopelessly. "What?"

"Despite the power of the pink heart giving me back some of my strength, I'm still too weak to be able to create Heart Spears. I could still fight at your side, but I wouldn't be at my full power."

"Darn..."

"But... I feel that I still can be of use for you, but in another way than fighting. You already proved that you can defeat any foes that you encounter. You even defeated me. I'm sure that even without me, you will be able to defeat Hyness, and even fight father. However, fighting father won't be enough to stop him definitively. Even if you manage to 'kill' him, he will eventually come back. You will either have to seal him again, or destroy the negativity in him. I can tell that you would rather do the last, but you don't have enough positivity to deal the definitive blow. Even with the added power of the four completed Heart Spears, it won't be enough. You will need more. And I think I know how to get more. But I need to go on my own."

"Aww... Oh well, if you think it's for the best. Too bad, I would have loved fighting alongside the most powerful warrior of the universe."

Galacta Knight chuckles. "Maybe once I'm finished with my task. And remember, you are now the most powerful warrior of the universe."

Sweetie Belle stares at him with wide eyes. "...............Oh right! Woah... I didn't think about that... It's... Of the universe... Woah..."

"Uh... If Sweetie Belle is the most powerful warrior of the universe, then what does this make Kirby?" asks Marx.

"He's a future God. He doesn't count," says Galacta with a small laugh as he rubs Kirby's head. Then, taking his spear, he opens a hole in the fabric of space before he prepares himself to fly through it. But before, he turns back toward Sweetie Belle and Kirby to say a last "Thank you." He then flies through the hole before it closes.

Kirby waves goodbye to him "Poyo, big bwother!"

Seeing that Sweetie Belle hasn't yet come back from the whole "You're now the most powerful warrior of the universe," Dedede gives her a small slap on the back of her head. "You're with us now?"

"Y-yes. Thank you."

"Lockwar won't believe what I just witnessed," says Magolor with a laugh. "When I will tell him that I'm now friends with THE Galacta Knight..."

"So, which hole do we choose?" then asks Yin-Yarn, wanting to finish this whole business with the Dark God.

"Mmh... We could just take one randomly," says Susie.

"Or we could start from the left," says Broom Sunglasses.

"Or from the right," says Poppy Bros.

"Well, let's go with the left," says Sweetie Belle.

"Poyo!" agrees Kirby.

The filly then hugs him. "It's nice to be back with you."

"Now kiss!" shouts Broom Sunglasses.

Sweetie Belle sighs, and without looking, she levitates a cannon toward him and fires a stream of fire. With the deed done, she asks "So, should we go?"

They all nod while Driblee spits some water at Broom Sunglasses to put down the fire enveloping him. Now decided, they approach the left hole, and jump in it, entering the other dimension, and starting the final part of their long journey.

Author's Notes:

I need a fan art of Sweetie Belle and Kirby hugging Galacta Knight!

For those telling themselves that Morpho doesn't seem as powerful as Galacta despite having his powers, the guy certainly not opening holes in the fabric of space or raining beam swords, I always told to myself that Morpho was more the kind to use his powers with more parsimony, using efficacity rather than brutality with his own style. For a comparison, Galacta would be Beerus, and Morpho would be Whis.

Chapter 106: Heroes in Another Dimension! Part 1-Otherworldly Arbor: Parallel Woods

The last Jambastion is destroyed by Mirror Kirby piercing its core with the Dragoon, finally ending this battle. Everyone can finally rest.

The battle took a little longer than they thought. After Mirror Kirby destroyed his first Jambastion, the other Jambastions became very wary of him and did everything to not let him approach. This forced all the ships plus the Landias to do all they could to gather the attention of the Jambastions one at a time to leave an opening for Mirror Kirby to approach and hit. At the same time, they did their best to make Mirror Kirby's job easier by trying to destroy some Jambastions too. In the end, four Jambastions were destroyed by them, while Mirror Kirby destroyed the others.

They still lost the Death Egg. Susie won't be happy... The other ships also all received more or less damage. Paint Roller's ship is the one that received the most, the guys clearly not used to operate one. It's even a miracle that their ship is still holding despite all the holes on its hull. Maybe because it's a painted ship?

Now, everything depends on Magolor and his friends.

Lockwar still keeps an eye on the Jambandra Base, just in case the Jambastion Cult decides to send something else against them now that all the Jambastions have been destroyed. But, suddenly, he hears the sound of someone slicing something behind him, and he, along with everyone in the bridge with him, turns toward the origin of the noise and spots a hole in space that was definitely not here before.

And coming out of it is none other than the Pink Devil himself: Galacta Knight.

Panic immediately appears on the bridge.

"Galacta Knight?!!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!! That's Galacta Knight!"

"He will kill us all!"

"Abandon ship!"

Lockwar, despite the intense fear he feels, takes the rocket launcher from his back and points it at the knight. "I warn you, I will fight to the end!" he yells, but before he knows it, his rocket launcher is slashed in two, and he can only look with wide eyes at the front half of his weapon falling on the floor, Galacta now standing in front of him.

"Listen," then says Galacta Knights. "I don't want to fight. I'm at your side."

"What?! Are you ki-"

"I don't want to see this universe destroyed! But now, the situation has evolved to the point that your heroes will have to fight father no matter what happens!"

This stops everyone on the bridge, the room suddenly as calm as a dead... and as cold.

"What do you mean?" asked Gandaro, terrified. "The heroes haven't been able to stop Hyness in time?"

"Worse. The Jamba Heart absorbed Hyness, and he's now merging with father. Now, either they merge totally and they break out of the Jamba Heart, or Kirby and the others stop it, but destroy the Heart. In both cases, father gets free."

...

One of the mages on the bridge faints.

"This is why I am here. You are linked to the other ships, so you will be able to warn them. Also..." Galacta throws a pink heart at Gandaro. "Spread it to everyone. It is very important. We will end father's threat once and for all!" Before the mages can ask anything, he turns around and slices a new hole. "Now I must go. There are more places for me to travel to," he finishes before jumping in the hole, leaving some confused mages.

But he has no time to answer all their questions. He doesn't know how long they have, and from what he could feel, there's still A LOT of people for him to meet, including some in another dimension. Thanks to his master of the Heart Matter helped by the power of the pink heart, he can feel where are all the friends made by the heroes, and which ones have received a heart. Thanks to it, he can feel a lot of those last ones mainly in the Jambandra Base and on some near planets, while he feels the first ones a little everywhere.

Maybe he should first warn the ones in the Jambandra Base to evacuate... Hopefully, the battle against the God will remain in the other dimension, but it's not impossible that the God passes one of the many forming rifts, or even creates one himself, bringing the fight near the giant space station. And if this happens, then there are high chances that the station ends up damaged. He's not called the Destroyer of Worlds for nothing! Anything near the fight, planets, stars, and whatever else, could be destroyed in the fire of the action! Anybody that won't participate in the fight must move away at least a couple of light years!

Scratch that, they must move away at least a couple of hundred light years.

No... Let's go with a couple of thousand. Yes, thousand is better.

The best would be to evacuate to another universe, but not everyone can open portals like him, so...

No choice, they have to do with what they have and hope to survive. Meanwhile, Galacta will do his job, warn the friends in Jambandra Base to get out of there if they want to live, then go to the place where he can feel the most friends to spread the power of the pink heart.

This will be hard to choose, he can feel three planets with a huge quantity of friends. Why do they have so many friends?! It's ridiculous!

At least, against the God, it will be for the better.

---

Sweetie Belle comes out of the rift with her friends, and she lands on the familiar solid space of the other dimension. It doesn't take long to see, and even feel that the dimension is on the brink of collapsing, and for good this time. Because of what's happening with the Jamba Heart, the energies of the already fragile dimension are going absolutely wild, and some rifts and cracks can be seen opening here and there. It's pure chaos, and it gets worse.

Thankfully, no Doomers in sight, Magolor having told that most of them perished at the first collapse after the destruction of the Master Crown. However, the place is now being filled with negativity, to the point that if it wasn't for the power of the Heart Spear Pieces in them, they would probably start to become as if they were possessed by a Jamba Heart Piece.

"A dying dimension full of negativity, perfect place for the Final Battle," says Magolor.

"So, we collect 120 pink hearts..." starts Bandana Dee.

"118. Remember, Kirby and Sweetie Belle already possess each a heart," interrupts Meta Knight.

"Right. 118 pink hearts, we fight 4 overpowered evil parallel counterparts, we defeat a second time Hyness who will be overpowered too and even more crazy..."

"And we finally fight the Dark God himself," finishes Sweetie Belle. "Let's go. Who knows how much time we have left before Hyness merges with him."

Following Sweetie's words, they all start advancing, the path, at first, revealing to be made of space blocks of various shapes moving up to lead them to the next part.

"We still don't know who and what was that butterfly guy," then says Dedede. "Seriously, he just came out of nowhere to 'judge' us." He looks at Magolor. "Any idea, egg boy?"

"And he said that he was watching Kirby since the first day!" shouts the Parasol Waddle Dee as he looks left and right in fear. "To think that someone like him was here all this time..."

"The butterfly," says Cape Knight. "There was always a butterfly near Kirby."

"No idea of what he was," answers Magolor.

"He was feeling like... Death..." says Dark Meta Knight.

At this moment, they reach a wall that rises when they approach, revealing a black door that they pass.

"Maybe Galacta Knight knew. We should have asked while we had the occasion," says Susie.

"Then we will ask him once we see him again," says Marx.

"By the way, this Morpho Knight called Kirby 'Son of the Void'. Is 'the Void' a name for the Dark God?" asks Broom Sunglasses.

"Why would he have a name like 'the Void'?" asks Dedede.

"Galacta Knight also called himself the 'first son of the God creator Void' while we fought him," says Adeleine.

Magolor starts writing something on a paper. "So, the Dark God's name would be Void? Gandaro will love it. Each piece of information about our past and the God that we find is like a treasure for him. Mmh... Void... Funny, it reflects Zero, both representing the nothingness. We can say that it would be logic since Zero was a creation of Void, but then why weren't the other creations possessing such names? Was Zero a special case? And... Why naming himself Void? He is not 'nothing'. He is the Creator, and also the Destructor. This has nothing to do with the void."

"Again, something we will have to ask Galacta Knight next time," says Susie. "Right now, we should start to run, a part of the ceiling is about to crush us."

With some swearing, the members of the group about to be crushed by the section of the ceiling dropping are able to escape just in time. Paying more attention, the heroes then see how the path has many such sections, either of floor or ceiling, lowering and rising periodically, some of them in a way that would crush them if they aren't careful.

And of course, the path is full of gaps and of those fake beings (Waddle Dees and others) that Sweetie Belle, Kirby, Dedede, Bandana Dee, and Meta Knight encountered before when chasing the Doomers. However, those beings are far more hostile than previously, with clear intention to hurt, and even kill.

"Well, at least, we won't get bored," says Marx with a laugh.

It doesn't take long to find the first pink heart behind some big metal blocks, then a second at the end of a small secondary path where a big part of the floor at the start is rapidly rising and lowering. For this one, Knuckle Joe grabs Ribbon and uses all his strength to throw her rapidly through the path before it closes. Ribbon absorbs the heart, then bounces on the wall before coming back as rapidly as the path reopens. A third heart is then found when they press a switch, causing to open a door, but also a trapdoor causing the heart to start to fall into a gap, forcing someone, Daroach with his teleportation, to quickly act before it disappears in the darkness of the pit. Daroach then quickly teleports back before a big space block could fall on him and bring him in the pit too.

Again, fate has decided, that to collect the heart, they will have to take some risks and/or accomplish things to reach them, exactly like for the Energy Spheres, or any other collectible before... Or maybe it's the Dark God, Void, who was somehow able to influence things from inside his weakened seal so the pink hearts weren't easy to access.

Not long after obtaining this third heart, they reach another black door leading to a path with less moving sections. However, dozens of Shotzos, of all kinds, are everywhere, firing at them constantly. Some of the Shotzos are on blocks above pits, so those ones are easy to deal with, but most of them are on solid ground, so this leaves the heroes no choice but to try to avoid the various and many projectiles fired at them, or for the ones who can, to protect themselves with shields, mirrors, or whatever else.

It doesn't take long for them to find a first heart just in front of a Volttzo, the cannon firing at it constantly, leaving little room for someone to reach it, absorb the heart, and leave before they get electrified. The second heart is much more dangerous to get, the thing being in the middle of a field of Shotzos. But this gets really dangerous when they spot one of those cannons where they have to light the wick to use it to propel themselves. The problem is that the cannon is pointed right at a long path constantly opening and closing, meaning that if they light the wick too soon or too late, then the cannon will not fire in time, and whoever will be fired from a cannon will be crushed. So this force them to calculate the time it takes for the cannon to fire and the time it takes to reach the opening and closing path.

Susie is the one doing the calcule in her mind before she says "Ok, I think I have it. Now, who volunteers?"

"Googoo! Googoo! Googoo!" shouts Gooey as he raises his tongue.

Susie nods. "Alright. Then enter the cannon and prepare yourself. Burning Leo, be ready to light the wick when I tell you."

Burning Leo nods at her before he walks toward the end of the wick while Gooey enters the cannon. Susie starts looking at the path, watching opening, closing, opening... closing... opening... clo-

"Now!"

At her signal, Burning Leo breath fire at the wick, lighting it. Everyone (or almost) looks at the cannon or at the path anxiously, hoping that Susie isn't wrong. after a couple of seconds, the cannon fires a little before the path opens again, and Gooey enters it successfully.

Now, has he reached the other end without getting himself crushed?

They don't have to wait for long. After only a few seconds, a black door opens in the air, and Gooey comes out of it safe and sound and very excited. "Googoogoo! Googoo! Goo goo goo!"

"Three hearts?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"Goo!" confirms the blob.

"Yay! This makes it ten!" shouts the filly in joy.

"Only 110 left to go," says Marx.

This stops all cheerings among the heroes, some of them giving Marx deadpan looks and Sweetie Belle saying "Party pooper..."

Kirby gives a sigh followed by a chuckle before he says "Poyopoyo, poyo poy poyopoyo." Don't worry, we will rapidly collect all of them. Of course, almost nobody understands him.

After another black door, they find the next four pink hearts by climbing weird collapsing space towers on their way, the hearts forcing them to make some dangerous detours and lose precious time fighting enemies and avoiding traps to reach them. Two more hearts are found on trap doors, the heroes having to hurry to get them before the trap door could open because of boulders falling on switches. More boulders were falling on the way, slowing the heroes along with the many enemies.

Then comes the path after the next black door, or rather, the lack of path... After said door, they are stopped by a giant pit with a locked door at the other side. However, after a few seconds, wondering what to do, they could see some moving space blocks forming a secondary path leading to further up. But they don't take it, having the feeling that there's at least one pink heart behind the locked door. But where's the key?

Kirby then signs to them before he starts using the energy of the pink heart. Following his lead, they all assemble together to form a very long bridge linking both sides of the pit. As soon as they are stabilised, a Key Dee holding the key of the door appears and starts walking on the formed bridge. With everyone forming the bridge, they have no choice but to leave the Key dee do his thing (besides, one of them breaking the bridge would cause the ones who can't fly to fall in the pit).

Leading the Key Dee to the door is harder than it first appeared, obstacles with spikes appearing on the way to hurt him, forcing them to move down. But more spiked obstacles appear below, so they can't move down too much, and some of the obstacles rising even force them to move back up to not be hurt. This leads the Key Dee to pass through very narrow paths, some of the spikes at the limit of reaching his head.

But the Key Dee eventually reaches the door, ending this stressful moment. Victorious, the Key Dee disappears like he appeared, and thanks to the power of the pink heart, the heroes are transported to the door where they are rewarded with four hearts.

"Are appearing and disappearing Key Dees a normal occurrence, or is this just this dimension?" asks Sweetie Belle.

"It already happened to us a few times in our part of the adventure," says Dedede. "I think it's just a thing of the pink heart to open locked doors missing keys."

With this done, they continue down the path where they end up fighting two Bonkers while a ceiling is slowly lowering down, threatening to crush all of them if they don't beat the two enemies rapidly. Of course, it doesn't take long to eliminate the two Bonkers and open the door to the exit where a last pink heart is waiting before a black door surrounded by trees with leaves forming cubes.

The door leads them right in front of a black and grey version of Whispy Woods with glowing yellow mouth and eyes.

Before the heroes can even prepare themselves, the tree starts inhaling while his roots poke out of the ground to impale them. Acting quickly, they teleport away or start running to the opposite direction to not be eaten.

"The first enemy is a Whispy Woods, of course," says Sweetie Belle. "It's not a proper adventure without an encounter with a Woods."

"We already encountered two Woods in this one!" shouts back Bandana Dee.

Parallel Woods eventually stops inhaling and changes tactic, dropping apples and some Gordos and Blados while continuing to use his roots to attack them. The heroes take this occasion to attack him until he starts inhaling again, inhaling many apples and some Gordos and Blados before spitting them back at the heroes like a machine gun.

In return, the heroes circle the tree to attack him from all sides and avoid being inhaled and the spit projectiles, but the roots still remain a huge threat, especially when Parallel Woods starts using them to sweep the floor and the air like tentacles. But the roots aren't enough, so Parallel Woods starts spinning to spit his projectiles at everyone around him, to great effects thanks to his near perfect accuracy. But this doesn't stop the heroes from attacking him without stopping, angering the tree.

With a roar, Parallel Woods doubles in size. Then, all his roots come out of the ground and lift him, the tree now using them like legs!

"Oh buck!" shouts Sweetie Belle as the tree starts walking among the heroes to try to impale them with his roots while explosive apples start raining all around him. Yes, explosive, golden, giant apples! Without forgetting the Gordos, Blados, Comos, as well as many of those disgusting worms. When he sees that trying to impale the heroes with his roots doesn't work, he slammed himself down on the ground to crush them before rising himself to move and drop again to crush more heroes. Sometimes, he simply jumps to move. All the while, he uses his roots to attack the flying ones.

Sweetie Belle is among the last ones, self-levitating to not end up half buried in the ground. Parallel Woods is just so fast and merciless, he has absolutely nothing to do with Whispy Woods. It's like Morpho said, those counterparts aren't jokes. The tree is trashing them despite their number and power! And it's only Whispy Woods! Of course, Parallel Woods gets a lot of damage in return, but he seems ready to continue the fight for a long moment. They have to up their game if they want to finish this quickly and without anyone being killed.

Coating the weapons with elements isn't enough. Should she sing? But she needs to keep her strength for their fight against Void, and there's still four fights after this one, each as hard, or even harder. To make it worse, Parallel Woods is starting to puff air that spit into three air bullets.

They have to use attacks like the one they used against Hyness, the drill. But against Parallel Woods, fire would work better. Already they are using all the fire they can, but...

Ideaaaaa!

As Parallel Woods starts spinning in the air to fly around, using centrifugal force to throw explosive apples everywhere while trying to ram the heroes, Sweetie Belle shouts "Kirby! Gooey! Is there any way for you to obtain the Spider Ability?!"

Hearing her, Kirby tilts his head in confusion before he signs Como to throw a thread of web at him and Gooey while he drops his Staff Ability. They both then eat the web and gain the Spider ability.

"Good! Now you two, Como, and Taranza use your web to immobilize Whispy! Stick his roots to the ground! And make sure to make this web extra inflammable!"

Having an idea of what she's thinking, Kirby and the others start throwing web at Parallel Woods, targeting the roots, but also the eyes to blind him. When the tree eventually stops spinning and drops on the ground, they all target the same root, quickly trapping it under a huge quantity of solid and sticky web that even the tree has a hard time to free himself from. The four of them immediately work to trap another root, while the others to everything they can to protect them from Parallel Woods' counterattacks.

Once the tree as enough roots glued by the web, Sweetie shouts "Good! Now, Kirby and Gooey, can you get the Fire Ability? Meanwhile, everyone possessing a weapon coats it in fire!"

Some fire inhaled later and Kirby and Gooey now possess the Fire Ability while Magolor uses his magic and Spikezilla uses his fire to coat the weapons in the right element, all the while dodging the explosive apples and air bullets. Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle starts gathering the power of the pink heart, and rapidly, everyone can feel what she wants to do.

This is perfect.

When everyone is ready, they quickly assemble to form a giant fire cannon, the fire users being inside it ( Kirby and Gooey making sure to touch the animals and Sweetie Belle to share with them the Fire Ability) while the ones possessing weapons are at the extremity, weapons pointed toward the center of the hole of the cannon. Then, a huge stream of fire is fired at Parallel Woods, and before the web immobilizing him, he can only look in horror before the fire engulfs him, his ear piercing screech resonating from it until it stops a few seconds later.

When the fire stops, all that remains of Parallel Woods is a tree-shaped charcoal with three holes forming a mouth and two eyes, before the charcoal crumbles into a pile. Out of the pile come ten pink hearts.

When the heroes collect them, a new rift opens, and they are transported back where they fought Hyness, only, now, flowers have bloomed.

Not minding the flowers, the heroes take the occasion to recuperate their breath and to heal after this hard fight, preparing themselves for the next rift.

"We should stop underestimating the Woods," says Bandana.

"Poyo..."

"But we still totally got him! This fire cannon was an awesome idea!" shouts Yin-Yarn.

"It was a brilliant idea!" adds Dedede as he presses Sweetie Belle against him in a proud hug. "Eheheh! She's taking after me after all!"

Sweetie Belle looks at him in confusion. "Taking after you? I don't remember you being the strategist type. You prefer acting before thinking."

...

"Shut up. Let's just go to the next rift. We've lost enough time."

Author's Notes:

Heart count: 31/120

So yeah, like I said in the comments, the levels in the other dimension aren't like in the game to better fit the number in the group and the smaller number of hearts to collect (some of the hearts now being guarded by the parallel bosses).

Chapter 107: Heroes in Another Dimension! Part 2-Unearthly Storm Front: Parallel Twin Kracko

Things are rather chaotic now in the Jambandra Base. Galacta Knight warned the friendly cult members of what may happen and advised them to escape as quickly as possible. Problem: all the Jambastion are destroyed, and the cult members have nothing else. So Galacta simply destroyed ALL the cannons protecting the station before leaving, letting the Halberd and the other ships approach to help. However, things got complicated when the friendly cult members tried to convince the others that haven't been befriended to join them because they don't want to leave them. Some of them accepted, but most of them remained true to their convictions that the Dark Lord will lead them to a better world and don't want to leave.

As a result, some kind of 'civil war' has started where the cult members wanting to escape are throwing pink hearts at the others to convince them to leave, only to be attacked back by them. However, this has caused a problem to appear: there is not enough space in the ships for all the cult members as more and more of them are befriended. To solve this, Paint Roller and the other students of Adeleine's school are painting more ships to receive them.

They just hope that they will be able to get away from there in time before the Dark God appears.

---

Galacta Knight is now leaving Popstar, this planet having taken more time than he thought. Kirby and the others have friends absolutely everywhere on this planet, whole armies, in fortresses dispersed, in the sky, under the sea, in archipelagos, and even in a space resort! He had to repeat what he said to those living eggs at least ten times to make sure that everyone here would get a heart. But now, he's done, and after slicing a hole, he jumps in it to join his next destination, hoping that the next planets won't take that long.

---

The heroes come out of the second rift in what seemed to be a room without any exit, only to quickly discover a part of the floor moving down when they step on it. More lowering pieces of floor follow this one.

"Hey, Magolor, you said that there would be at least one descendant of the Ancients in this Jambastion Religion, right? So, is it Hyness?" asks Prince Fluff before he turns to Kirby. "Unless you encountered them before."

"Yup," confirms Magolor with a nod. "He is a descendant."

"What?" asks Sweetie Belle in wonder. "But he doesn't look like you! He's not egg-shaped, and I don't think you have a big nose hidden under those clothes. The only things you seem to have in common are the ears."

"That's because the civilization of the Ancients was composed of different species, including mine and Hyness'. Of course, with such a big civilization spreading to the whole universe, it's only natural that there would be more than one species, and the main ones forming its core had in common those ears. And you can guess from which clan Hyness is descending. But now, the question is 'Is he the only one?'"

"We haven't encountered any other like him," says Dedede. "Maybe those three mage girls? I don't think I have seen what their ears look like."

"Their hats were big enough to hide ears like that," remarks Elline with a nod.

"But definitely no big noses," says Yin-Yarn, laughing. "Oh, the image!"

"Speaking of them, I wonder what happened to them," says Bandana Dee.

"They're probably searching Hyness, or are already with him wondering what to do to get him out of the Jamba Heart," guesses Daroach.

"And they're certainly getting themselves corrupted by the negativity in this universe," says Meta Knight. "We will probably end up fighting them one moment or another," he finishes before they pass a black door revealed by a rising wall.

"As if we didn't already have enough on our plate," says Adeleine with a sigh once they come out at the other side of the door.

In this new path, they have to deal with shallow bodies of water with strong currents and Gordos. The bodies of water aren't big, so there aren't much place to swim between the Gordos, forcing them to either use platforms above them to pass or to quickly jump out of the water just after diving in it. However, some risk has to be taken to obtain the hearts. For the first one, they have to electrify the water to destroy an otherwise unattainable bomb block and open the way to the heart. For the second heart, it's at the bottom of a deep pit under the water, and Kine has to go in it, being the best among them to swim against the current (without having Elline turning the others into submarines). Two more hearts are then found in an underwater tunnel, again for Kine. But this time, they have to open the way for him by destroying a bomb block, which also causes a chain reaction starting for Kine a race against time for the hearts... and his life. Indeed, the bomb causes the ceiling of the tunnel to start to drop, forcing Kine to swim as quickly as possible while fighting the current and avoiding the dozens of moving Gordos on the way to not get crushed. When Kine reaches the two hearts, he has to destroy another bomb block to open the exit and leave the tunnel, joining the others.

The black door is just after, leading to an area that has, this time, strong air currents, forcing them to run to not be pushed back (spikes being present on the wall right behind the door). Again, Gordos are present, and as if this is not enough, pieces of the ground and the ceiling are lowering and rising to become crushers. And the first heart turns out to be in a small tunnel right between two crushers, and right at this moment, the heroes regret to not have a wheelie with them. That is until Marx teleports between the crushers to take the heart before he teleports back.

Later, the Sir Kibble uses his cutter to reach and cut a rope behind another crusher, causing a wall to drop and revealing another tunnel with a line of crushers dropping successively and a stake coming out of the wall at the end. At this, Rocky looks at Chilly who nods back before the walking stone starts running toward the tunnel. Chilly then breath ice at Rocky just as he transforms, turning him into a curling stone sliding into the tunnel just as the first crusher rises. Thanks to this, Rocky is able to pass under all the crushers before they drop, and he reaches the stake that he's able to push, causing the wall to rise and revealing a small room with another heart. Another stake rises another wall, letting Rocky exit the room and join the others.

From there, small tornadoes start appearing on the path to make the heroes' life harder, the tornadoes throwing anyone taken in them right toward a spiked ceiling. But they then find a tornado right under a vertical tunnel of crushers. Not hard to guess what one of them must do. Gulping, the Parasol Waddle Dee approaches the tornado, waiting the right moment, before he jumps in it while opening his parasol, the strong wind rapidly pushing the parasol up through the tunnel without the Waddle Dee getting crushed. At the top, he finds a heart and a switch opening another tunnel to return to the others without taking the risk of being crushed.

Another tornado, another tunnel, more crushers. But this time, there's a metallic door not far into the tunnel, and they spot a switch in a small hole in one of the walls. Parasol Waddle Dee has to jump in the tornado like before, and someone else has to cling to him to fire at the switch. If they miss, the door won't open, and they will both be crushed. bio Spark is the one who decides to come. They both jump in the tornado, and Bio Spark cling to his legs as they are both thrown in the air. Acting quickly, the ninja throws a kunai at the switch as they pass it, successfully opening the door. Three more doors, and three more switches, follow this one before they reach two pink hearts and a black door that brings them back to the others.

A black door ends this windy path, only to bring them back in a path with water. Deep water. Actually, they have no choice but to jump in the water where they discover a small maze made of fire. Yes, fire in water. Currents, thankfully not as strong as before, are still pushing them, so they have to constantly against them to not be pushed toward the walls of fire. Every now and then, they have to press a switch or cut a rope to block a hole from which comes some fire and open a path in the walls.

A heart is found in a very narrow secondary path in the maze, and with currents constantly pushing whoever takes it toward the walls of fire, they have had to take extreme caution. Not long after the heart, they find on the floor a metallic button with a cable, and they have to use a hammer coated in electricity to press it and supply the cable. They then start to quickly swim, trying to find the right path in the maze and reach whatever the button activates before the electricity reaches it, because they know that if they come too late, then something could happen to make the heart impossible to reach. They have to split up more than once when they don't know which path to take, and only a small group of heroes reaches the door that is opened by the button. They quickly pass it before a second door is closed just after it, and they are able to take the heart before leaving by pressing a switch.

They are joined by the others, and together, they continue in this fire maze, the paths becoming narrower and some of them even moving back and forth. Here, they find another heart in the center of a small round fire maze divided into different levels, each level turning in a different sense at a different speed. After this heart, they finally come out of the water and reach a black door.

They appear at the start of a very long and narrow bridge-like path above a huge pit with a wick at the start. They can see the wick move to a secondary similar path further to the right and continue along it for what seems to be some miles. It's hard to say because the paths just continue into the darkness, so they can't see how long they are.

This path seems perfect for a Friend Train, and they will probably have no choice but to use it if they want to keep pace with the wick once they light it.

"This will be a long train. What if we have to jump from falling platforms? The front will jump and run while the back will fall," wonders Dedede.

"We can always divide, and whoever is falling will turn the train into the star," says Sweetie Belle.

"Clever," says Daroach before he turns to Dark Meta Knight. "Nothing to say this time, mister I'm-too-serious-for-this?"

Dark Meta Knight looks briefly at Marx smiling at him before he answers with a simple "No."

Marx jumps in joy. "Yay!"

And so, using the energy of the pink heart, they form the train, with Kirby at the head and Sweetie Belle just behind him, and just as they start running, Sweetie Belle lights the wick with a fire beam. At first, nothing happens. The train advances along the path at the same speed than the fire of the wick, until they suddenly see the path of the wick stopping while they spot a switch on their way. They run on it, and the switch causes a piece of path to come from the darkness and fill the hole of the path of the wick so it can continue burning. But to everyone's surprise, it also causes the piece of the path with the second half of the train to suddenly move to the left, separating the train in two. The concerned quickly use the power of the pink heart to create a second hat to fully form a second train, Chef Kawasaki at the head. The second train immediately starts falling, the newly formed path having a quick end, only to drop on another path further below where they find a first heart (they have to jump to reach it).

More switches follow, each reforming the path of the wick, but each also causing one of the train to be divided in two until there's ten trains of five heroes (four for one of them) each running on a different path. Each trains have to quickly act to get all the switches they spot, sometimes having to jump, sometimes having to change path, running up walls, doing loops... Some of the switches allow the wick to continue to burn while others open ways for another train to reach another switch or a pink heart, like by moving a piece of path, opening a door, getting them out of a loop... Obstacles, mainly Gordos, eventually start appearing to force the heroes to time their jumps. So of the switches also eventually reveal to be traps causing pieces of path to drop, forcing the heroes to be more careful.

After getting two more hearts this way, the paths start to converge, leading the ten trains to reform a unique train as the wick reaches its destination a pile of explosive barrels under the path they would normally take if they failed. The barrels explode, and the heroes let themselves drop on the new path where they find four more hearts before they climb a wall bringing them back to the original path toward the black door in the middle of what looks like ruins.

They still crash against the wall after the door...

"That was one heck of a roller coaster..." says Sweetie Belle with a groan once she recovers of the crash.

"A roller coaster of doooom!" shouts Marx with a cackle. "We should put one in Kirbyland!"

"Are you crazy?!" yells Dedede. "Wait, yes, you're crazy."

With this, they pass the door...

And appear right in front of a big black cloud dividing into two clouds. They immediately understand who they're up against even before the eye and spikes appear on the clouds.

"Wait, two Krackos?!" asks Sweetie Belle in surprise.

"Oh yeah, that was Kracko's trick when we fought him," informs Broom Sunglasses.

"But right at the start of the fight?!" says Bandana Dee in panic.

The first act of the Krackos is to make rain litteral waterfalls on the heroes, not hurting them, but greatly wetting the ones who hasn't gotten away, and knowing that Kracko mainly uses electricity to attack, this is VERY bad. And indeed, the Krackos immediately follow this with their usual electric whips as they fly back and forth. It wouldn't be so hard to avoid if the arena wasn't so narrow, more like the top of a thick wall or a bridge, so there aren't many places to go, made worse by their number. So the heroes can only spread out along the path, the ones able to fly flying above the pit at both sides to give much needed place to the others. This is still not enough for some of them to avoid the electric whips and lightning bolts that follow. The worst still is when one of the Krackos sweeps the floor with a charge while the other sweeps the air just above, there's almost no place to dodge, even by jumping.

The the Krackos reveal to have a big weakness, exactly the same than Meta Knight and Dark Meta Knight when they divided: when one of them is hit, the injuries spread to the two of them. Also, Sweetie Belle is pretty much intouchable to them. Whenever they use lightning bolts, she just deflect them back at the clouds with her mirror-shields, and when they try more physical attacks like the ramming, she just flies away. Not that much can be said of the others, sadly. The ones flying fare much better because they have an easier time to dodge, but for the ones stuck on the ground, they have to run and jump a lot. Thankfully, they manage to avoid getting in each others' way so this is nobody else's fault if someone is hit. They even try to help each others, pulling arms to brings friends out of the way of an attack for exemple. Sweetie Belle also put shields around the ones that have no choice but to get close and personal to attack, like Beetley. Sometimes, friends throw friends to get them out of the way of an attack, or so the thrown friends can attack the Krackos without having to lose too much time approaching. This also let said thrown friends ram the clouds and deal huge damage.

After a moment, the Kracko restarts raining waterfalls on the heroes to get them wet again or to wet the ones they missed the first time. However, this fails when Parasol Waddle Dee is able to enlarge his parasol, sheltering everyone around him from the water. Kirby does the same thing with Prince Fluff, the puffball grabbing the prince of yarn as he turns into a parasol of yarn before being enlarged too, sheltering everyone from the second waterfall, the water somehow not passing through Fluff. Logic can buck itself, worst things happened in those universes.

This clearly angers the Kracko who start acting more brutal, using more lightning bolts, sweeping the floor and the air more often, and they even start using lightning balls homing in on the heroes. A thrown ice spear on the eye by Bandana Dee is the last straw for the Krackos as they start getting dizzy. They then merge, and frowning in anger, the eye disappears before the cloud starts growing, and growing, and growing! AND GROWING! Until it becomes at least twice the size of Kracko.

And the eye and spikes finally come out of the cloud as it stops growing, the giant Kracko now looking at the heroes with all the wrath of a thunder god.

"Uh... And he did that, Kracko, when you fought him?" asks Yin-Yarn.

"Not at all! That's a first!" shouts Bandana Dee in total panic.

To everyone's horror, Kracko's cloud then spreads in the air all over the arena, lightning rumbling in it. Uh oh...

The cloud goes too far to run away in time. Only the ones who can teleport or fly very fast can hope to avoid what's coming. But then, Sweetie Belle extends her staff and plants it on the floor while the Jammerjab does the same further away. Understanding, everyone moves away from the staffs, but not too far. Then, all hell breaks loose as Kracko rain a real waterfall of lightning bolts all over the area. Thankfully, the planted staffs play the role of lightning rods, bringing any close lightning bolts to them and creating safe areas around. Again, the heroes avoid getting too close to not be electrified by the electricity running through the staffs or spreading in the floor. Just in case, the heroes still get the idea to climb on each others (in small groups), to spread, and for the heroes at the bottom, to raise a leg so the electricity in the floor wouldn't run through them.

The lightning rain eventually stops, and Kracko returns to his more normal shape before he starts attacking with huge lightning whips while flying against the ground. With his size, there's no way to dodge. All they can do is running away, teleport, or fly out of the way.

Darn, dodging him will be even more of a hell than before. As for him, he doesn't even need to dodge. It's as if he doesn't feel the attacks hitting him! They're more like insect bites! This forces the heroes to bring out their strongest attacks, giant lasers, black holes, giant swords, Susie's armor, Taranza's fake Sectonia, Adeleine's Painted Kracko, and so on. A storm for a storm, even if one of the storms is actually a storm of all kinds of giant attacks while the other is a more regular, still very brutal storm with hundreds of giant lightning bolts and wind going at around one hundred miles per hour.

Kracko shoots out of his body smaller storm clouds also firing lightning bolts while the wind starts to form a tornado around all of them. As the small storm clouds enter the newly formed tornado, they somewhat merge with it, turning the tornado into some kind of storm cloud tornado, darkening the area but also regularly flashing it with the many lightning bolts fired from Kracko or the tornado.

Despite the strong wind and the constant lightning bolts punctuated by tentative to body slam them, the heroes doesn't stop attacking, not a second passing without Kracko being covered in explosions, streams of fire, ice, lightning, and whatever else. But after a moment, Kracko rises into the sky, and the next instant, a huge column of electricity strikes the arena, creating a huge hole in the center. This causes the structure to crumble into pieces, but instead of falling into the pit, the pieces are carried up by the wind with the heroes on them, turning the battlefield into a field of floating platforms of various sizes.

"By the stars! The gap between this Parallel Kracko and the Parallel Whispy is as big as the gap between our Kracko and our Whispy!" shouts Dedede.

"Kracko has always been more powerful than Whispy. It's not a surprise," says Meta Knight. "The power of a tree is nothing against the power of a storm."

"Especially when that storm can throw boulders the size of houses at you!" yells Poppy Bros Jr as he points at such a giant boulder flying right towards them.

Looking at it in a panic, they quickly jump on another platform before the boulder rams it.

They have to climb up a little, jumping from platform to platform, to join Kracko in the sky. The one-eyed cloud restarts spreading, ready to rain more lightning bolts all over the area, and with the tornado surrounding them, there is no way to escape. Since they are all spread on various platforms, the staffs can't even be used to save everyone. However, some platforms above the others can be used as roof to shelter from the lightning, so the heroes quickly jump and fly under them before Kracko unleashes the waterfall of lightning bolts.

Once the lightning stops raining, they restart attacking Kracko with everything they have, some heroes who can't fly even riding on others who can not be limited by the lack of space given by the platforms. NESP even levitates some of them toward Kracko so they can attack him directly if they don't have any way to attack from a distance.

And then, Sweetie Belle grabs Jammerjab and puts him on her back before flying toward Kracko. Once close enough, she plants her staff in Kracko's cloud, and the Jammerjab does the same thing. The planted staff start acting as lightning rods, bringing hundreds of lightning bolts fired by the tornado to Kracko. Plugg and other electricity users add their own part to this, filling the cloud to the brim, supercharging it, until even for Kracko this becomes too much. The cloud turns into a giant ball of electricity, growing and growing again, until it just explode in a huge explosion of electricity that clears the tornado.

Nothing remains of Kracko.

However, with the disappearance of Kracko and the tornado, the wind disappears, and the platforms start dropping into the pit. Grabbing the two falling staffs in her magic, Sweetie Belle quickly absorbs the ten pink hearts released by Kracko while a rift opens where the arena was before being destroyed. With the help of the flying heroes, they all enter it, returning where they fought Hyness and Morpho Knight.

But now, it's different... It's more... corrupted. The Jamba Heart's pedestal has disappeared, the staircase leading to it is half destroyed as well as a part of the structure, the horn-like structures are taking weird colors, and more of those flowers have bloomed. Also, some weird pond is now present in the center, and they can see reflected in it the inside of the cloud of darkness in which Kirby and Sweetie fought Zero. Also, the sky... It's... as if they aren't in the Dream Universe anymore. The sky now possesses an unnatural brightness that comes from nowhere. There are even clouds!

With the strong feeling of negativity in the air, it's not hard to imagine what's going on: the boundary between the Dream Universe and the other dimension is disappearing. But they just can't understand what's going on with the sky. It seems so peaceful, and yet it is so wrong...

It feels dead. Yes, that's it. It's dead. Everything around them is dying. Reality is dying. This light, this sky is just... Death.

They must not remain here, they must immediately stop this.

After recuperating their breath, without a word, they enter the third rift.

They have to hurry.

Author's Notes:

60/120

Sorry, I couldn't find an image of Parallel Twin Kracko without the logo and the "Boss| Parallel Twin Kracko"

Chapter 108: Heroes in Another Dimension! Part 3-Otherworldly Frost Blade: Parallel Meta Knight

Galacta Knight has finally finished with the big clusters of friends. The next four worlds after Popstar were thankfully faster to deal with. Shiver Star still took a little longer, the knight visiting more than one city to make sure that the robots will be able to spread the pink hearts to all the others in time. At least, in Ripple Star, he just had to give a pink heart to the queen. Thanks to their ability to fly, the fairies will give the hearts to everyone else in record time. In New Halcandra, everyone is gathered at the same spot, so it will be fast too (he still apologized for slicing the planet in two and for blowing up the Moon). In Patch Lands, all the friends were in Quilty Square, so just one heart and it should be done in a few minutes.

Now, it's time for Galacta Knight to encounter the friends that are by themselves or in small groups. After quickly visiting the group in Floria, Galacta Knight now comes out of a hole, not on a planet, but in the vacuum of space, to his wonder. He felt two friends together, but he didn't think that he would find them here.

He then spots the two friends, two robots looking like Kirby and Sweetie Belle holding each other's claw as they fly with the speed of meteors, not able to change direction or to slow down. Galacta quickly flies after them, seeing that the robots are slightly damaged, especially the reactors on their back, but still activated. Catching up to them, he opens a hole on their way, and they all enter it before coming out of another back on New Halcandra where the locals should be able to repair them.

He has the feeling that Kirby and Sweetie Belle will be very happy once they learn about this.

---

The more time passes, the more the other dimension becomes dangerous. Barely the heroes come out of the rift that they have to fight through many creatures of various species existing in the Dream Universe while they spot the same small sun-like fireballs first encountered in Dangerous Dinner, in Halcandra, floating around. Right now, as they use C-shaped platforms working like elevators to move up rapidly, those mini suns aren't in the way, but this may change rapidly. The platforms, however, aren't large enough, so many of them are forced to fly and even to carry others.

After a few of those platforms, they reach the last one that leads them to a black door. Like they thought, those mini-suns are present on the new path in number, some of them simply floating in the air, others half buried in the ground. This means that the heroes have to carefully walk around them, or jump above them if they have no choice, but when they jump, they have to watch out to not touch the floating suns.

They quickly find the first heart a few seconds after starting, at the end of a secondary path with a few moving suns making it very narrow and hard to pass without touching them. Even the heart itself is in a very small space, so anyone trying to teleport to it would still get burned. Thankfully, they have Pitch, his small size and his speed while flying more than enough for him to reach the heart and avoid the suns.

They then reach a path where they have no choice but to climb it vertically jumping from platform to platform. But after some climbing, a giant sun suddenly comes out of the ground under them, destroying all the platforms and absorbing all the smaller suns on its way as it rises. So the heroes hurry up to climb, doing their best to avoid any obstacles and to not be slowed down by the many enemies. A second heart is found in a death end at the end of a tortuous secondary path, forcing one of them to take a huge risk entering the path, taking the heart, and leaving it in time before the sun could reach them.

They eventually reach the end of the path and they get out of the way of the giant sun only to end in a path full of lava. Nothing problematic, the water and ice users using their elements to solidify the lava into rock and create a path that everyone can walk on without getting burned. To their surprise, they then reach water falling on a wick among solidified lava. For this, Parasol Waddle Dee jumps on Birdon's back, and the bird carries him to the water where the Waddle Dee opens and enlarges his parasol to stop it from falling on the wick and lava. Hot Head then breathes fire to light the wick, and the heroes quickly continue along the path, Parasol Waddle Dee using his parasol to stop more water on the way from falling on the wick and put it off. The water and ice users also have to be careful to not accidentally put it off as they use their elements to solidify the lava. They eventually reach the cannon, and Kirby jumps in it just before the lightning wick reaches it. The cannon fires him far away in the air, and the puffball disappears among the suns above them. He quickly comes back through a black door, announcing that he has gotten two more pink hearts.

They then reach the end of the lava path just before a black door, entering another path with more suns, or rather, this time, sun-like meteors, because it is what they feel like. Hundreds of those suns are flying from all directions to all directions, giving the impression that they are on a path in the middle of a meteor field, with small suns replacing the meteors. Thankfully, the path is very solid, because the suns hitting it simply bounce off without leaving even a crater. Lave and streams of fire are also present, but not as much. But added to the many pits, this causes a lot of careful platforming to happen.

And playing billiard with the suns seems to be the theme of this place. All the hearts here, four in total, have to be obtained by moving platforms using switches to cause suns to bounce from them toward either a weak wall or another sun, causing said sun to change trajectory to destroy a weak wall. With the first heart, it is rather easy, the main problem being that only one switch can be activated at once, so it only takes them a couple of tries to get the sun to destroy the weak wall and let them reach the heart.

With the second heart, things get harder because they have to change the trajectory of a sun using another to make it destroy the weak wall. For this, they have to bounce the two suns back and forth using the switches to make sure that the first sun touches the second sun from the right angle at the right place to lead it toward the weak wall.

The last two hearts ask them to do something similar but with a much more complex puzzle involving two dozen switches (some of them away from others, on lava, or behind streams of fire), five suns, and a dozen weak walls. Let's just say that by the time they get the two hearts, the brains of some of the heroes are smoking.

It doesn't last long. Where this area has been a real kingdom of fire, the one after the next black door turns out to be the opposite, a kingdom of ice, with icy ground, streams of ice, and a field of ice meteors around them, the meteors in question being giant agglomerations of spikes of ice.

But this time, they don't have to play billiard with them to get the hearts. They just play as very annoying obstacles to reach them, as is the case for the first heart. The heroes find an opening leading to a field of those meteors very compact, leaving only a small space for someone to fly between them, made even harder because most of the meteors are slowly spinning, forcing anyone deciding to fly here to watch out for the moving spikes. Pitch is, again, the chosen one, the small bird flying between the meteors until finding the pink heart hidden among them. Another opening leads to another compact field, only this time some of the meteors are moving, forcing Pitch to be even more careful and even to backtrack a little to avoid them.

By the time he finds the heart, Pitch wishes to be bigger, so he wouldn't be the one chosen to go into those kinds of situations. It sucks to be small. But at the same time, it makes him useful, so it doesn't suck. And so, he finds himself divided...

But those two hearts have been easy to obtain compared to the following ones. Further on the path, they find a giant ice block that they have to push into a hole of the same shape to, somehow, destroy the wall around it and open another path. On this path, they have to push the block on a rather narrow ice bridge and avoid that it falls into the pit below. At the same time, they have to bring it to a couple of places where pressing a switch causes a saw to come out and cut the block in a certain way to make it look like a tent. This way, the block can enter the triangle-shaped hole at the end of the the path and destroy the wall around it, opening the way to two hearts.

A second ice block is found, and after using it to open a new path, they start pushing it on another ice bridge, much more tortuous and leading to a dozen of those places with the saws, where there were only two previously. They then see that the wall at the end has two holes: one shaped like a I, and another shaped like a U but with right angles instead of round angles. And each of those holes are only big enough for half of the block to enter, which means that they first have to cut the block in two. So they carefully test one by one the various saws to see which one to use first, noting the path of each one, and once they find the right one, they push the block to it before pressing the switch again. Once the block is cut in two, they now just have to push the two parts toward the right saws to give them the right shapes, the I shape asking two saws, and the U shape asking three saws. Once the wall is destroyed, they are rewarded with two more hearts.

Not long after, they pass another black door that leads them inside a big room without any exit. However, one of the walls is heavily cracked, but they will need something big to break it.

And Kirby just knows what they need to do as he starts using the power of the hearts, and in a few seconds, they form a giant friend circle, which is more than enough to break the wall.

They come out of the room and discover that they are now in a place where it is as if the field of sun-like meteors and the field of ice meteors have merged, and their number is even more huge than before. They can see thousands of them in the distance as if forming rivers! And there are huge ones as big as planets!

The hearts here aren't that hard to obtain, they just have to choose the right paths and do the right jumps. A couple of times, they also have to roll on switches to turn the path into a ramp toward another. The danger is mainly the path themselves.

Pieces of paths made of lava or of ice are everywhere. The first ones force them to jump a lot, taking the risk more than once to jump right into a sun or ice meteor or to miss jump and fall into the bottomless pit below. The last ones are very slippy, and more than once, they almost slipe to their death, without forgetting the heavy risks of miss jumps they cause too. As if this is not enough, pieces of the paths are lowering or rising, making some jumps very close, especially to reach some secondary paths to obtain the hearts. By the time they reach the end and break up beside another black door among ruins, they have collected six more hearts and they can count at least two dozen more close calls to their record.

At the other side of the black door, they appear in a round arena at the top of a mountain. Kirby and the ones who were with him immediately recognize the place, and they all raise their heads to look at a ledge, followed by the others.

On the ledge, they spot a familiar figure, back to them. All they can see is his cape, brown colored, and his crimson pauldrons, but they understand who they're up against.

The figure then turns around, revealing the bronze mask covering his black and round body, red eyes looking at the heroes with the intent to kill.

He jumps from the ledge, making it crumble, and lands in front of the group of heroes, sword ready to slash. Seeing the sword glowing, they all quickly lower themselves just in time to avoid a huge and sharp sword beam, the beam passing above them and cutting the top of a mountain behind them.

"Ugh... Hopefully, this won't be Morpho Knight all over again," says Dedede.

Dark Meta Knight is the first to charge, again, and the two dark balls start clashing, Parallel Meta Knight not teleporting to do like Morpho.

"He likes fighting other powerful swordsman, uh?" asks Elline.

Sweetie Belle rolls her eyes. "You have no idea. He never misses an occasion to fight a swordsman in the hope of becoming better and be able to defeat Meta Knight."

"Which tends to make him a little too much overzealous," says Marx with a laugh.

"Well, we should join him and defeat this guy before he decides to divide himself into four," says Cape Knight.

"Agreed," say most of the other heroes before they all start attacking.

Parallel Meta Knight is fast, very fast, but not possessing Morpho's teleportation ability, his speed doesn't mean much against a small army of almost fifty heroes, some of them about as fast as him. However, his speed is allied with strength and power,making him much more powerful than his counterpart. Each time that his sword clashes with something, like another weapon, the hero holding it is propelled backward, or barely resists being propelled, and it's a miracle that nothing is broken.

He still rapidly gets overwhelmed by the number of heroes, so eventually he decides to move away and to remain mobile to not be surrounded by all of them again and to have an easier time parrying. So the most skilled and fastest weapon users among the heroes, mainly Sweetie Belle, Meta Knight, and Dark Meta Knight (Kirby and Gooey not possessing a Weapon Ability) attack him relentlessly to get an opening for them or the others.

Parallel Meta Knight multiplies the use of sword beams and tornadoes, even sending more than one sword beam in one slash. He reminds everyone that he is Meta Knight, but much more skilled and powerful. He possesses all his moves, but more dangerous. The sword beams are faster and cut through almost everything. The tornadoes are more numerous and faster, even taking unpredictable trajectories. He also has nothing of the chivalrous way of fighting from Meta Knight, like they saw earlier when he started the fight without giving Kirby a sword like he usually does. He doesn't hesitate to trick, to throw some sand into their eyes, to trip them, to use his cape, to attack someone already down...

But again, he is only one being against all of them, and the heroes help each other to defend and attack. Each time that Parallel Meta Knight leaves an opening to attack, at least one of the heroes uses it to hit him. No matter who he attacks, there's always someone ready to attack him in return. The fight against Morpho Knight has perfectly prepared them for this one.

That is... until, after getting hit for probably the hundredth time, Parallel Meta Knight disappears inside a small purple blob that divides itself into 49 blobs.

And thus, 49 Parallel Meta Knights are now facing the 49 heroes...

And the heroes can only look in horror.

"Eh... Eheh... At least, since the damage they take spread to all of them, it will be fast," says Bandana Dee.

"You mean that our death will be fast," says Chef Kawasaki hopelessly.

The army of Parallel Meta Knights then attacks, and soon, each of the heroes are facing one of them in a one versus one. Except that almost none of them stand a chance in an one versus one fight against Parallel Meta Knight. Most of them would already have no chance to defeat Meta Knight, so the more powerful and more skilled, ruthless and evil counterpart? Not even in their dreams.

The only ones who manage to stand their ground are Kirby, Sweetie Belle, Dedede, Meta Knight, Dark Meta Knight, and Marx, and even then, it's only a question of minutes for some of them before they would be defeated. But again, they can count on their teamwork, so the heroes don't remain focused on their Parallel Meta Knight to attack the others and take them by surprise (which is still hard). Despite this, the first heroes start to fall.

The heroes quickly assemble around the fallen ones to protect them and to better support each other. The healers work quickly and constantly, Adeleine, Yin-Yarn, and Claycia also using their skills to create many beings of paint, yarn, and clay to help them and get the attention of the Parallel Meta Knights.

Some of the Parallel Meta Knights change tactic and use a power never used by Meta Knight. Raising their sword, they fire from it some purple lightning bolts. However, not only whoever is hit by them are shocked, the bolts also create purple cages of electricity around them similar to the prison of web that Taranza used to trap Sweetie Belle. Whoever trapped in them can only struggle to escape as quickly as possible despite the constant pain caused by the electricity. They also become vulnerable to the other Parallel Meta Knight who use the occasion to attack them, making the number of fallen heroes grow. The best way to quickly free them is to attack the Parallel Meta Knights at the origin of the cages who, thankfully, can't defend themselves. The long distance fighters have a field day against them.

In the end, the number of Parallel Meta Knights work against them. With the heroes solidly gathered together, constantly supporting each other, healing the ones who fall, protecting the healers, the Parallel Meta Knights aren't advancing. Meanwhile, because of all of them sharing the damage they take, the Parallel Meta Knights are rapidly getting closer and closer to their limit.

So they fly away and assemble in the sky above the heroes before they start raining hundreds of sword beams on them. The heroes, doing their best to defend themselves, counter with their own projectiles, no one among them daring to teleport or fly to approach them. After a couple of minutes, the two groups stop seeing that this leads them to nowhere.

By now, the totality of the arena has been destroyed, cut to pieces, and only a small pillar with the heroes on it is remaining. The Parallel Meta Knights could cut the pillar and let the heroes fall, but many of them can fly and they could probably help the others. So they decide to do something more direct that will kill all of them at once.

Gathering, they form a cone, point toward the heroes, like the head of a giant spear or of an arrow.

The heroes do the same, Magolor at the head with his Ultra Sword, circled by the other sword users. The formation can't fly like the one of the Parallel Meta Knights, so the heroes can only wait as the Parallel Meta Knights are approaching. Before long, the two formations clash, the force starting to cause parts of the pillar to crumble.

The heroes quickly feel that they are losing the clash. If their formation doesn't break before, the pillar will, and the Parallel Meta Knight are strongly flapping their bat wings to push, and push, and push.

So they start gathering the power of the heart at the base of their formation. As it charges, the base is starting to glow pink more and more. Until they unleash it! And the heroes are suddenly propelled forward right through the Parallel Meta Knights, breaking their formation and causing them to reform as only one Parallel Meta Knight. The heroes then turn around, still in formation, and before Parallel Meta Knight can move, they pierced him before hitting the pillar, totally destroying it.

Not much remains of Parallel Meta Knight by the time they break formation, and they quickly absorb the ten pink hearts released by him before they pass the opening rift as what remains of the pillar starts falling into the abyss.

They reappear again at the usual place, but they barely recognize it. The place has almost totally crumbled. Almost nothing remains of the staircase. But that's not just it. There are now many more of those weird flowers, but also, the horn-things have changed into huge glowing, purple or pink vine-like things now surrounding the pond which now shows the weird red background of the fight against Zero Two. First Zero and now this, it's as if this pond is connecting to their past to warn them that Void's liberation is approaching.

No losing time, they jump in the fourth rift, hoping that the place will still be there by the time they come back so they can jump in the last rift.

Author's Notes:

90/120

Chapter 109: Heroes in Another Dimension! Part 4-Otherworldly Dark Liege: Parallel Dedede

"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.

Author's Notes:

120/120

Lucar Prod. presents King Dedekong!

Chapter 110: Heroes in Another Dimension! Part 5-Fell Officiant: Corrupt Hyness

Author's Notes:

Link for the Jambastion Language.

Also, in the previous chapter, I replaced the theme used against Giant Parallel Dedede, Decisive Battlefield from Team Kirby Clash Deluxe by the Giant Masked Dedede Battle Theme from Kirby Blowout Blast. I found it more fitting.

This is bad... This is bad... This is really bad... Gandaro looks through the window of the bridge of the Starwalker, seeing how the situation is becoming chaotic. Whatever is going on in the other dimension, it's spreading to the Dream Universe, and it's not just the rifts. Yes, now, rifts are absolutely everywhere, appearing and disappearing constantly, there is more.

It has been reported that the other dimension has now entered in contact with the Dream Universe above the altar of the Jamba Heart, and as a result, cracks and black holes are appearing around it. It was already bad enough when the Light was reported, but now, the worst possible outcome is happening. The other dimension is starting to merge with the Dream Universe, and since it's apparently collapsing, then the collapse is spreading to the Dream Universe around the area of the merging point. And it will only get worse as time continues.

If this is not stopped quickly, then the two universes will collapse, and the God will not even need to act. The best would be to somehow cause the collapse of the other dimension right now to limit the damage, but only a phenomenon of godly proportions like the destruction of the Master Crown could cause that.

Hopefully, when the heroes will fight the God, they will be able to force him to use enough of his power to provoke the definitive collapse of the other dimension. That's hoping, again, that the God won't decide to enter the Dream Universe in the middle of the fight, and with all those rifts, the chances that this will happen are high. The Dream Universe is still stable enough to support such a fight, but then, nothing would be able to cause the collapse of the other dimension in time to save the Dream Universe.

If only Galacta Knight was with the heroes to help them, they would have a better chance to avoid such an outcome, but right now, he's sleeping inside one of the recovery vats, and Gandaro is not sure that he will wake up in time.

This is really really bad...

---

They appear on platforms lowering down like elevators, the space growing as more and more of those platforms are joining the lowering ones to lower too. Once the platforms stop lowering, they have to use a ladder, and they land again on a lowering platform, followed by a series of wall lowering to reveal a black door.

It leads them to their destination: a dark version of the altar of the Jamba Heart, as damaged than the original one but without the glowing purple vine-like things, and with pieces floating up rather than crumbling down. There is too some black goo-like stuff glued to the main platform and to some of the floating pieces, stopping those ones from floating up. As for the pond, it is reflecting the other dimension.

Speaking of, the devastation is still happening, but for some reason, it doesn't seem to reach this place. At least, they don't have to worry about the black holes and the purple erasing space... yet.

But no trace of the Jamba Heart.

Suddenly, just as the heroes start looking around, the Jamba Heart comes out of the pond, now fully formed, pulsating, and purple energy, pure negativity, escaping it.

"Here we go, guys," says Magolor.

Some of the heroes gulp at his words while most of them start sweating.

Then, they release the 120 pink hearts in them, and the hearts separate into four groups, each group forming a Heart Spear.

"Ready everyone?" asks Sweetie Belle.

They all nod.

The spears pierce the Jamba Heart, making it crack until it explodes in a huge cloud of negativity. In the following seconds, as the heroes reabsorb the Heart Spears, the cloud shrinks little by little until, with a yell, Hyness burst out of it, his body having absorbed all of it.

Fell Officiant
Corrupt Hyness

The fight immediately starts without preambles, Hyness already using his power boosted by Void partially merged in him to go all out against the heroes, simultaneously using his four main attacks in a much bigger proportion than previously. Instead of firing only a dozen needles, he rains them by hundreds constantly. Instead of simply creating a few of those blue symboles to freeze, he creates dozens of them all over the area. Same with the columns of fire and of electricity. This leaves almost no space for the heroes to dodge, and all the while, Hyness also throws his dark orbs while moving like a possessed.

He has totally lost his mind. All he cares now is to destroy. And right now, he wants to destroy them, probably because he unconsciously remembers that they defeated him before and caused his ceremony to be interrupted.

The heroes don't lose time to attack him in return, trying their best to protect themselves against the onslaught. Nobody can protect themselves long against the attacks, shields and mirrors rapidly breaking. The ones who have the best luck are the ones who can teleport, and even then, they teleport only to appear in the path of another attack.

But Kirby, who has managed to get closer, suddenly gets an idea. Making sure that he's close enough to Hyness, he reforms a Heart Spear and throws it at Hyness, piercing him. This doesn't kill Hyness, but the Heart Spear deeply hurts him thanks to the positivity fighting the negativity in him. This causes him to stop attacking, the mage instead moving even more wildly as he tries to remove the spear with slow success. All the heroes take the occasion to close in on him and to attack before he manages to remove the spear and to throw it away. Taranza quickly flies after it to reabsorb it.

Sweetie tries to pierce Hyness with another Heart Spear, but Hyness avoids it and becomes even more unpredictable than before, the mage teleporting around to the point of becoming a blur before he appears behind Kirby and uses him as a club to hit the other heroes. After some swings, he then uses Kirby as a pogo stick to jump from hero to hero before he covers Kirby in fire and slams him on the ground, creating a fiery shockwave. Gooey wraps his tongue around Hyness and throws him away from Kirby, giving the puffball time to recover and recuperate the Hammer ability he has lost.

Hyness then tries to grab Sweetie Belle probably to use her like a gatling gun again, but Prince Fluff manages to wrap a rope of yarn around his left arm, stopping him in his attempt. Sweetie Belle then quickly turns to Hyness and gives him a metallic soul boosted Vulcan Jab followed by a Rising Break that sends him flying.

"That's my girl!" shouts Knuckle Joe.

Just as Hyness flies up before the uppercut, Fluff violently pulls down on the rope of yarn still wrapped around the arm, slamming Hyness on the ground. Magolor then flies above Hyness holding Beetley and strongly throws him at the mage still on the floor, and Beetley's horn plants itself right in his...

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

All the heroes wince at this.

"Oof! I know someone who won't be able to sit for a while," says Dedede with some pity. He then turns to Sweetie Belle and smirks at her. "How about we give him his own medicine?"

Sweetie Belle looks back at him in wonder for a couple of seconds before she understands what he means. Smirking back at him, she nods. So, Dedede grabs Sweetie Belle, one arm under her barrel, the other hand grabbing her tail, and horn pointed to Hyness as he restarts teleporting and attacking. he then sees Broom Sunglasses giving to him his sunglasses.

"There, to look more badass."

Smirking again, Dedede takes the sunglasses and puts them on before chuckling. "Hehehehe... Big nose!" he then yells, gaining the attention of the mage. "Say hello to my little friend."

And he starts firing. Hyness tries to avoid the oncoming storm of magical beams by teleporting, but after a few teleports, he finally gets hit, and from there, this is an endless onslaught of beams hitting him. However, after about half a minute of getting hit by beams, Hyness manages to create a new Jambastion Emblem in front of him, and he uses it to fire a huge dark beam at Dedede and Sweetie Belle, the beam engulfing all of Sweetie's beams.

Dedede drops Sweetie Belle as he starts screaming in fright at the coming beam, but thankfully, Marx, Daroach, and Magolor appear on the way and fire they own beams back, the three beams merging into a giant beam that manages to slow Hyness' dark beam. Sweetie Belle quickly joins them with her Ultimate Doom Laser, stopping the dark beam just as it has been about to reach them.

That's when Taranza appears above Hyness and throws some web on his eyes, blinding him and making him lose his focus on the dark beam. The bark beam loses its power and gets pushed back by the heroes' beam until it disappears, and Hyness gets engulfed. He is able, however, to destroy the beam around him with a powerful magical shockwave and he quickly teleports away before it could engulf him again.

Then, Hyness invokes... three logs with the Mage Sisters' clothes?

What. The. Heck?

Well, at least, those aren't the real mage sisters, so they aren't getting abused again. However, those logs reveal quickly to possess, somehow, the same elemental powers than the real mages, meaning that when Hyness starts to throw them around, they cause elemental crystals to sprout around them, but in bigger numbers because of the boost given by the Dark God. Also, Hyness throws them much faster, often more than one log at once, not minding finding himself without logs floating around him to defend him.

From there, he alternated between attacking with the logs and attacking with his magic like earlier, quickly passing from one to another. One moment, he takes a log and uses it as a pogo stick to bounce around and create elemental shockwaves, the next, he creates a circle of columns of electricity around him. Sometimes, he also returns to attacking the heroes directly by grabbing one of them and using them like he uses the logs. He even goes so far as to throw them beyond the edge of the arena. This is no problem when the hero thrown can fly, but when they can't, they have to be saved by another. One of his favorite moves is to grab someone, whether they're one of the heroes or one of the logs, and use them as a shield against any incoming projectiles until he reaches his nearest target and starts to re-use them as a club.

Let's just say that, again, the healers have to work hard.

Adeleine gets the idea of creating painted versions of the Mage Sisters to give Hyness some karma, but the mage makes short works of them even with the power of the Magical Paintbrush. It still gets his attention long enough for the heroes to trash him with everything they have, and just when he destroys the last painted mage, Kirby manages to pierce him again with a Heart Spear from behind, making him vulnerable even longer. For good measure, Sweetie Belle pierces him with a second spear.

The beatdown lasts for a whole minute, Hyness revealing to be extremely resistant, and using a huge amount of his strength, he eventually manages to remove the two spears before he pushes back everyone with a powerful magical shockwave.

Hyness then forms a Friend Circle with the three logs, to everyone's wonder. How can you do a Friend Circle with... LOGS?!

Like in the first fight, Hyness starts rolling around to crush the heroes, the rolling even more chaotic than before, Hyness changing directions without warnings, bouncing to catch off guard the flying ones, even turning at right angles without even slowing down! Some of the heroes decide to counter it with their own Friend Circle, the two circles clashing again and again until, suddenly, a second Friend Circle formed by more heroes ram Hyness from the side, breaking his Friend Circle. When he lands, he then gets crushed by the Friend Circle he has been clashing with.

Yelling crazily, Hyness recovers from this and surrounds himself with the three logs before he starts bouncing along with them, creating a total of four shockwaves each time, one for each log, and one for him, his shockwaves being of a different element each time. This happens until he's stopped by Bonkers smashing him on the head with his hammer, stopping his bounces. Hyness however manages to steal the hammer and to smash Bonkers with it, also freezing him because of ice now surrounding the weapon. He would have continued, but Bugzzy suddenly comes from behind and uses his pincers to suplex the mage in the middle of the animals who immediately start to attack him. A fiery shockwave from Hyness forces them all to jump or fly away and Hyness brings the logs back to him to form a shield, the mage hiding in the middle of them and coming out regularly to throw many giant dark orbs. He also tries to use the shield formation to directly ram the heroes every now and then.

Ribbon is the one successfully breaking the formation thanks to her constantly firing crystals at Hyness, hitting him each time that he comes out to attack. But hyness quickly recovers from the breaking and surrounds the logs with their respective element before he makes them circle him so rapidly that it looks like he's surrounded by a wheel of fire, ice, and electricity. He then flies after the heroes to hit them with it while using his own magic, fire columns and others, to make their life harder.

But Meta Knight manages to fly inside the wheel, sword charged, and once beside Hyness, he unleashes a powerful tornado that sends Hyness up in the sky where he's intercepted by Marx kicking him back toward the ground. From there, he's punched and kicked around from hero to hero, none of them letting him time to recover and teleport out of this beatdown. A Rising Break from Sweetie Belle sends him back to the air for what is probably the hundredth time, and meanwhile, Dedede inhales Kirby and spits him toward the mage, Kirby spinning with his hammer covered in fire.

SMAASH!!!

Hyness is sent crashing into the ground like a meteor, the mage bouncing a couple of times before he's caught by Wester just before he falls beyond the edge. Wester still slams him on the ground.

He doesn't move anymore.

After a few seconds of staring at Hyness in silence, the heroes sighs in relief and jump in joy at their victory.

"We did it! We did it!" shouts Elline.

Meta Knight isn't jumping in joy however. "But now, the Dark God..."

This immediately calms everyone, Sweetie Belle saying "Right. Well then, let's throw the mega heart and finish this."

They all nod.

But then, as they prepare to gather the hearts...

"Lord Hyness!"

Surprised by this sudden shout, the heroes look around and spot Zan Partizanne approaching from the sky, zipping until she reaches Hyness. She's quickly joined by the other two mages. The heroes can only see them from the back, but they can already see that something has changed about them, and not just because their clothes are now white. They sweat negativity and corruption.

Of course, entering the other dimension without the positive power of the pink heart protecting them, nothing was stopping the ambient negativity from corrupting them little by little.

Rest to see how bad the damage is.

Right now, Zan Partizanne is busy shaking the unconscious Hyness to try to wake him up, without success. "Lord Hyness! Wake up, please!" Seeing that he isn't waking up, Zan eventually stops trying and turns toward the heroes in rage, revealing that under her clothes, her body has entirely turned black, and her eyes are now red. "YOU!!! How dare you do this to Lord Hyness?!!"

Sweetie Belle huffs. "Why do you care after how he treated you? He used you like weapons! He absorbed your life force to heal himself! He beat you!"

The other two mages turn around to face her, revealing their black body and red eyes.

"We don't care!" yells angrily the red mage, Flamberge if Sweetie remembers right. "We owe our life to Lord Hyness! We're ready to give everything to him for his goal!"

The blue mage, Francisca, nods. "I must admit, Lord Hyness has changed a lot recently. It's... rigga. But no matter what, we will be at his sides."

"Exactly!" shouts Flamberge as she takes out her sword. "And now, Lord Hyness is close to reaching his goal, but suddenly, you punny 'heroes' come and beat him up! Jamblasted! I will so make you pay!"

"Ah!" shouts Dedede. "What will you be able to do against all of us? We already beat each of you! Twice! And we've pretty much doubled in number!"

"Mph! Don't underestimate us, fatso," says Zan Partizanne.

"Hey!"

"You may have defeated us in the past, but our real potential shows up when the three of us are together," continues the yellow mage as the three of them start to float, forming a triangle. "When the Three Mage-Sisters are assembled, nothing can stop us! And for your crimes against Lord Hyness, we sentence you..." They point their weapons at the heroes. "TO DEATH!!!"

Sweetie Belle hasn't fought the mages until now except for that brief moment against Zan Partizanne before fighting Hyness, so all she has to prepare herself to the fight is the obvious knowledge that Francisca uses ice and an axe, Flamberge uses fire and a sword, and Zan Partizanne uses lightning and some spear with protrusions on the sides of the head. Her friends also told her that Francisca uses a powerful water gun (with very cold water), Flamberges uses a big cannon spitting a huge stream of fire, and Zan uses a giant ring with three drums to fire electric balls and amplify her lightning powers. For the full extent of their skill in the use of their weapons, she just knows that they are 'really good'. Meta Knight even said they are equal to his, easily.

Powerful magic users and skilled weapon users. They would be wonderful opponents in one on one fights, but here, they are 49 versus 3. Sweetie doesn't give them much chance. It will depend on if what they claim is true and their teamwork is also THAT good.

But right now, as the fight starts, the heroes clearly have the upper hand on the mage. Well, it seems more like the mages are testing the water, what with the many powerful beings who have joined the hero team during Zan's fight previously. They just fly around, swinging and thrusting their weapons left and right, and every now and then, they use their elemental powers, but nothing too big.

Francisca's attacks consist mainly in throwing ice shards, slamming the axe to create spikes of ice around it, or growing her axe and throwing it like a disc to trap in ice anyone touched by it before swinging the axe to throw them like projectiles. Flamberge uses the usual fireballs, fiery shockwaves and even creates and throws more swords, the swords creating small pillars of fire once hitting the ground before disappearing. She can also drag the point of the sword against the ground, creating a small wall of fire in its path. Finally, Zan Partizanne can zip around like lightning, making her very fast, and each of her attacks are also at the speed of the lightning and are followed by sparks of electricity. She also often fires small lightning bolts. She is by far the most dangerous of the three, no wonder she's the leader.

But that's all. No water gun, fire cannon, and thunder ring. And it feels like all of those attacks could be more powerful. Francisca only throws, like, two ice shards at a time. Same with Flamberge and her swords. No thunderstorms from Zan Partizanne.

Yes, that's it, they're just testing the heroes before going all out, like any good warrior does in a fight against unknown opponents. They try to learn about them and their attacks, styles, skills, and all. And then, once they've a good feeling, all weights are dropped.

Too bad for them, Sweetie Belle and most of the heroes coming from her team are good warriors and know better than to reveal everything from the start, also testing their enemies.

So, while they fight easy, Sweetie decides to ask something.

"What has Hyness done for you to be ready to give everything to him, even letting him use you as weapons?"

She wasn't sure that the mages would answer, but to her surprise, Francisca starts talking. "He saved our lives."

"Uh?"

"Wait, really?" asks Dedede as he avoids a thrust from Zan Partizanne. "The guy saved your lives? I've a hard time believing it. He seems more like a guy who destroys lives."

"Of course you think that!" yells Flamberge. "You don't know Lord Hyness like we do!" she finishes before doing some fast thrusts at Dark Meta Knight.

"Lord Hyness only wishes to bring all of us to a brighter future," says Zan Partizanne. "All our lives, we have only known misery. But when we were at our lowest, when we had stopped hoping... When I was about to give up... he came, and gave us back the hope we had lost. He gave us a meaning, a goal, a promise. Never again we would suffer."

Dodging a bomb thrown by Daroach, Francisca continues. "Hyness lived through the same misery as us. Do you know about the Ancients, and their story?"

Susie points at Magolor. "We have one of their descendants right here. Magic clan."

"Really?!" shouts Flamberge before she turns to Magolor. "Then why are you working with them?! You should be helping us!"

Magolor shrugs. "I don't know what Hyness lived through, but I come from a clan of nomads, and we weren't really in misery. That was a good life."

"Mph! You're lucky then," says Flamberge. "Not all descendants of the Magic clan got a good life like you."

"Not only the Magic clan was exiled to this universe, but they were also limited to the edge of the galaxies, where their power would be limited!" shouts Zan. "They lost everything! They were the ones who sealed Galacta Knight, and yet, this is how they were thanked! And their situation only got worse as the generations passed, starting with them breaking into hundreds of smaller clans! And Lord Hyness comes from one of those clans who weren't lucky! And he wants to stop this! With the Dark Lord Void Termina, he will lead us to a life where none of us will suffer anymore! And make the Techno clan pay for everything they did!"

"Even if he has gotten a little konjy since then," says Francisca with a sigh. "He probably got so invested in his goals that he stopped caring about the rest. Hopefully, once his goal is reached, he will return to his normal self."

"This won't work!" shouts Sweetie Belle. "The Dark God will destroy everything, including you! There won't be any happy ending for you or anyone if this continues!"

"Mafos!" yells Zan. "The Dark Lord is like us! He was betrayed and his life has only been misery since then! Why would he attack us?! Jes, he may destroy the universe, but only to purge it of everything wrong in it! He will then rebuild it, and finally, we will live in peace! All the rest can disappear for all we care!"

Sweetie Belle frowns. Hopefully, this is the corruption speaking for them. Or the anger born because of what happened to them. It's probably best to continue this discussion once they are cleansed of the corruption. It will be easier to convince them to stop. Hopefully, thanks to the power of the pink heart, Hyness will also be reasoned.

Right now, the fight seems to be mostly a stalemate with a little advantage to the heroes. The mages have adapted well to them, but they still receive more hits than they give.

But then, they do something that takes everyone by surprise. They gather at the edge of the arena, above Hyness, raise their weapons as if doing a prayer, and start singing.

"In spite of all, cold as ice! In spite of all, hard as stone!
In spite of all, hear our plea! In spite of all, all alone!"

"What the-?!" shouts Sweetie Belle.

As the mages sing, they point their weapons back at the heroes, but now, something is clearly different about them. It's not a boost of power like what happens when Sweetie sings. No, it's something else.

"In spite of all, we reconcile! In spite of all, we pass the trial!
In spite of all, hear us three! We beg of thee! We beg of thee!"

Acting like one, the three mages charge at the heroes, attacking in perfect coordination. Already, one by one, they take down the heroes. One of the mages, generally Francisca, gains the attention of the target by attacking from the front, a second mage, generally Zan Partizanne, attacks from a different angle, and the third mage, generally Flamberge, protects the second one from anyone trying to stop her. And they work quickly.

"In spite of all, we sing to you!
Please hear our pleas and help us too!"

However, the heroes quickly recover from this surprise and start to act in consequence. They assemble in small groups, protecting each other, always making sure that someone is forcing Flamberge to defend herself so she can't stop the others from stopping Zan Partizanne.

"In spite of all, sadness rose!
In spite of all, yearning grows!
We call to you! We dream of you!
In spite of all, this all is true!"

The mages quickly understand that their tactic doesn't work anymore and changes it for a more brutal one: they go all out.

They take out the water gun, fire cannon, and thunder ring, go back to back, and start spinning together, Francisca constantly firing a stream of water, Flamberge a stream of fire, and Zan Partizanne balls of electricity. They make sure that Zan's balls follow Francisca's water to multiply the effects of the electricity.

After spinning two times, they rise to the sky, and while Francisca recharges her water gun, Flamberge invokes a dozen swords that she throws everywhere while Zan Partizanne continues firing electric balls all over the area, their combined attack covering the majority of the space.

"In spite of all, cold as ice! In spite of all, hard as stone!
In spite of it all, it would seem…in spite of all, we’re but a dream."

Once their attacks stop, Francisca restarts firing water, this time all over the ground, wetting it completely (except near Hyness). Zan Partizanne, still with her ring, then grabs her weapon and covers it in electricity, ready to throw it. The heroes understand what she's about to do, but the only ones able to escape in time are the ones who can fly. When Zan's spear hits the floor, electricity all over the area, electrifying everyone that hasn't been able to escape. Meanwhile, Flamberges attacks the ones who have escaped with her swords and her fireballs, focusing on the more vulnerable ones who can't defend themselves while flying like Kirby and Dedede. Luckily they can count on their friends to defend them.

"Hear our plea, you must! (You must!)
Please return our hearts to us!"

That's enough! thinks Sweetie Belle as Francisca rows her axe and throws it while Flamberge drags the tip of her sword to create firewalls and Zan Partizanne twirls her spear to create storm clouds and rain lightning bolts from them. At the three of them, they cover the whole battlefield.

Since they have started singing, their teamwork has become perfect.

Well then...

"We are the Star Allies,
To friendship we'll give rise!
Against your might we will defend!"

Sweetie suddenly singing over the mages' song takes the three of them off guard, opening them for the first time to some serious counterattack, the heroes taking this occasion to go all out on them while the boost given by Sweetie's song is starting to take effect, spreading to all of them. A pink tint reveals that the power of the pink hearts has something in it.

The mages look furiously at the filly who looks back at them with a big smirk and they immediately charge to attack her, continuing to sing their song with difficulty. Their charge is quickly stopped by the others protecting Sweetie Belle.

"In spite of all, cold as-"

"We will surely pull through,"

"cold as ice! In spite of all-"

"With our strong friendship crew!"

"In spite of all, hard as stone!"

"Due to us, darkness will end!"

"STOP IT!!!" yells Flamberge.

She's answered by Sweetie Belle giving her a headbutt at rocket speed, propelling her beyond the edge of the arena. Then, before the other two mages could turn toward her, Francisca finds herself kicked from above by Marx with enough force to make her crash violently, and Zan Partizanne is barely able to parry Meta Knight only to be slashed repeatedly from behind by Bandana Dee doing the helicopter with his spear.

"Our friendship will prevail
And bad guys will all fail!
We're here because peace is so frail!"

The mage quickly regroup away from the heroes and take a huge breath, trying to regain their focus despite Sweetie's song. They're quickly joined by the heroes who can teleport, and the mages are forced to defend themselves, but they still retry to sing with more or less success.

"In spite of all, cold as ice! In spite of all, hard as stone!"

"When the weak call
We jump in-to the brawl"

"In spite of all, hear our plea! In spite of all, all alone!"

"Even aaaagainst the Goood ooof aaall!"

The mages restart attacking in coordination, but it becomes rapidly clear that despite their singing, they aren't able to totally focus like before because of Sweetie's song, and their teamwork isn't as effective as a result. Add in that the heroes are now boosted, faster, stronger, more powerful, and more resistant, and the mages quickly understand that they're now at a disadvantage. And they just can't make that filly shut up!

"We are the Star Allies,
To friendship we'll give rise!
The universe'll see the sunrise!"

"In spite of all, we reconcile! In spite of all, we pass the trial!
In spite of all, hear us three! We beg of thee! We beg of thee!"

This doesn't mean that the mages give up, and they even do something unexpected. Flamberge and Francisca face each other, then fire their fire cannon and water gun. The fire causes the water to evaporate, creating a fog that covers the whole battlefield and where everyone can barely see anything. Now pretty much blind, they have no choice but to rely on their other senses, mainly hearing but also touch, trying to feel when someone or something approaches. Without surprises, the mages use their hearing to follow Sweetie Belle's singing and attack her directly, but the filly is ready.

"In spite of all, we sing to you!"

"Our friendship will prevail
And bad guys will all fail!"

"Please hear our pleas and help us too!"

"They will all fail in their cause"

With her ten beam swords, Sweetie Belle is able to parry the three of them and to slash them back, opening them to others who come to her help like Meta Knight. After some quick exchanges, the mages manage to disappear again in the fog. Sweetie Belle then gather her cannons into three groups of three, starting to charge energy.

"And that's because-"

She suddenly flies up, avoiding a lightning spear followed by a stream of fire and a stream of water coming from three different directions, and immediately fires three charged beams from her cannons in those directions, hitting the three mages. At the same time, Dark Meta Knight has also gathered in his sword enough energy to unleash a giant tornado that sweep away the fog. Knowing that the tornado would come, the heroes have all made sure to move to the edge of the arena and to brace themselves to resist the strong wind.

Because of this and of Sweetie's lasers, the mages briefly stopped singing, but they quickly recovered and continued.

"We are the Star Allies!
The darkness will not rise
Because misery we despise!"

"In spite of all, sadness rose!
In spite of all, yearning grows!
We call to you! We dream of you!
In spite of all, this all is true!"

The three mages place themselves back to back again and restart spinning while using the water gun, fire cannon, and thunder ring to fire water, fire, and electric ball. But this time, the heroes who don't fly away simply manage to walk between the steams and out of the area of the balls. That's when Plugg places himself beside the stream of water and electrifies it, causing the water to conduct the electricity to Francisca who gets electrified. Flamberge looks at the Plugg in rage and invokes another cannon to fire at him, only for Driblee to come and to fire some water at the wick, extinguishing the fire. This causes the cannon to overheat and explode under Flamberge, propelling her in the air before she crashes on Francisca. Seeing this, Zan Partizanne goes ballistic and starts firing hundreds of electric balls everywhere, but then Kawasaki invokes his pot, but instead of cooking, he takes the pot and throws the soup in it at Zan's ring. As a result, the ring short-circuit and explodes, sending the mage to crash on the two others.

The heroes then gather and start using the power of the hearts to charge the same giant beam they used against Morpho Knight.

"Happiness will prevail
We promise, we won't fail!
And this is! Because! We are!"

By the time the mages recover from what happened to them, it is too late.

"The Star Allies!"

They look up in panic at the heroes as they fire the beam. Francisca still manages to put up an ice shield around them before the beam hits, but it quickly breaks under its huge power. The mages are engulfed in the beam, and when it disappears, they lay unconscious extremely burned, but still alive.

And so, the heroes finally sit down and take a breath after those two hard fights. The mages weren't kidding. But looking up at the dimension still breaking apart, they know that they don't have time to lose. So, after some seconds, Magolor teleports to Hyness and drags his body beside the three mages.

This is it.

Gathering together, the heroes raise their arms (or whatever), and use the 120 hearts they have collected to form a giant pink heart, and they throw it at the four unconscious mages.

As planned, the three girls are immediately cleansed of the corruption and healed, but as they wake up, they suddenly hear a horrible yell of agony coming from Hyness. The leader of the Jambastion Religion starts thrashing around before he's engulfed in a dark cloud. The cloud then flies away into the sky.

"LORD HYNESS!!!" yell the three mages in horror.

So the hearts weren't enough to expel Void, or Void Termina, out of Hyness? Well, at least, they forced him out even if he's still partially merged to Hyness and, hopefully, they will be able to do something to save him.

Thinking this, Sweetie Belle approaches the mages and says "Don't worry, we will save him."

Hearing her, the mages turn to her, Zan saying a single word in confusion. "What?"

"We will fight Void Termina and save Hyness."

"W-wha-but... But the Dark Lord... Lord Hyness' goal..."

Sweetie Belle frowns at them. "What do you prefer? Letting Hyness get absorbed by the Dark God, or saving him? Is the world you seek worth that?"

The mages don't answer, and they look down in silence, not knowing what to do. They are then surprised by Kirby who hugs them one by one. "Poyo!"

Meta Knight sighs. "Your goal will never be reached, because a world as perfect as you desire doesn't exist. Nothing is entirely white, there will always be some black. Not even Gods can do anything about this."

"But you can still have what you desire simply by being with each other," says Taranza. "It's with the ones you love that true happiness is reached. But now, you're about to lose someone you love, and without him... This won't be the same... Perfect world or not..."

"And, you know, despite everything that happened, we can still welcome you to Popstar," says Sweetie Belle. "This is certainly not the perfect world you want," she continues with a shrug. "but at least, it's peaceful. And it's easy to make friends. And more friends means better, because it becomes easier to face anything that life throws at you. We certainly wouldn't have come this far alone."

"Really? After everything we did?" asks Flamberge doubtfully.

"Bah!" shouts Dedede before he points at Gooey. "Comes from a race that plunged countless worlds into darkness." He points at Marx. "He manipulated everyone to conquer Popstar." He points at Dark Meta Knight. "He imprisoned Meta Knight in a mirror and spread terror under the order of his master and creator." he points at Daroach. "Leader of a group of thieves that robbed at least half of my fortresses." He points at Yin-Yarn. "Tried to conquer Popstar and even brainwashed me." He points at Magolor. "Manipulated us to get the Master Crown and used it to try to conquer the universe. He even tried to kill us." He points at Taranza. "Captured Sweetie Belle and controlled her to force her to fight us." He points at Susie. "Mechanized Popstar and turned half the population into robots or cyborgs." He points at Meta Knight. "Tried to conquer Dreamland with his battleship."

Sweetie Belle points at Dedede. "Stole all the food of Dreamland for himself."

"Yeah yeah, whatever. So, you see, if we accept guys like them, then we can accept you. Now, you can accept joining us or not. Your choice. But either way, we will go, because we have a Dark God to stop and an universe to save. Without forgetting your crazy guy. So you should hurry to decide because we won't wait."

At this, the heroes approach the edge of the place, remarking that now that Void Termina is gone, whatever has been stopping the destruction from coming here has disappeared.

"Mmh... I highly advise you to come with us if you want to live," says Daroach. "If you still don't want to help us, then we will drop you through a rift before going."

"We are coming with you!" then shouts Zan Partizanne. "We don't want to lose Lord Hyness! We don't care what happens to the Dark Lord!" She looks down in sadness. "Beside, we can feel now that you aren't mafoing... The Dark Lord... Void Termina... He will destroy all of us? He will not... help us?"

Sweetie Belle shakes her head. "No. Right now, he only cares about destroying everything. Sorry for Hyness, but he will have to think of something else to reach his goal. Hopefully, he will understand that he won't have to destroy the universe to reach it."

The mages sigh at this before nodding.

"Well then, welcome to the team!" says Marx.

After this, they all use the pink hearts to create a Friend Star with all of them forming a single line. However, they give to it move energy thanks to the 120 hearts, the Friend Star changes into a bigger, hollow star cut vertically in half with Kirby in the hole now possessing a heart-shaped visor. Like the Dragoon, the star now possesses rainbow-colored feather-things at the back.

The Star Allies Sparkler.

With it, the heroes leave behind the pond and fly into the sky after the dark cloud.

Mentally, they prepare themselves for the ultimate fight.

The fight against the Dark God Void Termina.

Chapter 111: The Destroyer of Worlds: Void Termina

The tension is at its height among the ponies, dragon, and draconequus watching Sweetie Belle and her friends. Despite the portal only being a one way window, they all could feel the power of the Dark God the instant the dark cloud engulfed Hyness, filling all of them with dread. Despite this, some of the ponies are still able to do what they do best.

"Come on, Sweetie! We're with you!" shouts Hondo Flanks as he waves a flag with Sweetie's face on it.

"Yeah! Show this God!" yells Pinkie, doing the same.

Most of the fillies and colts are surrounding them, also cheering.

Babs Seed looks at Discord. "Uh... Is this the time to throw those hearts you gave us?"

"Not now," answers Discord, not stopping to look at the portal. "Soon."

---

All forms of activities in the Dream Universe immediately stopped the instant the dark cloud enveloped Hyness, because everyone could feel it: a powerful being is free.

The majority doesn't know that this being is a Dark God, but they all understand that he's powerful enough to destroy the universe, and that he must be responsible for all those rifts. Only a handful, mainly descendants of the mighty Ancients and some others, understands that this being is THE Dark God free from his prison.

Most inhabitants of the Dream Universe immediately start panicking, thinking that this is the end. What could stop this being from destroying the universe? Only a handful knows that they still have a chance: a group of heroes.

And so, this handful starts mentally encouraging those heroes, hoping for the best.

Because that's all they can do: hope.

Please, be careful...
You can't lose! You hear?!
You are our last hope...
Come back safe...
Great King! Save us!
Boss! We're with you!
Come on, heroes. You can do it.

---

It doesn't take long for the heroes to catch up to the dark cloud. As if sensing that they want to fight, the dark cloud then starts approaching a huge crystalline arena surrounded by small planetoïds above a seemingly infinite space ocean that has survived the destruction for now.

Following the cloud, the heroes divide themselves into ten Star Allies Sparklers, all of them containing five heroes excepted two containing six (including one where the six animals are grouped together). Kirby and Sweetie Belle are at the head of their own stars, Kirby being with Meta Knight, Gooey, NESP, and Rocky, while Sweetie is with Dedede, Bandana Dee, Taranza, and Birdon.

The dark cloud stops at the center of the arena, and the heroes stop a few dozens feet away from it, watching in determination as the cloud grows.

Then, two huge arms made of cloud come out of it, the cloud forming them changing to become skin and objects, followed by two huge feet loudly stomping on the arena. Finally, the cloud disappears, revealing HIM.

The Dark God.

ROOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARR!!!!!!

The roar of the titanic beast is almost enough to send the Sparklers flying, but they resist, and as Void Termina slowly starts advancing toward them, each steps causing a huge shockwave, the heroes disperse to circle him.

Void Termina's attention seems to remain focused on the star with Kirby, the little, round, empty eyes of his heart shaped... mask? Head? constantly following him.

The heroes are the first to attack, the ten stars firing star projectiles and lasers at the Dark God from all sides. Only, the projectiles bounce from his body, not affecting him at all.

As if waiting for the heroes to understand that they're powerless against him, it's only now that Void Termina starts attacking. Targetting the heroes closest to the ground, he starts pounding it with his strong fists, creating pillar-like shockwaves the size of small buildings that home in on them. The targetted heroes quickly fly out of the way, getting away from the ground. But then, Void Termina punches the air, sending more shockwaves as projectiles. The heroes barely avoid them.

"He's playing with us..." says Meta Knight.

"And we can't do anything in return! How will we beat him if our projectiles bounce from his body?!" shouts Dedede.

"There must be something..." says Sweetie Belle. "We can't lose..."

Then, as Void Termina continues punching the air, a red eye appears on his chest, and the Dark God looks at it in annoyance before putting a hand on it to protect it.

"Weakpoint spotted!" shouts Bonkers.

"It's weird for him to have such a weakness appear like that," wonders Taranza.

"And it reminds me of the weakpoints on Susie's robot form," says Ribbon.

"But now, how will we reach it with his hand protecting it?" asks NESP.

"I think I know," says Meta Knight. "Now that he's using a hand to protect the weakpoint, he can only use the other to attack. If we avoid his projectiles, he may eventually lose patience and may restart using both hands. That's when we will hit."

"Poyo!" says Kirby with a nod.

So the heroes proceed to do their best to avoid the shockwaves sent by Void Termina, and as planned, after about one minute, the Dark God loses patience. However, instead of using his other hand, he jumps directly toward the heroes, intending to crush some of them under his giant elephant-like feet. Despite the surprise, the heroes are able to fly out of the way, and Void Termina lands without hitting anyone, his landing creating dozens of shockwaves that spread to the whole arena, some of them in the air! Despite his frustration at not hitting anyone, Void Termina quickly acts again, sweeping the air with his arm to try to slap some of the heroes still too close like flies. One of the stars is hit and sent to crash on one of the planetoïds, but they quickly recover and return to the fight.

Seeing that his tactic worked, Void Termina jumps toward the heroes again and immediately tries to slap them, but this time, they see it coming and avoid his arm, to his annoyance. Not trying again, Void Termina decides to use something else, and to everyone's surprise, his hand morphs into a whip, its base looking like the Master Crown, that he uses to wrap and throw one of the planetoïds.

Acting quickly in panic, the heroes about to get rammed by the planetoïd fire huge beams and successfully destroy it. Void Termina then uses his whip to send another planetoïd, but this time, the heroes gather and charge at it, and after a small clash, they send the planetoïd back at Void Termina, hitting him on the head. The hit causes him to take a few steps back to regain his balance, using his two arms, which means that his weakpoint isn't protected anymore.

The ten stars immediately fire lasers at it, and before Void Termina can protect it again, the weakpoint explodes, causing him to step back again. Recovering, he looks at his chest in what seems to be surprise as a second weakpoint appears on his left shoulder.

ROOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARR!!!!!!

Yelling in rage, Void Termina morphs his two hands into giant swords that are actually Ultra Swords (with their bases still looking like the Master Crown). From the beak-like bottom of his mask, he then spits fire at them, turning them into fire swords. He then swings the swords to send huge waves of fire at the heroes, sometimes using both swords to send a giant X of fire that home in slightly on one of the stars. He makes sure to target in priority the ones flying to his left to target his shoulder. This still doesn't stop them from destroying his weakpoint, causing a third one to appear on his right shoulder.

Void Termina changes the element of his swords to electricity before he prepares to swing them again. But again, he takes everyone by surprise by jumping to the heroes before spinning with his swords, spreading electricity all around him. More than half the stars are electrified by this attacks, so the heroes quickly separate and make sure to remain as far from each others as possible as they circle the Dark God.

Void Termina morphs his swords back into hands, and uses his left hand to cover his right shoulder while he morphs his right hand into a gun and fires at the heroes with it. The heroes get away from him and hide behind the planetoïds. Flying from planetoïd to planetoïd, they gather behind one before they all charge at it, sending it toward Void Termina. Not letting himself get hit, Void Termina fires at the Planetoïd and destroys it, only for a second planetoïd to come behind it, taking him by surprise. The Dark God is hit again on the head, causing him to almost lose his balance like before. The heroes use this to destroy the now unprotected weakpoint.

A fourth weakpoint appears on Void Termina's back.

Not letting them time to circle him again, Void Termina jumps high into the air and violently smashes the arena, totally breaking it into pieces that starts floating around. He then kicks one of those pieces to send it at some of the heroes who barely avoid it before he raises his hands and creates two huge dragons made of fire. The dragons proceed to fly in the field of debris, hunting the heroes. While they're busy escaping the dragons, Void Termina starts jumping from debris to debris, using his strenght each time that he jumps from one to send it flying toward the heroes. The more crazy is that he has no problems standing on something no matter if he walks on it, under it, or on the side. Gravity doesn't work on him.

Eventually, the dragons disappear, and Void Termina stops jumping to create new ones. The heroes take this occasion to play his own game and to charge at one of the floating pieces of the arena to send it at him. Void Termina however sees it coming and stops creating the dragons before jumping away, punching a piece on the way to send it back at the heroes who disperse again. What Void hasn't seen is that not all the stars were gathered in front of him. Three stars come from behind him and manage to destroy his weakpoint, taking him by surprise.

A fifth weakpoint appears on his mask.

Void Termina immediately covers it with his left hand, then punches the air with his right hand. Only, he actually punches a hole in space, and his fist comes out of another hole beside one of the stars. The star hasn't time to get out of the way before it is punched, the punch sending it flying. Void Termina then punches another hole to punch another star, his fist also hitting.

Despite this, the heroes who haven't been punched gather to charge and throw another piece of arena at Void Termina, but the Dark God simply destroys it with a punch, and also destroys the one that follows. He then punches a hole in space again, but before he could punch one of the stars, a beam comes from nowhere and creates a star-shaped portal right in the way. Another similar portal appears just in front of Void Termina's mask, and out of it comes his own fist. The Dark God ends up punching himself on the face.

The heroes quickly look at the origin of the beam and spot the Lor Starcutter approaching. They nod at it in thanks before they fire at the now unprotected weakpoint, but they aren't able to destroy it in time before Void Termina recovers and covers it again. He then raises his left hand and creates a huge ball of electricity. But rather than sending it directly, he closes his hand, breaking the ball into dozens of smaller balls that are sent everywhere. He then repeats the action again and again and again before he takes the heroes off guard by sending a giant electric ball directly with a punch.

Uncovering his weakpoint while the heroes recover from this attack, he then... grabs the space in front of him and tears a hole in it. A huge space beam then comes out of the hole to attack the heroes who have been hit by the electric ball, but the heroes recover faster than expected and manage to avoid the space beam. In return, they all fire at the weakpoint, and this time, destroy it.

Void Termina's mask then does a full turn on itself before the Dark God's body falls on the piece of arena he is, seemingly losing consciousness. But then, the mask fall from his body, revealing a hole with a vortex to enter his body.

The heroes aren't sure of what to do.

"Do we... enter?" asks Waddle Doo.

"But why would we enter?" asks Bandana Dee.

"This isn't Void Termina's real body," then says Zan Partizanne.

"What?" ask the others.

"This is just a shell to protect his real body."

"Ah. This explains so much," says Sweetie Belle. "It reminds me of what you did, Taranza. You too, Daroach."

"So we have no choice," says Dedede.

"Yes. And we should hurry before he recovers," says Magolor. "We would have to restart from the beginning."

Not wanting this, the heroes hurry to the vortex and let it suck them inside Void Termina's shell, leaving behind the Star Allies Sparklers.

The inside of the shell reveals to be bigger than expected, and for a shell, it is surprisingly... fleshy. Which is also disgusting. They swear they can even hear a heart beat. But it seems that Void Termina expected them to enter, because they fall on platforms made of hexagons, which reminds them of the platforms in the cloud of darkness in which Sweetie, Kirby, and Ribbon fought Zero Two.

Above them, they spot what must be their target: a spherical core, which looks more like another protective shell also made of flesh (linked to the main body by... veins?). A particularity of this shell is that it has many swirls in which yellow hearts are flowing.

Behind it, trapped in a fleshy cocoon, is Hyness back to normal but unconscious.

"Lord Hyness!" yell the three mages at seeing him.

But before they can do anything, the body starts shaking, causing drops of liquid to fall from the ceiling. The heroes quickly discover, painfully, that this liquid must be acid. The round shell also starts to spout from an opening strange purple smoke-like symboles that fly around randomly, and again, the heroes discover that anyone touching them is injured.

So the heroes start attacking the shell while doing their best to avoid the drops and the symboles. Not much difficulty here, excepted that the more they damage the shell, the more the opening widens (revealing that the inside of the shell is entirely plunged in a cloud of negativity), and the more symboles are spouting out of it. The symboles also get bigger. Some of them can be destroyed, making the heroes' job easier.

During this fight, due to the constant shaking of the body, Hyness' cocoon is destroyed, letting the leader drop on the platform.

After a whole minute passed at attacking the shell, the heroes have opened it enough that some of them decide to jump on it to place their hands in the opening and use their strength to, well, totally open it. They get hit by many symboles as a result, but this is worth it, because they manage to open enough the shell to cause the negativity inside it to escape, totally breaking it.

However, this also causes the heroes to be expelled out of the body along with Hyness. Thankfully, the Star Allies Sparklers are still here and quickly come to take the heroes before they fall into the ocean below. As for Hyness, the Lor Starcutter catches him before it escapes inside a portal, to the mages' relief. The heroes then move away as Void Termina's body restarts moving. With his hands, he grabs the mask and puts it back at its place before getting up. He then spread his arms, and turns them into wings! Disturbingly, the 'feathers' are white and red hexagons, which are a direct reminder of Zero Two's wings as well as Marx' (for the hexagons) and even Star Dream (the red hexagons have the same form than Star Dream's feathers). He then pushes a different roar than before, his voice now ressembling Kirby's, before he jumps, and his legs morph into a tail that is actualy a succession of heart-shaped purple crystals.

Taking off, Void Termina flies away, and the heroes immediately proceed to chase him, away of what remains of the arena. After a few seconds, Void Termina turns around and tries to ram them, but the heroes have no problem avoiding him. After this, the Dark God faces them again, but this time, he sends some of his 'feathers' as projectiles, almost getting some of them.

That's when the shell's weakpoint finally appears on the chest. Seeing this, Void Termina immediately turns around so his back faces the heroes who have no choice but to fly after him among the black holes and other dangers of the dying dimension.

Void Termina is much too fast for the heroes to expect to overtake him and be able to reach his weakpoint, so they have to find something or wait until the Dark God turns around. So, until something happens or they find something, they have no choice but to follow him.

Then, Void Termina starts using his wings to slash the space around him, creating holes after holes from which giant space beams are fired at the heroes. After a few seconds of this, the heroes managing to avoid the totality of the beams, they come near a planet that hasn't been yet destroyed, and Void Termina materializes something that looks like a giant, bat-winged Master Crown. The Master Crown lookalike then fires a huge, extremely powerful laser at the planet, and almost as soon as the laser hits the planet, it explodes into millions of giant boulders flying into all directions, including toward the heroes. Again, the heroes do their best to avoid them, also firing at the boulders to destroy them.

Destroyer of Worlds alright. Only one laser and a few seconds was all it took. It's at this moment that the heroes truly understand the full scale of Void Termina's power. They just can't let him escape.

At least, the destruction of this planets reveals to be a boon for the heroes, because as a giant boulder passes in front of them, they charge at it, sending it toward the Dark God. Having his back turned to the heroes, Void Termina doesn't see the boulder coming and he's hit by it, causing him to lose control. He quickly recovers, but when he looks back to see how close the heroes are now, he doesn't see them anymore. They seem to have disappeared.

But he knows better. Feeling the matters in them, Void Termina 'sees' that they're now above him, hidden behind a boulder. They probably expect him to look around for them, and then, they would come out of their hiding place to attack him by surprise.

Nice try.

He slashes a hole to fire a space beam at them. Obviously, they have been watching him, because they escape. Void Termina quickly turns around to hide again his weakpoint before they could attack it.

He has forgotten again to count.

Suddenly, four Star Allies Sparkler come out of a rift in front of him and immediately fire at his weakpoint. This is not enough to destroy it, but Void Termina is so taken off guard that he flies backward in surprise, letting the others catch him and attack his weakpoint too. It explodes before he knows it, and another appears on his left shoulder.

The heroes know that the God who can create the four matters could certainly sense them no matter where they are, so they expected him to spot them behind the boulder. But this is what they wanted. While a first group gained Void Termina's attention and stopped him from flying further, a second group entered a rift they could see lead to Popstar and quickly flew to another nearby rift that they saw would lead them back in front of Void Termina just as he started to turn around.

A plan that has gone perfectly, but now, the Dark God is even more angry. He is already flying away, and as soon as the heroes start chasing him again, he starts doing aileron roles while slashing space, creating a double space spiral firing space beam that, at this point, are more space wall beams that seem to spin.

This continues like this for a few more seconds before, to their horror, the heroes see that they are approaching the space where the other dimension and the Dream Universe are now forming one. Jambandra Base is visible in front of them, not much affected for now by the nearby destruction.

They can't do anything to stop Void Termina from entering the Dream Universe. It is already a miracle that the Dark God hasn't decided to use one of the rifts until now. They now just hope that the others have gone away with the ships.

This hope is broken when, as they now fly around the Jambandra Base, they see the battleships still here. To their surprise, they have even grown in numbers, dozens of painted ships now being present here and there.

No matter, they will all get destroyed if they remain here!

---

Vul taps nervously on one of the consoles in the bridge of the Halberd.

He knows, right now, that Meta Knight and the others are fighting the Dark God. He can feel it, and he has no doubts that they will win, but meanwhile, the Dream Universe is slowly going to hell. Especially around the Jambandra Base. The space where the two universes are merging is growing more and more rapidly, surrounded, by now, by a real web of cracks as well as by a field of black holes. Already, he, as well as the captains of the other ships, have ordered to move away from the Jambandra Base, which chunks of it are slowly being sucked by the holes. But they don't go too far because, well, they aren't sure what to do, but they still hope to be useful again in some way.

Okay, the thing is, if the Dark God comes passing by this merging space, they hope to stop him from going further into the Dream Universe. They don't want him to come near any planet, even if they have to die (but Vul wouldn't mind not dying). With the members of the Jambastion Religion joining them, they now have an armada of almost one hundred ships (plus four dragons and a legendary air ride machine), so surely they will be able to help stop the Dark God if he comes.

At least, this Galacta Knight, apparently the most powerful warrior of the universe (under Sweetie Belle now), is now among them. Well, he's now sleeping, but they can always wake him up as soon as they see the Dark God coming.

Which Vul hopes will never happens!

"Captain Vul! Something is approaching from the Jambandra Base!" suddenly shouts an Axe Knight.

Oh dear Dark God, please, tell me it's not you... "What is it?"

"It... looks like a giant bird... with a really weird head."

"We are seeing it!" then says Lockwar through the link they have kept with the other ships. "Oh... Oh [bip]! it's him, guys! It's the Dark God!"

"That bird is the Dark God?!" asks Paint Roller.

"Hey! I think I see the boss and the others chasing him!" shouts Doc.

Vul gulps. "Okay everyone! Let's do like we said! Ready the cannons! We will not let that monster come further!"

"Little reminder that the Ancients fought him with huge armadas of certainly more powerful ships than ours and still got almost wiped," says a Mace Knight.

"Silence, you!"

---

If there's something that Void Termina hasn't been expecting, beside having a surprisingly hard fight against a bunch of mortals (and one not so mortal that feels like him) immediately after waking up, is to find himself facing an armada of spaceships ready to welcome him with a barrage of thousands of lasers and other projectiles. They don't know about his weakpoint, so they fire randomly all over his body, but some of the projectiles still hit his weakpoint and destroy it.

As the third weakpoint appears on his right shoulder, he maneuvers to get out of this barrage. As he approaches the ships, he then spots Mirror Kirby approaching him very rapidly with the Dragoon. Despite the vehicle's speed, Void Termina still manages to slap it away. The Landias then come to fight him too, but Void Termina easily gets rid of them with a charge doubled with an aileron roll to slap all of them. He then creates four crossbows and fires four ice arrows at them before they recover. This isn't enough to kill the dragons, but at least, they stop being a nuisance, trapped inside ice.

He continues flying to get away of the heroes still following him and to avoid the projectiles of the ships still firing at him. Creating a giant axe under him, he approaches the closest ship, the Halberd, and gets ready to slice it in two. That's when Galacta Knight comes and parries the axe!

"Ngh!"

Galacta Knight is still slammed against the Halberd by the axe, and the ship is pushed to the side by the force of the blow, an indentation forming where Galacta Knight is stopping the axe from cutting the ship. Void Termina eventually gives up trying to cut the ship. He knows Galacta Knight, his most powerful son, and knows that he will not yield like that. The Halberd's claw also forces him to get away.

Galacta immediately flies at him to attack his weakpoint, but Void Termina flies to the side to avoid him, only to find himself attacked by the heroes who have caught up to him. The ships finish to destroy the weakpoint, the fourth appearing on his back.

Galacta Knight, he can deal with. A group of punny heroes, he can deal with. An armada of spaceships, he can deal with. But all of them together, and just as only two weakpoints are remaining? He must starts to get serious.

At least, the other three warriors who sealed him aren't here.

Facing the ships, Void Termina materializes dozens of giant electric spears that he throws at them. One by one, the near one hundred ships are pierced and electrified. Only the Unisqueak is able to avoid the spear coming at it. The spear aren't enough to destroy the ships, but they, at least, badly damage them, and the crews have probably been badly hurt by the electricity. As a result, all the ships stop firing and start simply floating around like ghost ships.

He will destroy them later. Right now, he has more pressing matter to deal with: Galacta Knight and the heroes who have just started to fire at his back.

And they are also sweating. Again, Void Termina just proved that he's a God by incapacitating a whole armada in a few seconds. Thankfully, he hasn't destroyed them... yet. But they are now very vulnerable. So, hoping that some of the crews are still conscious, they send one of the stars, the one with Magolor, to thank them for their help and to tell them that they should go away before things get worst.

Right now, Void Termina is facing them while flying backward, hiding his back to them. But Galacta Knight, opening a hole in space, enters it and comes out of another hole behind the Dark God to attack him weakpoint. With a sudden flap of his wings, Void Termina manages to avoid him, then quickly flies to his left to avoid a laser from Unisqueak. Void Termina faces the robot-ship to attack it with dozens of fire and ice arrows, and despite its agility and speed, it isn't able to avoid all of them, getting badly damaged. This, at least, opens Void Termina's back to the heroes who fire at him, and rapidly, the fourth weakpoint is destroyed.

The last one appears on his mask.

"Your sacrifice will be remembered, Unisqueak!" says Daroach with a salute.

"We aren't dead yet!" yells back Doc angrily through the Unisqueak's speaker

Meanwhile, Void Termina has turned to the Jambandra Base. Facing it, he materializes four Master Crown lookalikes and forms a circle with them, a huge quantity of energy charging at the center.

Galacta Knight's eyes widen in panic. "Get away of the Jambandra Base!" he yells.

Seeing his panic, the heroes immediately proceed to follow what he said, only for Void Termina to fire with the four Master Crowns an absolutely huge laser of unimaginable power at Jambandra Base. The giant space fortress is obliterated by it, and the giant explosion that results of it knocks away anyone and anything too close, from the Star Allies Sparklers to the ships, sending them flying into all directions. Another consequence of the destruction of the Jambandra Base is that the 'Merging Space' has become three times bigger, and the effects of this immediately start to be felt. The Dream Universe is now starting to shake, the 'merging space' is growing even faster, and other, smaller 'merging spaces' are appearing a little everywhere, spreading with them the destruction happening in the other dimension.

And Void Termina isn't even done! Just as the heroes recover from what happened, Void Termina fires another huge laser at Kirby, and the puffball barely avoids it. As he flies away of the laser, the Dark God starts to sweep space with it to make it follow him.

In the distance, any stars unlucky enough to be in the way of the laser... disappear.

The heroes (including the Sparkler of Magolor who has returned and joined by Galacta Knight) quickly help Kirby by circling Void Termina and attacking his weak point, but the Dark God then stops firing the laser and materializes a dozen Master Crowns around him. From each Master Crowns, he then fires dozens of lasers that he uses to sweep space in all directions, causing a light show of destruction extremely hard to dodge.

Some of the ships, despite having been blown away by the earlier explosion at a rather safe distance, are destroyed by them. And let's not talk about the distruction that they cause to the rest of the Dream Universe.

But then, a star-shaped portal opens, and out of it comes the Lor Starcutter, again.

To everyone's surprise, the ship surrounds itself in energy as it charges at Void Termina!

"Hey! Dark Lord!" they suddenly hear none other than Hyness yell through the Lor's speaker. "Here's my birthday gift!"

Slaloming between the lasers, the ship rams Void Termina right on the head, destroying the last weakpoint! With a yell, Void Termina stops moving, and the mask separates from the body, slowly floating away in the vacuum of space.

"Eeeeh?! Lord Hyness?!" yells Zan Partizanne.

"I saw the Truth!" yells Hyness. "And the Truth is... I was a fool, and the Dark Lord must be stopped! I will find another way to make the Techno Clan regret what they did. But I don't know what came over me. I got so focused in making the Techno Clan pay that I didn't care for anything else, not even our other goal. And I thought that the Dark Lord was the answer to everything."

"Void Termina probably has something in it," says Sweetie Belle.

"Now goooo! Go go go go go go!"

"Alright! Alright! Gee!" shouts Sweetie before the heroes start flying toward the vortex leading to the inside of Void Termina's body.

"Also, jamanke and japologa for everything," says Hyness before they reach the vortex and enter the body.

Nothing has changed inside the body of Void Termina, but after landing, they look up to see... a purple sphere with colors swirling around and three black spots moving about the surface.

Then, the three black spots form two oval eyes, and a small, round mouth, giving the sphere the form of a familiar face looking at them.

The face of their worst enemy... is the same as the one of their friend...

This is the real Void Termina. Kirby's father.

And then, he smiles at them with the same 'angel face" than Zero Two before the three spots start spinning while Void Termina sends strange shockwaves that have some holes. To Sweetie and Kirby's horror, any of their friends hit by those shockwaves are immediately corrupted and start attacking each others, like against Morpho Knight! And like against Morpho Knight, the two of them are the only ones who can't be corrupted. So the two of them as well as anyone that has been able to avoid the shockwaves start throwing hearts at the corrupted heroes.

Void Termina takes this occasion to attack them while they're busy. His eyes suddenly become very big to the point of almost merging, and he fires from them dozens of small purple and yellow projectiles of energy in all directions, successfully hitting many of them this way. But the heroes are able to save everyone from the corruption, and that's when Kirby throws a heart at Void Termina. Surprisingly, or not, the heart hurts the Dark God. Seeing this, as Void Termina starts laughing for some reason while using the same needle attack than the multi-eyed white Dark Matter of Ripple Star, the heroes start attacking him by throwing dozens of pink hearts, feeling that this is the better way to fight him. They can already feel the hearts replace the negativity in him by positivity little by little.

Finishing his needle attack, Void Termina then starts bouncing around in a very similar way than Buff Dedede (also reminding of Drawcia's Soul) before slamming himself against the platform to crush the heroes and create powerful shockwaves. After trying to crush the heroes three times, he then tries to ram them also like Drawcia's Soul, sweeping above the platform back and forth covered in fire.

Void Termina eventually stops moving, and the two spots forming the eyes disappear while the third spot grows to form a smile, only to reveal that the spot isn't a mouth anymore, but a single, big eye. Small appendages then appear on his back, and now, Void Termina looks like a Dark Matter

"So the Dark Matters' form comes from here, of course," says Adeleine.

"Yes, those are father's two main forms," says Galacta Knight.

"Brrr... I'm not happy to find myself in front of a Dark Matter again, even if this isn't a real one," says Dedede. "Hopefully, this one can't possess others."

"Yes, he can, but he doesn't need to," says Galacta. "But watch out."

Just as Galacta says this, Void Termina fires a powerful beam at Kirby who jumps out of the way. As he starts moving around, he fires more lasers at the other heroes (his main target still being Kirby), sometime sweeping the platform with them. After a few lasers, he returns to his 'Kirbyself' and restarts doing weird faces while turning himself into stone and rolling around, creating an Ultra Sword to slash around, sending cutter blades in all directions, and even trying to inhale the heroes!

Yep, he's Kirby's father alright.

Returning to his Dark Matter form, he restarts firing some lasers, but he also attacks by firing black lightning bolts, and even fires the same explosive projectiles than Zero Two! After firing a last laser, he returns to 'Kirby mode' and slams himself on the ground, and sharp spikes of ice sprout out of the platform around him, and immediately follows it by the needle attack again.

The heroes have the idea to do like before and to merge all the hearts they collected into a giant heart that they throw at Void Termina, heavily injuring him. But surprisingly, this is just enough to convince him to use more power in return as he starts to attack very rapidly, and even starts teleporting to take the heroes by surprise. Lightning rain, fire pillars, ice spike carpets, tornadoes, fire comet, lasers, sword, cutter blades, hammer, bombs... He uses pretty much all of Kirby's abilities against them. And contrary to Kirby, he can switch abilities without problems, and some of the attacks are really hard to avoid.

The healers work hard to heal everyone while the heroes continue to throw hearts after hearts at Void Termina. But... they feel that he isn't using all his powers. It feels like he could do more. Outside, he was firing lasers that could destroy stars, but here, while still giving a fight that would give problems even to Galacta Knight if he was alone, his attacks aren't at the level of power expected of a God.

Is there still more? They will discover soon enough.

Eventually, Void Termina seems to have enough of having hearts made of positivity thrown at him, because his expression becomes angry and he creates a powerful force that expels everyone out of the body. Like previously, they are caught by the Star Allies Sparklers, Galacta Knight joining Kirby's. Void Termina himself comes out of the body which disappears just after.

The three spots on Void Termina then disappear, and his body suddenly releases a huge quantity of energy as it starts glowing like a star, to the point that the heroes are forced to close their eyes. When the heroes can open them, they see that Void Termina is now a bluish white, and they can feel a great quantity of Soul Matter coming from him.

A Soul Form...

Of COURSE he has a Soul Form!

"I must tell you something..." then says Galacta Knight. "I don't know what to expect from now. We didn't give him time to take on this Soul Form before we sealed him."

"Great..." says Dedede.

That's when they see that the 'merging space' has now reached them, meaning that they're now both in the Dream Universe and the other dimension, and meaning also that cracks, black holes, and purple erasing space are all around them, as well as what remains of the Jambandra Base. The still mostly intact Dream Universe is visible behind them. The fully breaking other dimension is visible behind Void Soul.

The spots forming back Kirby's face, Void Soul stares at them, and they stare back. Then, Void Soul moves to a random direction, going further inside the other dimension, and the heroes follow him. The Dark God starts attacking with the same shockwaves than before, but much faster, but the Star Allies Sparkler's lasers are able to break them so no heroes get corrupted this time.

Void Soul follows this with the creation of strange ice balls that he just lets to float around without throwing them at the heroes. But it doesn't mean that they are harmless, so the heroes keep an eye on them. They do well, because when they approach, the ice balls explode, sending sharp ice shards in all directions.

Void Soul then separates himself into a dozen clones of himself that start to eratically fly around before they pass through space one by one, creating holes, before coming out of space beside the heroes to ram them coated in fire. Some of the heroes counter this by charging back at the Void Clones, clashing with them. Then, spreading themselves among the heroes, the Void Clones use the needle attack, causing dozens of needles to threaten to impale them from all directions.

The Void Clones then start attacking each in their own way, using already know attacks like the lasers, cutter blades, explosive projectiles, lightning bolts, and some others while flying around, causing real chaos. The heroes can only to their best to avoid all those attacks coming from all directions while attacking the clones until they merge back into a single Void Soul just before they pass through a rift, appearing back in the Dream Universe beside a random planet made of ice.

Materializing a giant Ultra Sword, Void Soul cuts the planet in two, then flies between the two cut parts still followed by the heroes. Avoiding the chunks of ice breaking from the left and the right and falling toward the center of the planet, the heroes have a hard time hitting Void Soul because of them getting in the way. Void Soul also uses his powers to sprout pillars of ice from the parts, and the heroes have to slalom their way.

Sooner than expected, they reach the center of the planet, and Void Soul starts accumulating energy. Understanding what he's about to do, the heroes immediately turn around to get out of the planet, soon hearing a big explosion behind them. Kirby's Crash ability, Void version. They come out of the planet, and a couple of seconds later, the planet explodes into countless giant shards of ice that they have to avoid.

While the heroes are busy avoiding the shards, Void Soul gathers the energy and fire of the explosion to create a Moon-sized fireball that looks more like a sun, and throws it at them. Galacta Knight jumps out of his Star Allies Sparkler and slice the fireball, saving everyone. The two halves of the fireball continue their way into space before they another planet-sized explosion in the distance.

Void Soul charges back at them followed by different giant weapons he materialized, sword, axe, hammer, spear, crossbow, mace, gun, and saber, and starts attacking with all of them while firing lasers in his Dark Matter form, and also tries to ram them directly.

While the fight continues, they move through another rift, returning in the other dimension where Void Soul eventually gives up on his weapons. Instead, he separates himself into two halves, and the two halves surround themselves in purple and blue energy before they fly toward the heroes to ram them, one of the halves flying where he expects heroes to fly to as they avoid the other, almost hitting some of them. After a few back and forth, the two halves then crash into each other, creating a huge explosion. Void repeats this a couple more times before he stops and restarts flying away to force the heroes to follow him.

As they pass another rift, appearing thankfully near no planets, Void Soul then creates smaller versions of himself that fly toward the heroes before creating black holes. Those Mini-Void can be easily destroyed by the Sparklers, and the black holes can be easily avoided, but their attractive force is a real nuisance to avoid Void Soul's other attacks.

As the fight continues, they pass through more rifts, constantly moving between the Dream Universe and the other dimension, sometimes passing beside something. Generally, they pass their way without Void Soul doing anything, but every now and then, he uses his destructive powers on the element beside which they pass to attack them, like when he forces a sun to turn into a supernova, forcing them to use a rift to escape the explosion. there's also that time where they fly in an asteroid field and Void Soul uses his lasers to destroy giant asteroids and causes boulders to fly everywhere as a result.

Like in his bird form, he also cuts directly space with giant swords to create holes from which he fires powerful space beam, and later, he even materializes those Master Crown lookalikes to fire even more powerful lasers. By now, the heroes are seriously injured, but they can see that Void Soul is also reaching his breaking point, prompting them to not give up, not so close.

As they return to the 'merging space' where the Jambandra Base has been, finding themselves inside the other dimension again, Void Soul seems to have enough and, in his Dark Matter form, glares at the heroes in pure rage. Using his powers, he forms a tunnel made of the purple erasing space all around them before he starts gathering energy before his eye. Having no choice, the heroes gather and charge energy too.

The heroes and the Dark God both fire a huge laser, the heroes' pink and Void Soul's purple, and they clash.

At first, Void Soul beats them, but they put in more energy, and their laser starts to gain the upper hand. Seeing this, Void Souls puts more energy in his laser, and the heroes do so again. This continues like this a few more times until Void Soul decides to put in everything, his laser doubling in size, totally outmatching the heroes' laser.

Seeing Void Soul's laser approaching, the heroes close their eyes.

They call for help.

Everywhere, friends hear their call in their heart. They follow this call, and despite not being physically present, they are able to join the heroes in their fight. They send the energy in them into the laser, making it triple its size, totally dwarfing Void Soul's laser and even destroying the purple erasing space around them. Void Soul can only look in panic as his laser is destroyed before he find himself engulfed in the pink laser, and he returns to his Kirbyself.

It terribly weakens him, to the point that when the heroes separate and surround him, envelopped in positive energy to the point of shining like stars, he can't do anything to stop them. When the first star charges at him with the cumulated positivity power of thousands of souls, he can just close his eyes and wait for the impact. One after another, the ten stars pierce him at a speed close to the speed of light, then pierce him again, and again, and again, and again, and again until the heroes just stop counting as they continue relentlessly.

After a whole minute of this, Void Soul finally starts glowing, seemingly on the brink of exploding, a quantity of energy beyond anything they've seen until now escaping him. This seems to also be the definitive breaking point for the dimension around them because the cracks are now spreading everywhere at worrying speed, and pieces of space between those cracks start breaking like glass, causing the purple erasing space to spread like never before.

The heroes quickly turn around to escape this, flying toward the 'merging space' to return to the Dream Universe. This universe is also shaking as a result of what's happening, but at least, it seems to resist.

Then, a huge explosion, followed by something that sound like glass breaking, comes from the merging space. Said space, as well as other spaces like it, then becomes a huge and powerful black hole that starts sucking everything around. All the rifts and cracks then disappear before the black hole shrinks little by little until nothing remains. Finally, the universe stops shaking.

The heroes look at where the black hole has been as if not believing what happened, until Yin-Yarn asks "We... We did it? This is over?"

"No," answers Galacta Knight. "Father is still out there." He looks at all the other heroes one after another. "We saved him from the negativity that had fully invaded him, but... we have yet to save him from his past. As long as he's still bitter about all that happened, this won't be over. We have to act quick, or this will all be for naught."

"But before that, I wouldn't mind a Maxim Tomato," says Sweetie Belle.

That's when they are joined by the Lor Starcutter, Hyness on the deck beside a pile of Maxim Tomatoes. "Did someone say 'Maxim Tomato'?"

"Hyness, I take back everything bad I said about you," says Dedede.

---

"That was intense!" shouts Pinkie Pie. "Did everypony feel it? Like, we where here, but we were also there! And then, we all fired that giant laser at the Dark God and we pierced him like one hundred times! And now, it's like I have billions of new friends!" She gasps. "This is a lot of birthdays to remember!"

"That was certainly an experience beyond anything we felt until now," says Celestia. "I didn't think that the power of friendship could go this far."

"Those hearts have helped a lot," says Discord. "But it seems like we will still need them. Their fight against Void Termina is not over."

"But the other dimension has collapsed, right?" asks Starlight. "Where will they fight Void Termina?"

"In the void, of course," answers Discord. "If Void Termina -actually, I think he is just Void now- hasn't moved since then, this is where they will find him after the collapse of the other dimension." He chuckles. "Ah, they will fight Void in the void." But then, he starts wondering something. "But how will they be able to go in the void and survive? The void is a place where no mortals can survive. Nothing exists here, not even the laws of physic. It's a place where only Gods can live. Mmh... Do they even think about this? I think it's my cue." He materializes one of those old phones with a rotary dial and uses it, composing a random number. "Hello Dissy, I need you to tell something to our little band of god slayers..."

---

"So you think Void is back to his old self?" asks Meta Knight.

Galacta Knight nods. "And this means that he will be much more powerful. When he became Void Termina, all his positivity was expelled out of him along with a great part of his powers. We all know what became of all this," he says before turning his eyes to Kirby.

Kirby smiles and waves at him. "Poyo!"

Chuckling, Galacta Knight continues. "Now, he's back to normal. A neutral being not limited by positivity or negativity. The God Creator and Destructor. Ultimate Master of the Four Matters. But don't worry. I knew we would end up to this, so I prepared what will lead us to victory."

"What we felt earlier? All those friends who helped us defeating Void Soul?" asks Sweetie Belle.

Galacta nods.

"It's nice to prepare your victory, but you seem to forget something," suddenly says someone away of the group. Following the sound of the voice, everyone spot not far above them a small serpentine creature with a mismatched body.

"Dissy?!" shouts Sweetie Belle in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"Hello everyone. I'm... Ugh... I'm Dissy, messenger of Discord, the Spirit of Chaos from Sweetie Belle's world, and I have a message." He spits a paper and catches it while clothes of a messenger from old times appear on him. "Hear ye, hear ye! The God named Void is now in... Pfffft... The void! If you, brave heroes, don't find a way to survive in the void, then you will all die upon entering it before even fighting! Think about this before you charge into the action!" Finishing his message, he bows. "That's all." On this, he disappears.

The heroes look at the spot where Dissy has been in wonder, then turn to look questioningly at Sweetie Belle who rolls her eyes. "Like he said, Discord is the Spirit of Chaos in my world. He can use his chaotic magic to shape reality like he wants. Don't worry, at first, he was a bad guy, but my sister and her friends managed to befriend him. Now he's just... a friend with a sense of humor really funny at best, really annoying at worst. And yes, this means he could have used his powers to bring me back to my world all this time..." She smiles at her friends. "but after discovering about the threat of the Dark God, I refused. Oh yeah, and he uses his powers to let my friends and family watch us when we go on adventures."

Galacta Knight chuckles. "Yes, I encountered them earlier to give them Friend Hearts. You have quite the audience, Sweetie Belle."

"Eh. When they learned that I was about to fight the Dark God himself, I'm sure they all gathered immediately. My sister's friends, the princesses, and my classmates. Well, thank you for the help, everypony!" she shouts toward... nowhere. "I'm not even sure if the portal they use to watch us is over there."

"So, we are being watched?" asks Dedede. Immediately after asking this, he gets up and takes a proud pose. "Bwahahahaha! I, the Great King Dedede, will clobber that there God! He doesn't stand a chance against me and my super hammer!" he shouts dramatically, even doing some dramatic movements with his arms. "King Dedede and his warriors will save the universe!"

Sweetie Belle rolls her eyes. "They already know everything about you. They will not buy your 'Great and Powerful' act."

This makes Dedede pout.

"Anyway, this Discord has a point," says Galacta Knight. "If father is in the void, then we will need a way to avoid disintegrating as we enter it. In the void, nothing exist, including the force that keeps the atoms of our bodies together."

"Oh yeah, that's really bad," says Magolor. "How will we fight Void, then?"

"I have something in mind," says Galacta Knight. "We will simply keep the portal that we will use to go to the void open. As long as we don't go too far from it, then the physical laws of the Dream Universe should still affect us. Then, we will use the positivity power in us to float at will."

"Oh yeah, if there's nothing in the void, then there will be no gravity or whatever for us to move," says Sweetie Belle.

Again, Galacta Knight nods. "So, are you all ready?" he asks.

They all nod.

"Will you join us, Lord Hyness?" asks Zan Partizanne.

"Of course Zap Parmesan! Wait, I think I still got it wrong..."

Zan Partizanne covers her eyes with her hands groaning in embarrassment. Beside her, Flamberge rolls on the flour in laughter. She is quickly joined by Marx and Poppy Bros Jr.

"Parmesan? Nice name," says Magolor with a laugh.

"Shut up, Eggman!"

---

In the nothingness of the void, a star-shaped portal suddenly opens. Passing it are 54 beings of various forms, powers, and origins, all united in friendship and under a common goal: save their universe for good. Well, for one of them, this isn't her universe, but Sweetie Belle has made so many friends and has lived so many adventures in it that, at this point, she considers the Dream Universe as a second home. This is helped by the fact that she's now the queen of a kingdom in this universe.

And now, those adventures have led her to this place beyond reality, where nothing exists.

Nothing except Dark Matter, or whatever other name it is given. As the 'energy of the void', she can feel it absolutely everywhere here, in each mm³.

But the Dark Matter isn't the only thing she can feel in this place that isn't as empty as they thought. They can't see anything, the only light coming from the portal behind them and from a glowing sphere not far further, but they just can feel that their arrival has gained the attention of really powerful beings, maybe even more powerful than Void. Gods and abominations that call this place their home. Hopefully, none of them will decide to do anything and will just watch what is about to happen. It's not everyday that mortals come to the void to fight a God, so why not just enjoy the show?

In this infinite emptiness, the heroes can also see clouds of what they recognize are pure Dream Matter, Heart Matter, and Soul Matter, coming from the same glowing sphere. Understanding that this sphere is certainly Void, they use the power of the positivity in them to advance, slowly floating forward. Thankfully, Void isn't too far of the portal.

Void has kept his spherical body with the three spots moving around on the surface, but now, it is entirely white, and the weird colors swirling around have been replaced by rainbow colored pulsating veins. Dream Matter, Heart Matter, and Soul Matter are constantly coming out of his body to form the clouds around him. Feeling about the Matters, Sweetie Belle can actually see that Void is absorbing the Dark Matter to create the three other Matters as well as more Dark Matter. He's like a self-sufficient Matter factory. Just give him a pinch of Dark Matter, and in a few thousand years, he can create a whole universe!

Sensing them approaching, the three spots reform the visage of Void, the one that looks like Kirby's face, and he looks at them. More exactly, he looks at Kirby, then at Galacta Knight, then at Magolor, then at Hyness.

Memories come back to him. Memories... of being betrayed, being used, being sealed.

No... Never again...

NEVER AGAIN!!

Tears flowing from his eyes, Void starts the fight by sending hundred of those little white and yellow projectiles in all direction, leaving almost no space for the heroes to pass between. He follows it with lasers all around his body, firing them more than once.

Against this storm of projectiles, the heroes have the idea to float backward until the distance between the projectiles becime big enough for them to easily fly between. Thanks to this, they also have an easier time avoiding the lasers, the distance between the lasers being bigger further from Void. The heroes aren't sure if sending Friend Hearts at Void would work well at this point. They know they still have to befriend him, but for someone like Void, they will need a lot of power, but with him on the offensive, gathering enough power is impossible. They have no choice but to fight him the old way: dodging his attacks and attack him with everything they have. Thankfully, with all of them floating, it is much easier to dodge the attacks.

Well, it would be easier to dodge attacks from anyone else, but here, they are against the God Void. His attacks are everything but easy to dodge. The bullet and laser storm was just the beginning.

Like previously, Void duplicates himself, however, this time, it's impossible to count the number of clones, easily in the hundreds. After flying and bouncing around, the clones unleash a real festival of attacks on the heroes. Absolutely everything they can think of, Void uses it, and even more.

Sweetie Belle wraps her whip around Spikezilla to get him out of the way of a clone coming out of a portal as a fiery comet to burn him, then self-levitates herself to avoid a dozen Ultra Swords slashing at her. She uses her own swords to attack back the clone using them, then flies up to avoid a laser sent her way but a clone now looking like a giant Dark Matter with mirrors levitating around him, exactly like Dark Mind. She avoids a Void charging at her with the Super Ability version of the Beam ability, then fires an Ultimate Doom Laser at another Void about to attack Francisca by exploding like a bomb, sending him to explode on another Void.

She then sees a Void inhaling Dedede and spitting him at Kirby, so she creates a mirror to make Dedede bounce back at the Void, only for her to be hit from above by a powerful lightning bolt created by yet another Void passing and going bonkers with electricity. She is saved from being impaled by a Void turning into a drill by Meta Knight, and they both attack by this same Void by sending at him a powerful tornado. Meta Knight continues to attack this Void while Sweetie goes to parry a giant spear about to pierce Galacta Knight as he slice a hole to fire one of his space beams.

The Voids then materialize water to trap the heroes in before they electrify it, successfully hitting all the heroes thanks to it. The heroes quickly use the Friend Power to create a shockwave that expel the water around them, and the ice users freeze some of it before others throw the resulting giant ice boulders at the Voids. The God then restarts attacking chaotically. Elements are sent back and forth, weapons are clashing everywhere, lasers rain constantly from all directions...

But despite Void unleashing all his rage on them, the heroes resist, to his surprise.

So he makes all his clones merge back to only one, then gathers all the Matters around into one giant ball of energy above him. He throws it at the heroes, too rapidly for most of them to get out of the way in time.

So the heroes gather together, and with the Friend Power, they assemble to form the head of a spear that pierces the ball. The ball seems like it would overpower them at first, but putting all their energy in their attack, and getting the help of all their friends again, the heroes are able to win the clash and to cause the ball to explode.

Void looks at them in disbelief. Seeing this, Sweetie Belle, despite being a little winded, smiles at him.

"Dear Void,
You are angry and I know
That is because you suffered long ago."

As Sweetie Belle starts to sing, the boosting aura, helped by the Friend Power, envelops all the heroes. But it's not just that. As Void stares at them, he could swear that he could see pink ghosts of thousands of beings behind them, and he can clearly feel the link between them, as well as this link gaining in power thanks to the song. He understands now that he isn't just fighting a ragtag of 54 heroes, but a whole army condensed in a ragtag of 54 heroes, all united in one goal: fight him.

"Dear Void,
All your friends turned into foes.
Your universe, family to oppose."

Again, Void duplicates himself into countless clones that restart attacking with everything anybody can imagine, from throwing hundreds of Ultra Swords to creating black holes. But now, working together with the power of thousands of beings baking them, the heroes manage to avoid, block, or counter most of Void's attacks and to attack him directly with their most powerful attacks.

"But please, just hear our tale
And you will see that love and friendship prevail!

Possession, destruction.
We saw ma-ny actions.
And we en-countered all kinds of foes.

We have now many friends,
Yesterday, they were fiends.
Together, as one team, our power grows."

One of the Voids sends hundreds of cutter blades in proximity of Meta Knight, only for Dark Meta Knight and Galacta Knight to join him, and together, they parry all the blades.

Some of the heroes grouped together find themselves in the path of a small sun. Seeing this, Chef Kawasaki invokes his pot and attracts said heroes in it, saving them from being burned to ashes and also creating some food for them.

A Void turns himself into a giant round boulder and charges at Kirby who readies his hammer. As he starts spinning, he is joined by Dedede, the penguin spinning. They then both hit the Void boulder and, using all their strenght, send him crashing into another Void.

"You are a God and yet you now have nothing,
And now you are scared of losing again everything.

But do not be scared anymore
As different we can't be more
Than the fool people who turned their back on you at a time of yore."

Not only do the heroes help each other against Void's attack, but they also merge their powers and skills to create more effective attacks against Void. Poppy Bros Jr throws bombs at Bonkers who uses his hammer to send them at the Voids. The element users send said elements at tornadoes created by the Knights to create fire tornadoes, ice tornadoes, and others. The Mage Sisters work together with Hyness to create powerful electric, fire, and ice combos. Yin-Yarn creates beings of yarn that Kawasaki attracts in his pot to always have something to cook to create food while the others are busy fighting.

"We went through many trials that got us close,
And so our friendship became unbreakable thanks to those.

And now we ask you to give us a chance,
Because we're giving you a chance.
We would be friends in other circumstances."

Void decides to use their tactic against them by making his clones work together, creating cataclysmic attacks like a giant fire hurricane, a meteor rain, or a huge web of electricity (the Voids connect each others with electricity while moving around). The Voids also start join force to protect each others.

The battle gains even more in intensity due to this.

"Everything will get much better.
So let's get out of this netheeeer
Aaaaaaaand finally beeeeee aaaaaaall toooooogeeeeeetheeeeeer..."

In the middle of the fire hurricane and of the meteor rain, one of the Voids inhales a dozen of his clones, then spits them one by one like a gatling gun, each spitten Void turning into a spiked ball. Burning Leo, one of the heroes not targetted by this, approach the Void to send some fire at him and force him to stop, only for his fire to be stopped by a stream of water sent by another Void. But this stream then gets electrified by Zan Partizanne, shocking the Void at the origin of it and letting Burning Leo attack the other one, joined by Chilly.

"All to-gether..."

Some of the heroes fly away from a huge carped of giant spikes appearing out of space.

"All to-gether..."

Parasol Waddle Dee charges at one Void, only to be rammed from the side by another Void. This second Void ends up attacked by nine of Sweetie's cannons while she uses the tenth as a double beam sword to stop a third Void from saving the second.

"All to-gether..."

One of the Voids fires pellets at Gim, only for Wester to throw Dark Meta Knight in the way, the dark knight creating mirror to send the pellets back at the Void who moves out of the way.

"All to-gether..."

Galacta Knight slashes holes everywhere to fire dozens of beams.

"Dear Void,
You caused so much suffering,
From you so many mons-ters were coming.

Dear Void,
From Dark Matter to Star Dream,
Millions of lives disappeared like a dream."

One of the Voids turns into a drill, and some of the heroes counter him by gathering to form a drill like they used against Hyness, and the two drills clash. Two Voids come to stop the heroes, but they are themselves stopped by Galacta Knight and Sweetie Belle. A third still manage to approach, only for Meta Knight, Dark Meta Knight, and Magolor to assemble their swords into a giant one that cut him in half. Hyness and the Mage Sisters, now forming a Friend Circle, then ram into the Void drill from behind, and the heroes are able to pierce him just before dozens of other Voids fire at them with all kinds of projectiles.

"We know it's not your fault
Because your mind was lost inside a strong vault!"

Ribbon is almost inhaled by one of the Voids, only for NESP to teleport her out of the way while Poppy Bros Jr throws a bomb at the vortex. Sweetie Belle then uses her magic to grow the bomb just before it gets inhaled, and the clone is destroyed in a big explosion.

Void is weakening.

"With thick walls made of hate
That we were able to break.
The Dark God is now gone. The God's awake!

Not a thing could negate
The love you have for all
Because you still are the Father of all!"

One by one, slowly but surely, the clones are destroyed. But Void doesn't give up and multiplies the powerful attacks covering huge areas to try to hit as many heroes as possible. By now, black holes are becoming really common, both from Void and from the heroes who can create them, causing thousands of projectiles to be sucked by them..

"You are a God and yet you now have nothing,
But let us in, we beg you, and you will regain everything.

We do not want to seal you back.
With us, we want you to come back.
And you will see that not everything is all black."

Finally, Void decides to merge all the remaining clones until only one Void remain, hoping to reduce the amount of damage he's taking. Normally, he wouldn't mind taking damage. with his powers, he can heal immediately any physical injuries he gets. But the Friend Power the heroes are using attacks not just him physicaly, but his whole being. Each hit gets him closer to mental exhaustion.

So he decides to go all out. Unleashing his full power, he sends absolutely everything he has, becoming the center of a hurricane of... well, everything, going from simple weapons to planet-sized boulders and small suns. The heroes aren't sure how they will be able to pass this to reach Void.

"You do not want to be with anyone
But don't you want to come and to encounter your new son?

In spite of all, warm like the sun.
In spite of all, soft like no one.
In spite of all, ready to help just e-ve-ry-one!

Isn't it what you were for the others?"

The word 'son' seems to gain the attention of Void because he actually turns to stare at the pink puffball with uncertainty, the hurricane around him getting a little weaker as a result. The heroes take this to assemble again the power of everyone (EVERYONE!) and they start charging energy before they fire a beam similar to the one they used against Void Soul. The beam traverses everything, destroying all obstacles, before engulfing Void. Not stopping here, everyone linked to them thanks to the Friend Power appears as a ghost and charges at Void as soon as the laser disappear. Each ghost ramming the God causes a huge quantity of damage to him, and by the time the last ghost hits, Void is totally weakened, not able to do anything anymore.

Void now vulnerable, they judge it's time.

"So let's get out of this netheeeer
Aaaaaaaand finally beeeeee aaaaaaall toooooogeeeeeetheeeeeer!"

Gathering together, the heroes raise their arms (or whatever else) and start assembling all the Friend Power they have. It will probably mean they won't be able to throw Friend Hearts anymore or to do things like Friend Stars or Friend Trains, but after this, they shouldn't need to.

After this, this will be over.

---

All to-gether.

"It's time," says Discord.

"Yes, we can feel it," says Celestia as she lets go of the Friend Power in her in the form of a pink heart. The others all follow her exemple, and Discord opens a portal so the hearts can fly to the heroes.

---

All to-gether.

Hearing the call, everyone in the ships that survived Void Termina looks up at the star-shaped portal to the void and send their Friend Power to it.

Vul gives a salute while looking at his pink heart flying away. "Let's end this."

---

All to-gether.

From Popstar to Ripple Star, from Patch Land to New Halcandra, thousands of pink hearts are now flying toward the portal to the void, carrying with them the hopes and dreams of an universe that just want things to stop.

All to-gether.

---

Each seconds, hundreds of pink hearts come out of the portal to gather above the heroes, forming a giant Friend Heart that grows before Void's shocked expression.

"So let's go.
Come and join us for naptime
In the spring breeze, with some treats, anytime."

The heart contonues to grow.

And it grows.

And it grows.

And it stops, the last heart merging in it.

Sweetie Belle looks at the Moon-sized Friend Heart in joy, silently thanking everyone, before she smiles back at Void.

"Let's go.
Come and join us for dreaming
Dreams of friends re-united and smiling."

They throw the heart.

Void looks at the incoming heart with an empty expression before he closes his eyes, accepting that maybe... maybe he can give friendship another chance.

The giant Friend Heart hits him, and it explodes into a giant cloud of positivity that gets absorbed inside of Void.

Such power entering him causes Void to spasm for a moment, the three spots forming his face moving erratically around before they reform to form a smiling face. Stars and light come out of him, engulfing the void, with the heroes in it.

At this instant, from the power of friendship, a new universe is born.

Chapter 112: Aftermath

After what feels like an eternity, the light finally disappears, and the heroes are able to open their eyes to look at the result of their Final Friend Heart.

They aren't in the void anymore. The heart had such an effect on Void that he created a whole universe, and from what Sweetie Belle could feel, judging by the huge quantity of Heart Matter, this universe's main watchword will be Friendship.

Speaking of Void, they look back at where he was, and they can see that he is still here, but different. As they approach him, they can see that he's now smaller, about the size of Dedede, and looks exactly like Kirby. The only difference is the color: the same glowing white than in his original form.

As Void starts to wake up, Kirby charges toward him, hugging him in surprise. Voids looks at Kirby in wonder for a few seconds, then, slowly, puts an arm on his head and starts rubbing it, smiling.

Galacta Knight approaches them, looking down. "Father..." he starts, gaining Void's attention. "I'm... I'm sorry... All that happened to you... It was my fault... I'm sorry..."

Void stares at Galacta Knight for a few seconds. Then, with a smile and a wave of his arm, he says "Come."

Galacta Knight looks at Void, surprised, not moving for a few more seconds. Then, the dam seemingly breaking, Galacta Knight throws away his mask and flies to Void to hug him, crying. Sweetie Belle catches the mask with her magic, keeping it for Galacta as she watches the family reunion with a smile and some tears of happiness.

They have done it. The real Void is back. The God Fatherly one. And the Dream Universe is saved, hopefully, this time, for good. If there are any remaining dark creatures or corrupted artefacts lurking out there, Void should be able to deal with them.

Honestly, after fighting evil after evil for one year, she has a hard time believing that this is over. That peace is back, for good. No heroes needed anymore. At worst, they will be needed to stop small fry villains the like of Dedede when he stole food.

But that's okay. As long as peace is lasting, she won't mind being out of hero job. There are still thousands of other ways to have an exciting life.

Void looks at them, and says, "Thank you."

---

Let's say it now, back in Equestria, a huge party has already started to celebrate their victory over Void, and by their, they don't just mean Sweetie Belle and co. but everyone, because everyone participated in this fight.

And by Celestia does it feel good!

With the help of Discord, Pinkie has made a cardboard version of Void Termina's Titan Form for the foals to hit with sticks while the others are gathered left and right eating food, playing games, and reminiscing the strong moments of the fight.

"But you know what this means, Rarity?" suddenly says Pinkie Pie to the white mare.

"What?"

"Sweetie Belle will soon return home!"

Hearing her, Rarity's smile grows. "You are right! How didn't I think about this?"

"Well, you were obviously still thinking about the fight," says Discord. "But yes, give Sweetie Belle a few days to rest and to say goodbye to her friends, and before you know it, she will be there going..." Then, it materializes a sock puppet Sweetie Belle on his claws and starts speaking using Sweetie's voice. "Rarity! Rarity! I'm back! And now I'm super powerful!" He then materializes a sock puppet of Luna on his paw. "Oh! Princess Luna! How about I kick your flank to prove my superiority? I am firing my laseeeer!!!" A laser beam suddenly comes out of sock puppet Sweetie Belle's mouth and disintegrates the sock puppet Luna.

"I will not be defeated that easily!" shouts the real Luna upon seeing this.

"But you still will be defeated!"

"I will not!"

"Keep deluding yourself!"

---

The heroes return to the Dream Universe using the Lor's portal, followed by Void. Without surprise, all the surviving ships are now gathered around, waiting for the news.

Hyness raises his arms. "We came, we saw, WE WOOOOOON!!!!"

Screams of joy immediately can be heard coming from all the ships.

The joy doesn't last long as they first decide to mourn the ones who lost their lives during this 'War of the Jamba Heart'. The real drama is knowing how much perished near the end, because of Void Termina's Master Crown Beams.

Beyond the ships that were destroyed, dozens of planets were annihilated.

Billions of lives lost.

This peace has come to a high price.

And so, the heroes gather on the deck of the Lor Starcutter, each holding at least one little star created by Void. Eventually, they throw the stars to the sky, and the stars slowly fly away to fix themselves in a random place. Thousands of other stars fly away from the other ships to join them.

The heroes remain here to watch the stars fly, and once the last one has stopped moving, Sweetie Belle turns to Kirby, smiling at him. "Let's return to Popstar."

Kirby smiles back at her and nods. "Poyo!"

---

After the time of mourning comes the time of celebrating, and after this ordeal, everyone needs it, so everyone has been invited, all their friends, the fairies, the robots of Shiver Star, and so on, to participate to the party to end all parties.

Pretty much the celebration post-defeat of Zero Two, exponent ten, spread to the whole planet.

No need to say more.

During the party, the heroes decide to take a rest with Void in the Space Resort, wanting to relax in a good bubble bath while watching space though the glass dome in the roof of the castle-like building after watching some good movies from Shiver Star in the cinema room.

During this, Sweetie Belle approaches Void to talk to him. "Void. There's something I don't understand. Legends say that you created the Four Matters, and I did see that you could create them. But when we were in the void, the Dark Matter was everywhere. I could see that it was entering you, and you used it to create the rest. So I suppose that you didn't really create Dark Matter. So, what is it?"

"The Dark Matter?" asks back Void. "You are right. I didn't create the Dark Matter. In the contrary, the Dark Matter created me. The Dark Matter is the energy of the void, but most of all, it is the Original Energy."

"The Original Energy?"

Void nods. "The multiverse had to start from somewhere, even if it was an infinite number of years ago. The Original Energy is this beginning. It is the energy from which everything comes, and toward which everything ends. The energy of Creation and Destruction. And because of this, it can be shaped into any other energies. Beings like me naturally do that to create universes. It is what makes us Gods. We have infinite power because we have an infinite supply of this energy at our disposition."

Sweetie Belle thinks about this for a moment. "I can use Dark Matter for my attacks. Magolor helped me to learn to use it. But I didn't know that it could be used this way. He never told me."

"He couldn't know. Everyone who knew this either died thousands of years ago of are in this room: me and Galacta. And this is not something you can accidentally discover with practice. This is a knowledge you can only receive from Gods. Or from beings who got it from Gods."

"I see..." says Sweetie Belle as she looks at Kirby napping in the water. "Could... Could I learn to do this?"

"Yes, you can, but why? You don't need to fight anymore."

Sweetie Belle shakes her head. "I still have a promise to keep. I promised Dedede that I would one day defeat Kirby. But this is not for this that I want to learn to shape Dark Matter into other energies, this is to be able to train back home, at Equestria."

Void looks at her questioningly, and Sweetie Belle quickly precises what she means. "Dream Matter, Heart Matter, and Soul Matter don't exist back in Equestria. As soon as I return, I will only be able to use attacks with my magic, meaning that I won't be able to train to become better at using the Matters, excepted Dark Matter. I could remain here, in Popstar, but I already told everypony back home that I would return after defeating you. They already waited long enough."

"I see. I understand. So you have a rivalry with my son? Seeing how you acted together, I thought that he was your boyfriend. Well, one can't prevent the other from happening," says Void with a laugh.

Sweetie's face becomes all red. "He's not my boyfriend! He's just my best friend in this universe! And also my best rival! And don't look at me with those eyes and that little smirk! I don't need a second Rarity!"

"You love him."

"NO!"

"Search your feelings. You know it to be true."

"Hey! Not quoting Star Wars! We barely finished watching it!" She crosses her hooves. "And shouldn't it be more appropriate to use this quote against your son?"

"He's still too innocent to understand what is love. You, however..."

"UGH!"

Broom Sunglasses elbows Kirby, awakening him. "I like your father, Kirby."

"Poyo...?"

Marx laughs before he starts singing. "Can you feel the lo-" Before he could say more, a rising shield sends him through the glass dome. "WORTH IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII..." ding

---

The party continues a few more days before the participants slowly start to return to their home. Hyness having disbanded the Jambastion Religion, they have decided to accept Magolor's offer to go to New Halcandra, followed briefly by Void to help them repair the damage caused by Galacta Knight. Void has taken the occasion to tell Hyness that he doesn't need to continue to seek revenge on the Techno Clan. With everything that happened, the news that the Techno Clan started this drama will rapidly spread to the four corners of the Gamble Galaxy and beyond, and any reputation that their descendants still possess will be lost. They now will be known as "the ones who turned God into a monster", will have to accept it, and will have to work hard to make up for it. It will be a much better punishment for them than annihilation.

One by one, Sweetie Belle says goodbye to her friends as they leave Popstar, until only the ones living on Popstar remain. As soon as Void has come back from New Halcandra, she has started to see him in secret to learn to shape Dark Matter into other energies, starting with other Matters.

Shaping Dark Matter is as hard as Sweetie Belle has expected. It doesn't ask any power, only will, but a lot of will. She has to try for two whole days before succeeding, and only to be able to change a very small amount of Dark Matter. But from here, the training accelerates, and by the next day, she's able to throw a Force Blast without using the Soul Matter in her.

It's the next day that she judges she has gotten good enough to be able to continue without Void's help, meaning that she can finally return to Equestria.

And so, the next day again, Sweetie Belle, Kirby, Void, Dedede, and all her other friends living on Popstar are gathered at the base of Dedede's mountain, in front of the Lor Starcutter who didn't want to leave Sweetie Belle anymore, the ship definitely accepting her as its captain. With the help of Magolor, all the Ancients writing in it has been changed to Sweetie's language, so she will be able to understand whatever appears on the screen in the bridge.

Saying goodbye to her friends one by one, Sweetie Belle hugs Dedede, only to be almost crushed to death against his belly while the penguin is bawling like a baby. "I'll miss you so much!"

"H-h-hey... I will come back in a few months. This is not a definitive goodbye." She gives him a big smile. "Remember, you made me queen of Floralia, so I have to come back."

"I will still miss you. You became a part of this castle."

Sweetie Belle giggles. "I will miss you too. You and Bandana really helped me when I needed it. You..." She wipes a tear from her eyes. "You are pretty much family." She then hugs Bandana. "Same for you. Without you, I don't know what would have happened to me."

"King Dedede would have crushed you."

"Don't remind me..."

Then, finally, she hugs Kirby, and immediately sends a cutter blade at Broom Sunglasses with a flick of her tail. Taken by surprise, Broom Sunglasses quickly lowers himself to avoid it, but still ends up having his hat cut.

"Hey! I didn't say anything!" he yells.

"You were about to!" yells back the filly before giggling. "You know, I will also miss that."

"Yeah, it will be boring without you. Who will I annoy, now?"

"Dedede?"

"True."

Sweetie Belle looks back at Kirby. "I will miss you too, Kirby. We got so much fun together! But wait for me, because I will come back, and this day..." She looks at him with determination. "I will beat you!"

Kirby looks back at her with the same expression before he bumps her hoof, sealing the deal.

With her goodbyes done, she walks toward the Lor and climbs the ramp to the entrance, followed by Spikezilla, back in his Spiky form. At the top of the ramp, Dissy is here, dressed as a sailor. He gives her a salute and says "Welcome aboard, captain!"

She giggles at his act, then looks a last time at her friends to wave goodbye at them before she finally enters. Spiky and Dissy follow her, and the entrance closes before the Lor takes off. The ship then opens a star-shaped portal toward Equestria, and passes it.

Chapter 113: Return to Equestria

The peace of Ponyville is disturbed when ponies see a giant star-shaped portal suddenly appear in the sky. Many panic and go to hide in their house, but a few immediately understand what it means and look at the portal in anticipation.

Then, a majestic flying ship of blue and white comes out of the portal, and slowly starts to descend toward the exterior of the town. Ponies that haven't gone to hide look in awe at the ship, and some of them, pushed by curiosity, follow it. Before long, the ship lands, or rather, remains hovering just above the ground, and an entrance appears on its side, followed by a ramp linking it to the ground. Already, dozens of ponies are gathered around the ramp, most of them keeping their distance just in case.

Then, a silhouette appears in the light coming from the inside of the ship, and the next instant, a white filly that everypony knows but nopony has seen in over a year, now wearing a pink uniform with golden gauntlets, a red cape, a belt, and a golden circlet, is descending the ramp, followed by a living baby dragon doll.

As she descends the ramp, the eyes of the filly fall on a white mare that has slowly started to approach. Then, they both run until they wrap each other in a hug, tears streaming from their eyes.

"Rarity! I... I missed you so much!"

"I missed you too, Sweetie."

They are quickly joined by Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, the two of them happily hugging their friend, crying in joy.

"Yer back! Yer finally back!" says Apple Bloom.

"Now the Crusaders are together again!" says Scootaloo.

While the ponies have their emotional reunion, Dissy looks at them, smiling proudly. "My mission is over." He then smiles warmly at the filly. "Goodbye, Sweetie Belle." Then, with a snap of his fingers, he disappears.

More friends of Sweetie Belle and/or Rarity come to them to welcome back the filly while other ponies approach the Lor Starcutter to admire it.

Seeing this, Sweetie Belle giggles. "You can enter if you want. Just don't touch the keyboard. The thing with all the buttons."

As ponies start to enter the ship, Rarity looks at Sweetie Belle and says "My. Sweetie Belle. You look even more gorgeous in this uniform now that you are here." But then, she presses a hoof against her belly with a giggle. "However, I'm putting you on a diet."

Sweetie Belle rolls her eyes. "At least, you don't make a scene of this."

"I would have if I hadn't already known. Unless you want me to still make one."

"No, please!" shouts Sweetie Belle, making her sister giggle.

"So, how was Dreamland?" asks Scootaloo.

"Well, forgetting about the many bad guys trying to take over, the whole thing with the Dark God and all, it was great! Very peaceful, even if living in Dedede's castle was anything but peaceful," she says with a giggle. "But it was nice. The time was always good, even when it was raining, and everyone was friendly, more or less."

Scootaloo smirks. "And the food was good, uh?"

Sweetie sighs. "Yes, it was very good. TOO good. And TOO much. You saw it."

"Yeah, we still can't get over the cookie hills," says Apple Bloom.

"And the ice cream trees," continues Scootaloo.

"And the floating island full of deserts!" shouts suddenly Pinkie Pie. "By the way, I have a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT of parties to make for you! And I will make all of them at the same time, so prepare to have a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE party! I will have to make the best party ever!"

Sweetie Belle giggles again. "This will be hard, even for you. We just had a planet wide party a few days ago to celebrate the defeat of Void Termina."

Hearing this, Pinkie becomes as still as a statue, then slowly approaches her face from Sweetie's, gaining a determined expression. "This. Is. On." The next instant, she's gone.

"Oh boy..."

"Alright Sweetie Belle!" then shouts excitedly Scootaloo. "Teach us to fire energy balls!"

"YEAH!!!" shout some of Sweetie's schoolmates surrounding them, mainly colts.

Sweetie Belle sweats. I should have seen it coming... "This will be complicated..."

"How so?" asks Button Mash.

"If you watched me, then you all know about the four Matters, right?"

They nod.

"Well, of the four Matters, only the Dark Matter exists here, in this dimension, not the others. And the thing is that the energy balls I used were created with the help of Soul Matters. I suppose that there is an equivalent here, an energy coming from our soul that we can use to do that kind of thing, but I don't know how different from Soul Matter it will be, and so, how different it will be to train to use it. I already know that magic can be a good equivalent for Dream Matter and Heart Matter, but they aren't the same thing. I can try to train you the same way Knuckle Joe trained me, but I don't know how well this will work."

"We can still try," says Scootaloo.

"You will try once you reach adulthood," says Twilight. "Even if Sweetie Belle learned to fight, it doesn't mean that all of you should follow her example. Or at least, not without the supervision of an adult."

"Like a dojo," says Spike.

"Yes. And only if your parents or legal guardian agree."

"At least, it's not a no," says Scootaloo.

"Yeah, but Ah don't think there'll be many parents who'll let their children learn to throw dangerous energy balls," says Apple Bloom.

"Still worth a try," says Rumble before the foals separate to ask their relatives.

"Open a dojo?" wonders Sweetie Belle. "Eh. Why not, but I don't think I will be there a lot."

"Why?" asks Scootaloo. "You will remain here, right? You will not, like, return to Dreamland in a few weeks, right?"

"No, don't worry. I will return to visit Dreamland every now and then, but I'm planning to remain here until I reach adulthood. But look what I have behind me." She points at the Lor Starcutter. "I have a ship that can traverse to other dimensions." She smiles widely. "So why not use it?"

"You want to go to other dimensions?" asks Rarity with worry.

"And have more exciting adventures! But also, simply, to discover more wonderful worlds and make more friends," says Sweetie Belle. "But not right now, don't worry. I'm planning to rest a while before going adventuring. Especially after those events with Void."

Rarity sighs. "I suppose there is no stopping you..."

"No," says Sweetie with a giggle before she gives Rarity a warm smile. "But I will try to make them short so I would always come back quickly, and only on the weekends. And if you want, I could bring you with me."

"This is a nice thought, Sweetie, but I'm not much of an adventurer, and I have my job at the Carousel. Buuut... Maybe I could try to come sometimes, with the others."

"Yay!"

"What about us? Could we come too?" asks Apple Bloom.

Rarity looks at Applejack who answers. "We would need to make sure there's no dangers first."

Sweetie Belle looks back at the Lor, then at Twilight. "Twilight?" she calls to gain back her attention. "I may need a place for the Lor."

The mare nods. "You are right. I will ask for a platform to be built not far from my castle for it. Now, how about we return to Ponyville? I'm sure there are many places you want to see again, starting with your home."

"Yes!"

---

The next day, after school.

"You know, as surprising as it is, I really missed school," says Sweetie Belle.

"Only you would miss school," says Scootaloo with a laugh.

"But now, I'm going to the Everfree Forest," then says Sweetie Belle, surprising her friends.

"What?!" they shout.

"Why?" asks Apple Bloom.

"To train. I'm still planning to defeat Kirby, and for this, I need to train. And the only places in Equestria that can give me some challenge are the Everfree Forest and the Dragonlands. Could you tell Rarity where I am?"

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo look at each other, insure, before they both nod.

"Thank you. I'm coming back for dinner." She then starts to walk away, only to stop. "Oh, right. I should go home to take my weapon first." So she takes a different direction and walks away.

Once she's far enough, Pinkie Pie suddenly pops out of nowhere behind the two remaining fillies. "That's perfect! This will give me time to prepare the party without her finding out! Come, you two!"

Before they know it, the two fillies are placed on Pinkie's back before she hops away.

For the rest of the day, roars can be heard from the forest.

Roars of pain.

Somepony even swear they have seen a timberwolf being sent flying toward the sky.

---

After this good workout, Sweetie Belle returns to Ponyville at dinnertime like she said she would. However, almost as soon as she enters the perimeter of the town, Pinkie Pie jumps out of nowhere with her party cannon and yells "SURPRIIIIIISE!!!" before the cannon fires. The next instant, confetti are raining everywhere, and dozens of banner are now hooked between the buildings Sweetie Belle has been about to pass, each with something written like "WELCOME BACK TO EQUUS!" or "SWEETIE BELLE BEFRIENDED A GOD!" among others, many others.

Before Sweetie Belle can say anything, Pinkie grabs her by her leg, and the next thing she knows, she's in Ponyville's plaza among everypony else in the town, surrounded by all kinds of activities based on her adventures back in the Dream Universe. She looks around in awe.

"What do you think?" starts Pinkie Pie. "I know this isn't a planet wide party like you got, but a party doesn't need to be all over the planet to be the best! The best party is the party where you have a lot of fun with your friends! With fun games, good music, and a lot of very yummy food! Don't worry. I convinced Rarity to let you have it for this time."

"Woah... Thank you Pinkie! I can't wait to try all those activities!" shouts Sweetie Belle before she runs to a random activity consisting of a whack a mole-like game where you hit little figures in the likeness of Sweetie's many villains with a hammer looking like Dedede's (but smaller).

Pinkie Pie has certainly worked a lot for this party to make it the best one possible. It takes place all over Ponyville, with games everywhere. For many hours, Sweetie Belle runs everywhere trying them one after another, having the time of her life with her friends. Sometimes, she goes to a stage to sing a song, making half of Ponyville dance to it. She's so good at it, it's a wonder she hasn't gotten a Cutie Mark in it yet.

It's safe to say that school is canceled tomorrow.

Between two games, Sweetie Belle is approached by Discord who is followed by Celestia and Luna.

"Hello there. Nice to see you back," says the draconequus.

"Hello Discord! Thanks for the mini-you!" says Sweetie Belle before she bows to the princesses. "Hello Princesses."

The princesses bow back at her. "Hello, Queen Sweetie Belle."

"Please, princesses, don't call me queen."

"Then no need to call us princess," says Celestia. "I am glad to see you back in Equestria safe and sound."

"And we must congratulate you for saving a world, and even a whole universe, more than once, and for becoming queen," says Luna.

"Thank you, p-Luna," says Sweetie Belle a little shyly.

"Here are your medals!" shouts Discord before he snaps his fingers, causing many medals to appear on Sweetie's chest. So many that they entirely cover it, not leaving a trace of white fur. Actually, there are so many medals that they also appear on her sides and on her back. The last one appears in Discord's claw. "And here's another one for your future victory against Lulu."

"My what?"

Discord puts an arm around her. "You see, me and Moonbutt over here made a little bet."

"Me? fighting Luna?" asks the filly, insure.

"Yes!" shouts excitedly the princess. "This snake thinks that I couldn't defeat you! So..." She points a hoof at Sweetie Belle. "I defy you in a duel! Once this party is over!"

---

The word of the duel quickly spread among the ponyvillians, and in the end, they didn't even wait for the end of the party. Before long, everypony is gathered outside of the town to watch it, at a safe distance.

Discord has created a stand for ponies placing bets on the winner. Not surprising, many bets on Luna, not knowing the full power of the filly. But all of Sweetie's classmates (excepted Pipsqueak) as well as Rarity and her friends, and even Celestia, bet for the filly.

"Traitor!" shouts Luna to her sister.

"I'm just a realist, sister."

The words of Celestia put some doubt among the ponies who betted for the princess.

Discord claps his hands. "I think we have waited long enough. Can both fighters please get ready?"

Luna and Sweetie Belle both nod and move far enough before facing each other.

"Ready?" he asks.

"GO!"

Chapter 114: Sweetie Belle versus Luna

As soon as they hear Discord shout "GO!", Luna materializes two magical swords the same color as her magic and charges at Sweetie Belle.

Sweetie Belle immediately separates her weapon into its ten cannons mode, then turns five of the cannons into beam swords.

Two of the beam swords clash against Luna's magical swords, and Sweetie slashes at her with her three remaining beam swords, only for Luna to teleport away. When appearing, the princess fires a few magical beams at the filly, only for Sweetie to cover her hoof in energy before swinging it to deflect the beam. She then counterattacks by firing her own beams at the princess from her cannons and her horn.

Luna flies out of the way of the projectiles, revealing to be really fast! But she still almost gets rammed by a shield coming from above, leaving her with no choice but to teleport again. When she appears, she fires a giant charged magical beam, but the filly simply avoids it by jumping to the side before trying to ram the princess with another shield.

Luna avoids it again by charging at her, magical swords ready. Sweetie Belle readies her swords too, but then, Luna teleports and appears behind her, almost slashing her back. The filly quickly acts and is able to block her with a shield that still gets destroyed by the power of Luna's swords, but this gives her enough time to get away while firing with her cannons.

Luna then turns into a cloud of shadow, causing the projectiles to pass through her before she reforms. But before she knows it, a whip wraps around her neck and slams her on the ground. She quickly recovers and plunges the area in darkness, totally blinding Sweetie Belle.

So the filly closes her eyes, then lowers her head to avoid a first magical beam, then moves it to the right to avoid another. She takes one step back, avoiding a third beam, then swings a hoof to deflect a fourth right back at Luna in the sky, taking her off guard.

Again, she quickly recovers from the hit and cancels the darkness. Using her magic, she then creates from Sweetie's shadow a spike of shadow, forcing the filly to fly into the sky. However, here, the princess gathers some clouds and starts using them to shoot lightning bolts, but Sweetie Belle manages to avoid all of them.

Getting annoyed, Luna calls the power of the Moon and sends from the heavenly sphere a huge and very powerful beam that causes a huge amount of dust to rise and form a cloud. Not sure if her attack touched, the alicorn remains on guard.

So when Sweetie Belle comes out of the cloud of dust with barely a scratch, Luna immediately fires another charged beam at her, and the beam engulfs the filly, only for her to break into shards of glass, to the princess' surprise. The real Sweetie Belle then comes out from below and rams her in the belly like a fiery comet, sending both of them high.

Sweetie Belle materializes a shield for Luna to slam against, then immediately starts to attack her with a storm of dozens of attacks. After a dozen seconds of this, Sweetie Belle rams Luna from above and they both return to the ground like a meteor, forming a big crater.

Smirking, Sweetie Belle then uses Luna's own shadow to create tendrils of darkness and uses them to trap Luna on the ground, making sure to wrap one around her horn and to tighten it just enough to stop her from using magic without breaking it. While Luna struggles against the tendrils, Sweetie Belle then flies up and fires an Ultimate Doom Laser.

Luna can only look in horror at the beam before it hits her and creates a huge explosion that causes another cloud of dust to appear. Sweetie Belle uses some wind to blow it away, revealing the unconscious body of the princess.

This leaves everypony watching the fight absolutely speechless.

"She... She defeated her... so easily..." says Celestia.

Discord picks up his jaw. "And she used some tricks she never used before. She's still learning new ones? Oh well. She won. Not a big surprise." He snaps his fingers, creating a white shirt with written on it 'A filly kicked my flank'. "Let's heal Moonbutt and give her this."

"Agree!"

Chapter 115: Operation "Kill That Overpowered Filly"

Some of the ponies can barely hide their snickers at the sight of Luna now wearing a shirt with 'A filly kicked my flank' written on it. The poor mare's head has almost totally turned pink in embarrassment, both at wearing such a shirt and at actually getting her flank kicked by a filly, and very badly at that. She is the most skilled alicorn of the four! In the past, she was the one fighting the monsters to protect the ponies! As Nightmare Moon, she would have even defeated Celestia if she hadn't used the Elements of Harmony! And she has just been defeated by a little filly not even in her teens yet!

A filly that now uses the Everfree Forest as her training ground, but still!

And of course Celestia and Discord will make sure that she never forgets this, judging by their smirks.

However, as the two princesses walk toward their chariots to return to Canterlot, followed by Twilight and her friends as they say their goodbyes, they don't see an earth pony stallion entering an alley, followed by a green light coming out of it. The next instant, a different stallion, a pegasus, comes out of the alley and flies away.

---

In the southwestern part of Equestria, there's a barren land with a tall castle-like structure full of holes with twisted towers. This structure serves as the home of the changelings, an insectoid pony-looking race of shapeshifters who eat love to survive.

In this structure is a huge black throne with a similar design, and sitting on it is the queen of the changelings: Chrysalis.

A guard enters the room, and after bowing to his queen, says "My queen. One of our spies has returned and asks for an audience."

"They can come," replies the queen.

The guard nods and leaves the room. The next instant, a different changeling enters.

"Speak. Why did you leave your post?" asked Chrysalis.

"Sorry my queen, but I saw something that I deemed important to report. The other day, a filly that had disappeared came back. Apparently, she had been teleported to another dimension."

"Get to the point. Why would I care for a filly?"

"Well, my queen... That filly fought Luna in a duel and won."

Chrysalis stared at the guard. "Are you trying to fool with me?"

"No, my queen! I swear! I saw the fight! Apparently, in the other dimension, the filly became a very powerful and skilled hero who saved the world and the universe more than once! Luna defied her, but despite all her power, the filly was able to win without even looking winded, and she barely had a scratch!"

The queen stares once again at the spy for a few more seconds. "If what you say is true, then she may be a threat to my plan, but I have a hard time believing that a filly could defeat an alicorn. Show me this filly."

The spy does as ordered and, using his shapeshifting magic, transforms into Sweetie Belle.

"What?! You are telling me that Luna was defeated by such a young and plump filly?! She's so small that I wouldn't feel her punches! Her magic must be so weak that she would tickle me! And with that weight, she must be so slow that I could catch her by just walking!"

"And yet, I saw that filly self-levitate, levitate ten objects at the same time, deflect some of Luna's beams with her hooves, manipulate five swords, escape a huge Moon Beam, and fire a beam that could rival with the one you used against Celestia, among other things."

"And you said she wasn't even exhausted after the fight?"

"Yes. She probably could have fought Celestia too and still win."

Chrysalis rubs her chin in thought. "Somepony that strong must be dealt with. Trying to capture her will be too risky. No, I will have to send an assassin." She looks back at the spy. "Then, once she's killed, you will take her place and continue to spy those mares."

"Yes, my queen!"

---

Sweetie Belle is humming the Gourmet Race Song as she's walking toward the clubhouse to gather with her fellow Crusaders, followed by Spiky. It's good to train every now and then, but she hasn't returned to Equestria just to train. She has returned to be with her family and her friends, and this means, going crusading with them. With all that hero stuff, she had almost forgotten about her Cutie Mark.

On the way, she's joined by Scootaloo. However, when she spots the pegasus approaching, Sweetie Belle looks at her with a raised eyebrow, then fights to stop a smirk from forming. "Hello, Scootaloo!"

"Hey, Sweetie Belle! Ready to go crusading after all this time?"

"Of course! I can't wait to go crusading with you girls again! I really missed it!" says Sweetie excitedly. "I wonder what we will try."

"Let's wait to be with Apple Bloom to decide, but I have a few ideas, like..." Scootaloo suddenly reveals a dagger from under her wing. "Assassination!"

But before she knows it, the dagger is sent to the sky with a swing of Sweetie's hoof, and she's violently punched in the stomach. She immediately loses consciousness, and a green fire covers her, turning her back to her real form: a changeling. Just as she falls on the ground eyes blank and bile coming out of her mouth, the dagger drops back and plants itself just beside her head.

"Seems like you aren't good at this, but it was a nice try," says Sweetie Belle with a laugh. "So, changelings? Twilight will be interested in this." At this, the filly grabs the dagger in her magic, then grabs the changeling's back legs, and starts dragging her to Twilight's castle. She then turns to Spiky. "Can you go warn Apple Bloom and Scootaloo that I will be late?"

"Roar!"

Meanwhile, in the branches of a nearby tree, the changeling spy gulps.

---

"I can't believe it!" yells Queen Chrysalis. "How could she fail?! She just had to assassinate a little filly! This is not complicated! And now, the ponies will be on their guards!" She takes a big breath to calm herself. "Let's do it again. It was probably dumb luck."

---

Four changelings disguised as pegasi are transporting a piano, and fly above the target before dropping it. The target has barely time to push away her friends before the piano falls on her.

Mission accomplished.

But then, the target comes out of the remains of the piano, body turned into metal, and glares at them.

Mission failed...

---

The changeling, hidden behind a boulder, spots the target at the bottom of the slope on which he is, resting with her friends under the warm sun. Using his strength, the changeling then pushes the boulder to make it roll toward the target and crush her.

His jaw drops when he sees the target punch the boulder with enough force to turn it into rubble.

The next instant, he's flying away with the target hot on his tail.

---

The target enters Sugarcube Corner with her friends. Two changelings, disguised as the Cakes, are waiting. The changeling disguised as Mr Cake takes the commands, and the one disguised as Mrs Cake prepares them, adding a special ingredient in the target's one.

As both changelings are looking at the poison dropping in the target's food, they don't see said target standing on the counter behind, giving them a murderous glare.

A few minutes later, the two changelings have to be transported out of the bakery on stretchers, Twilight looking at them beside Sweetie Belle, sweating. "Don't you think you went a little far, this time?"

"They were ruining good food."

"Dedede rubbed too much on you."

"I know."

"How long do you think they will continue?"

"Probably as long as it will take them to understand that I can sense their changeling magic, and so that it's no use to try to assassinate me."

---

Chrysalis yells in rage and fires a powerful magical beam that the poor changeling spy barely avoids by lowering his head.

"Since it's like that, I'm going! We're never best served than by ourselves!"

---

Sweetie Belle is in the middle of a training session in the Everfree Forest. Right now, she has just finished destroying a pack of about twenty timberwolves.

She huffs. "Those stupid dogs are so easy I can barely call that a training."

She starts searching for new targets when she suddenly turns around just in time to see a squirrel jump from a branch, only for the squirrel to transform into Chrysalis trying to impale her with her horn. She jumps to the side to avoid it, and readies herself.

"Wow! I didn't expect the queen herself to come for me!"

"You made too much a fool of me and my subjects! It is time for this masquerade to stop! Be ready to die!"

Sweetie giggles. "Well, I was asking for a better training target... Bring it on! Oh, but before, why are you trying to assassinate me?"

"You are too much of a threat for my plan!"

"Oh I see. You were planning to take over Equestria, but you saw that I was too strong." She gives a big smile to the queen. "Sorry for ruining your plan without knowing."

"I couldn't believe that you defeated Luna, but just in precaution, I decided to get rid of you. Now I know that my spy wasn't kidding. You must disappear!" yells Chrysalis before she fires a powerful magical beam, only for the filly to avoid it by jumping aside, smirking.

"Let's see how long you will last."

At a speed that takes Chrysalis off guard, Sweetie charges at her and punches her on the muzzle, sending her flying through a few trees before slamming against a last one, toppling it. The queen, muzzle broken, her back badly hurting, remains down on the tree, an expression of disbelief on her face. This expression slowly turns into an expression of rage, and despite her injuries, she suddenly gets up and charges toward the filly, ready to bite her head off.

Sweetie Belle tries to punch her again, but Chrysalis transforms into a small bird and flies around her before turning into a manticore. She uses her scorpion tail to impale her, but Sweetie Belle catches it and uses it to slam the changeling queen a few times on the ground until she transforms again. Now a teen dragon, Chrysalis breathes fire at the filly, forcing Sweetie Belle to drop her tail before she creates a mirror to send the fire back at her. As a dragon, the fire has no effect on her, but she doesn't see Sweetie Belle charge toward her neck, grab it, and do a neckbreaker.

Chrysalis returns to her normal form and uses her magic to throw the filly toward a tree, only for her to use her legs to bounce from it without damage. Smirking, Sweetie Belle then starts levitating her ten cannons, and turns each of them into a double beam sword before twirling them around. Using her shield, she then forms a big hammer that she grabs.

"Enough playing. Time to squash a bug," she says.

Chrysalis gulps.

---

The changeling queen limps back inside her throne room, more enraged than ever.

She lost. She lost against a single little chubby filly. She can't believe it. Now, her muzzle is broken, her front left leg is broken, her mane has been cut to only a few inches, and her shell is badly cracked in many places. She barely escaped thanks to her wings.

Screw Celestia. Screw Twilight. Screw the ponies. Screw Equestria. Now, this is personal. She WILL kill that filly!

"She is right about one thing," she says once she's on her throne. "Enough playing."

---

Sweetie Belle enters the clubhouse, only to discover that it now looks as if a tornado passed, and her friends are nowhere to be seen.

"Scootaloo? Apple Bloom!" she shouts repeatedly as she looks around.

Then, she finds a paper with a map drawn on it. It is showing a part of Equestria, with Canterlot at the top right, Ponyville under it, and a holed castle-like structure somewhere at the bottom left indicated by an arrow. Under it is written "Come, if you dare!"

"That queen really has a death wish..." says Sweetie Belle as she resists the urge to burn the paper.

---

"She's coming! She's coming!" yells a changeling as she enters the throne room.

"Let her come," says Chrysalis before she turns to two fillies trapped in a green slimy prison. "I'm surprised you are not panicking more. Without her magic, she will be killed."

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo don't answer and simply look at each other with a knowing smirk.

A few minutes later, Sweetie Belle enters the throne room and quickly spots Chrysalis on the throne and her friends beside it.

"Release them," she orders.

"You aren't in position to give me orders! You are in my kingdom, surrounded by thousands of my subjects ready to drop on you at my signal, and you probably felt it, you can't use your magic anymore thanks to my throne!"

Sweetie Belle looks at her friends who look back at her, and they all smirk. Sweetie Belle gets on her hindlegs, and places her forehooves at her right.

"Why are you taking that pose?" asks the queen.

Sweetie belle doesn't answer as she starts to gather energy between her hooves. "I can use other energies than magic."

The changeling queen looks at her in panic.

---

The quiet of the barren land is suddenly disturbed as a giant energy beam comes out of the castle of the changelings, blowing a huge hole that causes the main tower to topple. The next instant, thousands of changelings fly out of it in panic, some of them transporting their unconscious, badly burned queen.

Sweetie Belle, followed by Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, exits the castle and stares at the fleeing changelings.

"Shouldn't you go after them?" asks Scootaloo.

"And leave you behind at the mercy of the predators of this place? No. Hopefully, they will learn their lesson. Let's return to Ponyville."

Chapter 116: The Alliance

Sweetie Belle returns to Ponyville after some time passed in the Dragonlands. She went here in search of some challenge because the Everfree Forest became too easy. The hydra was ok to fight, but the poor beast is now scared of her, and she doesn't dare to attack the Ursa Major because she still has her cub. So she thought that the dragons could become her next training partners.

The dragons obviously laughed at her when she told them that she wanted to fight them, but one of them, a teen, still accepted to prove his superiority. The next minute, he was sent flying into a volcano. Seeing that the filly had some bite to follow her barks, they decided to fight her one after another, each one losing, until the Dragon Lord himself, Torch, saw in Sweetie Belle a worthy opponent. The fight that followed made the Dragonlands shake for a few long minutes, the huge dragon proving that he wasn't the lord just because of his size, but in the end, Sweetie Belle won. Torch wasn't Sweetie's first giant opponent, and he will certainly not be the last.

She gained the respect of (almost) all the dragons, and Torch himself now calls her his sister. When Sweetie asked him if it was ok for her to come back sometime to train against him, he gladly accepted, seeing in this an occasion to become himself stronger.

The dragons may be prideful, but they can accept losing when they encounter someone as strong as them, even if this someone is a 'puny pony'.

And now, here she is, back in Ponyville and retelling to her friends what happened. When she hears about this, Rarity can only shake her head with a sigh, not surprised that Sweetie not only defeated the dragons, but also somehow befriended them.

Is there anything in this world that Sweetie Belle can't defeat?

---

The Gates of Tartarus. Huge doors locked by a powerful seal that only powerful magic users can hope to break unless they have a special key.

After gorging herself in love from half of the animals of a forest, Chrysalis is one such creature. Followed by some of her guards and holding a pouch, the changeling queen, now totally healed (but with her mane still cut short, even if it has regrown a little since), uses the power accumulated thanks to all that love to break the seal and open the gates, allowing them to enter.

Barely they enter that they encounter Cerberus, the three-headed watchdog of Tartarus. However, before the dog can do anything, one of the guards gulps, advances, and transforms himself into a cat, immediately gaining the attention of the three heads. The changeling turned cat quickly turns tail and runs away, chased by the dog, leaving the way open for his queen.

Chrysalis laughs. "That's the best prison in the world? Maybe to stop beings from getting out, but to stop them from entering, it's the worst!" She turns to her guards. "Separate and search for him. As soon as one of you finds him, he must warn me."

"Yes, my queen!" shout the guards with a salute before they separate while the queen remains in place. A few minutes later, one of the guards comes back and says "My queen. I found him."

"Good. Lead me to him."

The guard does as ordered and flies in one direction, followed by his queen. Soon enough, they reach a cage with an old, lanky centaur trapped in it, actually sleeping.

Chrysalis approaches the cage and hits the bars while shouting "Wake up, Lord Tirek!" awakening the centaur.

Grunting, the centaur named Tirek opens his eyes and raises an eyebrow upon spotting the changeling queen. "Changelings?"

Chrysalis turns to her guard. "Go warn the others so they stop searching for nothing." Once the guard flies away, she turns back to the centaur and says, "Lord Tirek, I came to get you out."

Tirek looks at her in suspicion. "And why would you want to get me out?"

She frowns. "You're questioning someone who's willing to help you escape this place?"

"I can already tell that you have something in your mind."

She huffs. "Just let's get you out of there before the dog comes back. I will explain everything to you then." At this, she opens her pouch and grabs its content: a red, black, and gray triangle-shaped amulet with the head and wings of an alicorn and a ruby in its center. "Take the magic of this amulet and let's get out."

"I can't," says Tirek.

"Why?"

"I can only take magic from living beings, not from artefacts."

The queen gives him a deadpan look. "You mean to tell me that I lost days searching where that stupid zebra hid this amulet for nothing?"

"Yes."

The queen throws the amulet and starts ranting while her guards return to her one by one, remaining at a safe distance. After a couple of minutes, she calms down enough to say "Ok. We will find another way for you to get power. Just let's get you out of here." She turns to a guard. "Give me back the amulet. I will need it."

Using the Alicorn Amulet, Chrysalis is able to open Tirek's cage and to teleport all of them out of Tartarus and into a tunnel. However, feeling its corruptive power, the queen quickly takes it off but decides to keep it just in case.

"So, why did you free me?" asks Tirek.

"We have the same goal, and so, the same threat. A few weeks ago, a filly that was transported to another dimension somehow gained great powers and skills and came back. She was..." She clenches her teeth. "She easily defeated me despite all my powers. And when I forced her to come to my kingdom where her magic wouldn't work thanks to my special throne, she managed to use another kind of energy to destroy it and defeat me again. She forced me to flee my own home with my people. To give you an idea of how strong she's, when I invaded Canterlot, I managed to best Celestia in a magical duel. And she apparently defeated Luna very easily."

Tirek frowns. "That strong, uh? I will need to drain a lot of magic."

"Don't think about draining me and my changelings! I will give you victims to drain. With our shapeshifting, it will be a piece of cake. Those ponies just don't know how to watch their back even knowing that we're out there."

"I see. But how will you keep the filly out of your hooves?"

"I have an idea. I know someone that should give a great diversion." Putting back the Alicorn Amulet, she draws a circle on the ground followed by some symbols in it. Using all the power given to her by the amulet, Chrysalis activates a very powerful spell. The next instant, a cloud of darkness gathers above the circle, and out of it comes a gray armored stallion with a black mane, a black tail, and a red curved horn that looks sharp.

The stallion cackles. "I am back!"

Chrysalis takes off the amulet again. "King Sombra."

"Who?" asks Tirek.

"A powerful dark magic user," explains the queen.

The stallion looks at her. "So, you are the one who brought me back. I don't think I ever saw a creature like you."

"I am Chrysalis, queen of the changelings. I heard a lot about you, and so, I know that you are perfect."

Sombra stares at her. "Perfect for what?"

"I suppose that you want to retake your empire. However, there is an obstacle that is standing in your way, which is also standing in our way, and I'm not talking about Twilight and her friends, the mares who caused your fall." She smirked. "And your dark magic will get us rid of this obstacle."

"Which is?"

"A filly."

Sombra stares at Chrysalis in disbelief, then bursts into laughter. "You are kidding me!"

"Not at all," says Chrysalis very seriously. She turns to one of her guards and nods, prompting the guard to transform himself into Sweetie Belle. "The best way to believe me is to verify by yourself. Go to Ponyville and search for this filly named Sweetie Belle. You will quickly understand that she's not a joke." She smirks again. "But I'm sure a powerful and smart king like you will be able to kill her."

Sombra laughs again. "Very well. I will play along just because it will be fun. But once the filly is dead, I'm taking over the Crystal Empire, and Equestria will be next." At this, Sombra turns into shadows and flies out of the tunnel.

Tirek looks at him leaving, then turns to Chrysalis. "If that filly is as powerful as you say, he will fail."

"I know. I did say that he will just be a diversion to let me capture ponies without being bothered by Sweetie Belle. Now let's go, or we will miss the opportunity."

---

Sweetie Belle is in school when she feels a great and dark power approaching Ponyville. She then raises her foreleg and says "Miss Cheerilee! A villain is approaching Ponyville! Can I go out to stop them?"

The teacher looks at her in disbelief before sighing. "And the worst is that she is probably right... Very well, you can go out to save Ponyville."

"Thank you!" shouts the filly before she runs toward a window, opens it, and flies away.

"I never thought I would see the day where a filly would ask me the permission to go beat a villain..." says Cheerilee with a sigh.

In the sky outside of Ponyville, Sweetie Belle is flying toward the source of this dark power, and quickly spots a cloud of darkness approaching rapidly. They both stop in front of each other, and the cloud turns into a gray stallion that Sweetie Belle heard about: Sombra, the ancient tyrant of the Crystal Empire.

"I thought my sister and her friends had killed you," she says.

"I was brought back."

"Darn it, Chrysalis..."

"So you can self-levitate? Maybe that bug was right, after all."

Sweetie Belle crosses her hooves. "So you're here to fight me?"

"I was told that you would be a threat to me."

"Well, she was right," says Sweetie Belle. "I don't have my weapon, but my own power should be more than enough to deal with you."

"Somepony's cocky."

"It's not being cocky when I know that I can win. I know that you use dark magic, I know that you are powerful, but that power is nothing compared to some of the beings that I fought."

Sombra snarls. "You are underestimating me then! I fought both Celestia and Luna in the past, and while they defeated me, I still gave them a hard fight!"

Sweetie Belle shrugs. "Ok."

"What?! That's all the effect it gives you?!"

"Yep," says the filly with a nod before she gives an evil smile. "And you will quickly understand why." Then, she charges at the stallion, taking him off guard.

She is able to grab him and to throw him toward the ground, before she flies after him and punches him just when he lands, breaking his armor and creating a crater around him. She then flies back up and gather energy all around her, creating from the air a dozen powerful energy beams. Sombra sees them coming and turns into a cloud of darkness to escape, only for Sweetie Belle to fly in front of him and to punch him, sending him back on the ground.

Sombra quickly recovers and stares at the filly in disbelief. "How can you punch me in my darkness form?!"

Sweetie Belle materializes a dozen weapons from fire, ice, electricity, and earth, and even shadows, and points all of them toward the panicking stallion before she gives him her sweetest smile. "I can, because I can."

---

The explosions and screams of Sombra can be heard all the way from Ponyville, and while many ponies look in the direction of the battle wondering what's going on, a few ponies enter Twilight's castle, then comes out a couple of minutes later with a big bag.

---

Not long later, in a glade where Chrysalis and Tirek are waiting, four groups of changelings come with four bags that they open, revealing the four princesses of Equestria trapped inside green cocoons and unconscious.

"Perfect!" shouts the queen.

Tirek looks at the four princesses in disbelief. "You captured them that easily?!"

"I told you, ponies are idiots. They know about me and my changelings, and yet, they do nothing to protect themselves from us. They are so used to be in peace that they aren't wary at all. And their Royal Guards are just idiots parading in armor for show. They are as useful as toy soldiers. Now, go on."

At this, not trusting Tirek at all, Chrysalis flies away with her changelings, leaving the centaur to drain the four princesses. She quickly returns to the tunnel that serves as her hideout, where one of the changelings asks "What now?"

"Now, we wait for Tirek to deal with that filly," answers the queen.

"But... Once Tirek deals with the filly, how will we deal with him?"

............................

"I will find a way."

At this moment, they hear hoofsteps approaching, and a few seconds later, they see Sombra enter the tunnel, his armor, cape, and crown missing, and his body covered in cuts, burns, frostbites, and other injuries. Some of his teeth are missing, his mane is disheveled, slightly burned, and his left eye is closed.

After a few more steps, he collapses, taking long breaths. "This isn't a filly... it's a demon..."

"Don't worry. Tirek will soon fight her with the power of four alicorns in him. Sweetie Belle won't stand a chance."

---

Sweetie Belle sweeps her forehead, getting rid of some sweat. "It was a nice workout. Now, back to school."

But then, the ground suddenly shakes, then shakes again, and again, as if something big is approaching. Feeling a HUGE power approaching, she flies toward the Everfree Forest and spots the upper body of a certain centaur poking out of the trees.

"First, Sombra, and now Tirek? Chrysalis really wants me dead."

Soon enough, the now huge and buffed red centaur comes out of the forest, holding the four alicorns under his arms. When Sweetie Belle lands in front of him, he drops them, making the filly frown.

"You absorbed the princesses' magic?"

Tirek gives a big laugh. "Yes! While you were busy fighting Sombra, the changelings captured your four princesses and gave them to me!"

"DISCORD!" yells Sweetie Belle.

The draconequus appears beside her. "You ca- Oh..." He quickly spots the huge centaur as well as the four unconscious alicorns at his hooves.

Sweetie belle points at them. "Could you...?"

"No need to say more." With a snap of his fingers, Discord teleports the four alicorns beside him.

Sweetie Belle nods in thanks. "Now can you teleport us somewhere where we will not accidentally destroy a town?"

Discord nods and teleports both Sweetie Belle and Tirek to the Badlands.

"Like this, you won't do the same trick you used against Twilight," says Sweetie Belle. At this moment, her armor appears on her, and her weapon drops beside her. "Oh. Thank you Discord."

Tirek laughs. "Clever girl. But this will not help you. I have the power of four alicorns, even you can't even do anything against that."

"You wanna bet?" says the filly before she forms her ten double beam swords as she starts to float. "I don't have your raw power, but power isn't everything I have."

Giving her a big smirk, Tirek charges energy between his horns and fires a huge orange magical beam. But Sweetie Belle smirks back, and suddenly, a portal appears in front of her, and the beam disappears in it, to Tirek's surprise. Another portal then opens behind him, and his beam comes out of it and hits him in a big explosion.

When the cloud of dust created by the explosion disappears, Sweetie Belle sees that Tirek is still standing, but slightly burned and giving her a look that says "You're going to die painfully."

He grabs her in his magic and throws her at his hooves before he tries to crush her under one. She flies out of the way and up the leg while slashing at it with her ten swords. Tirek tries to punch her and to slap her like a fly, but the filly has no problems avoiding his hands and even slashing at them too while also firing some beams at his face.

Tirek decides to create a shield around him and expands it, slamming the filly with it and sending her flying, but she quickly recovers and avoids another beam from the centaur before she flies behind a nearby mountain. Tirek destroys the mountain with another beam, but out of the explosion comes ten Sweetie Belle's that charge at him with their horn turned into some kind of energy spear.

From his horns, Tirek fires ten smaller beams at the ten Sweeties, only for them to break into shards of glasses upon contact, and the shards fly toward Tirek and cut him even more. As for the real Sweetie Belle, she has remained behind where she has prepared an Ultimate Doom Laser that she fires. Tirek fires his own beam at it, and his beam gets the upper hand, only for Tirek to be punched on the face by a giant fist shield, breaking his focus. This leads to him taking the Ultimate Doom Laser on the face before he's punched again on the gut by another giant fist shield, followed by dozens of fist shields punching him all over the front of his body. Another Ultimate Doom Laser finishes the combo.

Having enough, Tirek fires another beam, only for Sweetie to use her portals again to make it hit him, followed by a dozen of smaller energy beams forming from the air. Roaring in rage, Tirek slams his fist on the ground, causing hundreds of giant spikes of rock to come out everywhere around him. Sweetie Belle slaloms between them, then avoids more beams fired by Tirek while she gathers energy all around her body, forming a big ball of energy. She then reaches Tirek and rams him in the gut, and the energy gathered around Sweetie Belle explodes. As Tirek recovers from it, Sweetie Belle gathers her ten cannons into two groups of five, forming two big beam swords with them, and cuts Tirek's horns.

As he yells in pain, Sweetie Belle grabs the ring in his nose and tears it off, making him yell even more. She then fires an energy ball right in his mouth, and caught off guard, he swallows it, and the ball explodes in his stomach. As Tirek starts to kneel because of all this, Sweetie Belle then comes to his face again and punches him again, and again, and again, each punch hitting like a brick. When Tirek is barely able to stand, Sweetie Belle flies back a little and punches him with a very huge shield fist, sending Tirek flying on his side, destroying some spikes of rock as he lands, groaning in pain, half unconscious.

"H-how...?" asks the centaur.

"Like I said, power isn't everything," says Sweetie Belle as she lands in front of his face and approaches until her eyes are in front of his. "Now releases the magic of Twilight and the other princesses."

"Or what?"

PAF!

"AAOUUUUUUHHHH!!!"

"Releases. Their. Magic," orders the filly before a hundred hammers of ice materializes above her. "Or I will make you live through a different kind of Tartarus."

Tirek teleports away.

"Seriously?"

---

Tirek appears in front of the tunnel, on his knees, breathing heavily as blood plugs his nose and comes out of his mouth. Hearing him, Chrysalis, followed by Sombra and some of her changelings, comes out of the tunnel, and they all stare at the badly injured Tirek in shock.

"Don... Don't tell me you lost!" shouts the queen.

"That filly... is a monster... I couldn't... even hit her..."

"But you had the power of four alicorns!"

"She was too fast... She avoided... everything... I threw at her... She used portals... to turn my own beams... against me... And even clones..."

"I can't believe it!" yells Chrysalis in rage. "What happened in this other dimension for her to become that strong?!"

"Uh... My queen..." says then one of the changelings hesitantly. "Something is approaching us... And rapidly..." he continues, pointing at the sky.

Everyone turns their head in the direction where the changeling points and sees, indeed, something yellow approaching. Rapidly, to their horror, they see that it is Sweetie Belle riding some kind of star.

"Kill me just now..." says Tirek hopelessly.

The star rams him in the gut, and he is thrown on his back while the filly lands in front of Chrysalis and Sombra with a big smile. "Found you."

"How?!" shouts the changeling queen.

Sweetie Belle points at Tirek. "Have you seen his size? it's hard to miss him, even more with his red fur. Now, excuse me, but I have some unfinished business with Red Bull over there." She then jumps toward Tirek as he starts to get up, materializes a giant hammer, and bonks him on the head. "You can't escape me! No matter where you go, I will find you with my Warp Star! So for your own good, RELEASE THIS MAGIC!!!"

BONK! BONK! BONK!

"AAAAAAAAAAARRRGGGGHHHHH!!! Okay! Okay! I'll give back the magic! Just stop hitting me!" shouts Tirek.

"Good boy. Now hurry up," says the filly threateningly.

The next instant, the centaur releases all the magic in him, and it separates into four parts before flying toward their original owner while he returns to his original, old and lanky self.

"Good," says Sweetie Belle before she turns to Chrysalis and Sombra. "Now, you three will follow me without saying anything. Tartarus awaits you."

"Never!" yells Chrysalis before she uses the Alicorn Amulet given to her by one of the changelings to teleport everyone away, to Sweetie Belle frustration.

"Ugh! Some just don't know when to give up!"

Chapter 117: The Father of Monsters

A few months later, Mount Everhoof. The tallest mountain of the world, constantly covered in snow and ice swept by strong winds causing many blizzards.

Through hardwork, determination, and some unexpected teamwork, Chrysalis, Tirek, and Sombra reach the top of the mountain followed by a couple dozens of changelings.

"I really hope it's here Sombra, or I swear I will turn you into just a shadow of yourself!" shouts Chrysalis.

"I'm certain it's here!" shouts back Sombra. "Gusty never said in her writings where she hid it, but where else is better than the Frozen North to hide such a powerful artefact? And what place is more inaccessible than the top of Mount Everhoof? It doesn't take to be Starswirl to understand that the Bell can only be there." He points at a cave in front of them. "Look. I'm sure the Bell is in there."

"Then what are we waiting for?" asks Tirek before he begins to walk, only to hit face first a magical barrier that makes him bounce back a little while burning him. "Ouch!"

"A magical barrier..." says Sombra before he touches the barrier, getting burned. "And a powerful one too. Not surprising, knowing what it's guarding."

"So it means the Bell is really in there," says Chrysalis. "But how will we get it now?"

"It's too powerful for me, I won't be able to break it," says Sombra. "None of us can on our own."

"Don't tell me we did all this only to fail so close of our goal!" yells Chrysalis.

"I may have a solution," then says Tirek. "You two have a lot of power, but individually, not enough against the barrier. But I could absorb both your magic, and I should have enough to be able to do something."

"Only for you to leave us here!" yells Chrysalis.

"We can't trust you. I refuse to let you take my magic," says Sombra.

"And yet, it's our only solution to get the Bell. Unless you want to pass the rest of your life in fear of that filly," says Tirek. Seeing that the two still refuse, he growls and reluctantly says "I promise I will give your magic back. There. Happy? I'm not here for power. I'm here to get the Bell so he can destroy that filly." He looks at Chrysalis. "And I still think it's a bad idea."

"He's our only chance!"

"But you know the stories."

"We can just get away from here once we bring him back! Then once he takes care of Sweetie Belle, it will just be a matter of taking his Bell from him!"

Tirek huffs. "And you think it will be easy?"

Chrysalis chuckles. "Come on. You underestimate me. All I need to do is disguise myself as a rodent, approach him, and jump at his Bell. He will never expect a rodent to try to take his Bell."

"Not unless I disguise myself as his shadow and take the Bell before," says Sombra with a cackle. "As for you Tirek... Sorry, but I don't see anyway you would be able to take his Bell. You aren't really the sneaky type."

"I will just be happy if I can escape to the other side of the world. What happens to you or to Equestria will not matter to me anymore. I just want this filly dead so she won't be on my tail anymore."

"What happened to your wish to conquer Equestria?" asks Chrysalis mockingly.

"I know when to leave the ship when things become too wild. And the instant we get this Bell out of there and bring him back, I know things will become too much for me. I don't even like remaining in Equestria knowing that there's now a filly strong enough to make a joke of me despite me having the power of four alicorns. I'm only here because I would be safe nowhere as long as she lives. With her weird star, she could find me anywhere."

"Another reason to bring him back so he can defeat her," says Chrysalis.

"Hum... My queen... Why don't you simply absorb the magic of the Bell instead?" asks one of the changelings.

"Because it still wouldn't be enough. Only him as enough magic so that, with the Bell, he would be able to face Sweetie Belle."

"Unless Sweetie Belle reveals to be even more op," says another changeling.

"She defeated Tirek very easily," agrees another.

"Don't be stupid!" yells the queen. "She can't be that 'op'! There is no more powerful magic user than Grogar! He was the terror of Ancient Equestria! The Creator of the majority of the monsters that plagued the world! Pretty much the Father of dark magic! Today, his legend instills fear to the youths! No matter how strong Sweetie Belle is, there is NO WAY he can lose to her!" She turns to Tirek. "Very well. Take my magic. Let's finish this."

Sombra sighs."Alright. Take mine too." He then glares at Tirek. "But you better bring it back!"

Tirek raises an eyebrow. "Or what?"

"JUST TAKE IT ALREADY!" yells Chrysalis.

Tirek shrugs and opens his mouth while Chrysalis and Sombra send their magic at him. As he absorbs the magic, Tirek passes from his old form to his taller, muscular, younger form, now around three times taller than Chrysalis. Cracking his knuckles, he turns to the barrier. "Moment of truth..." His horns gone, he uses his hands to gather magic into an orange sphere and fires a powerful magical beam at the barrier. However, it is just enough to open a small hole in it. "That's all I can do! One of you must jump through it, quick!"

"I could have if I could still transform!" shouts Chrysalis.

"And me if I could still turn into shadows!" shouts Sombra.

Chrysalis turns to her changelings. "One of you do it, NOW!"

At her order, the closest changeling turns himself into a foal and flies through the hole.

"Quick! I don't know how long I can hold it!" shouts Tirek.

A few seconds later, just in time, the changeling comes out with a sinister-looking greenish-teal colored bell. "I have it! I have it!"

"Good," says Chrysalis before looking at Tirek. "Now give my magic back."

"And mine too," says Sombra.

Tirek growls, but opens his mouth, giving back to Chrysalis and Sombra their magic, returning to his old form. "Alright. So, we now have the Bell. How do we use it already?"

Sombra invokes a book and opens it to a page, pointing at it. "We need to use this spell. There's no other way to use the Bell."

The other two villains look at the book, read, and nod, before circling the Bell.

"We must hurry. Discord probably sensed me taking your magic. He could appear anytime," says Tirek.

"And it's only now that you tell us this?" says Sombra.

"Shut up and focus!" says Chrysalis.

After some growling, Sombra focus on the Bell along with the other two, and the Bell starts levitating.

In the back, one of the changelings gulps and begins to walk away.

"Where are you going Thorax?" says another changeling spotting him.

"I have a bad feeling Pharynx. We must get away from here."

At this moment, a beam comes out of the Bell and hits the air above it, opening a portal to who knows where.

"Now is a good time to leave," says Tirek.

But then, Discord appears. "Finally found you! The magic in this mountain is so messed, it..." That's when he sees the Bell, and the portal. Immediately understanding what is happening, he panics and yells "WHAT HAVE YOU IDIOTS DONE?!"

"We have no time to talk!" shouts back Chrysalis. "We must get away before-"

"Before what?" suddenly asks someone, interrupting her.

Everyone stops moving, filled with dread. Slowly, they turn their head to face the origin of this voice. Here, in front of the portal, the Bell floating beside him, is a blue ram with two large dark horns and a red collar holding some bells. The portal then closes, and the ram puts the Bell on his collar.

Discord gulps and waves at the ram. "Hey... Grogar... Long time no see... I would like to remain here to catch up with you but..." He shows a watch. "it's pony terrorizing time, so I must go! Bye!"

Dong! Dong!

Before he knows it, Discord is hit by a dark beam, and in just a few seconds, he finds himself drained of his magic. Chrysalis, Sombra, and Tirek look in horror at seeing the draconeequus so easily defeated.

"Don't think I forgot how you tripped me, giving Gusty the chance to take my Bell," says Grogar. "It was a great move from you, but betrayal is still betrayal, and be ready to pay for this."

Discord, weakened, shakes in fear. "C-come on. It was thousands of years ago. You know it's bad for the health to hold a grudge so long."

Dong! Dong!

Again, Discord is hit by a dark beam. But this time, as he yells in pain, the bell causes his body to start to transform into a more monstrous version of himself, two times bigger with sharp teeth, sharp claws, and horns that could impale.

One of the changelings, Thorax, hides behind a boulder.

Grogar approaches the monstrous Discord and pats his head. "My grudge is settled. Mmh... Maybe I should now give you back some of your powers so you can be useful in this new form." He then turns to the three villains. "What about you?"

"We-we-we're the one who freed you!" shouts Sombra.

Grogar chuckles. "I know that already. I was just wondering how I would punish you."

"Punish us?!" they shout in fear.

"You wanted to use me, right? Why else would you bring me back?" He gives them a glare. "I hate being used."

"Powerful Lord Grogar!" shouts Chrysalis with a fake smile, trying to hide her panic. "We only brought you back so you could help us defeat a common enemy!"

"So you wanted to use me!"

Thorax flies away.

"I told you it was a bad idea," says Tirek.

"Shut up!" shouts back the changeling queen.

Sombra then turns into his shadow form and flies away... Dong! Dong! Only to be drained of his magic. Chrysalis turns into a mouse with a white coat and runs away in the snow... Dong! Dong! Only to receive the same fate. All the changelings in the area are then trapped in dark bubbles.

Tirek bows at Grogar. "Please! Spare me! It was their idea! I only followed because I had no choice!"

Grogar frowns at the centaur, then smirks. "Tell me... Who is this 'common enemy?'"

Tirek quickly explains everything, and when he's done, Grogar is rubbing his chin in thought. "I see... Indeed, if she's as strong as you say, she could be a threat..." He then turns to Discord. "And you should be ashamed! Letting yourself being 'befriended'! And you call yourself the Spirit of Chaos! Spirit of Fools, yes! Not like it matters anymore." He turns back to Tirek. "Luckily, I know how to deal with this filly."

Dong! Dong!

Suddenly, three dark beams hit the three villains, turning them into monsters too. Chrysalis becomes taller than Celestia, with a shell as hard as steel and spikes coming out of her back and her legs. Sombra becomes a pony made of physical shadow. And Tirek becomes as big as when he broke the barrier, but with claws on his hands, sharp teeth, and much more muscular.

Dong! Dong!

More beams go to hit the trapped changelings, also turning them into monsters of various forms, with spikes, claws, sharp teeth, and even sickles.

Grogar cackles. "Overwhelm her with both number and power!"

---

The rest of the changelings is waiting at the base of the mountain when Thorax comes and yells "Everyling! We must run!" gaining the attention of the others.

"Thorax? What's going on?" asks one of the changelings.

"What happened to the queen?" asks another.

"Pr-probably turned into a monster by Grogar... He didn't like the idea of being used."

Before more could be asked, one of the changelings points at the mountain and shouts "Look!"

Approaching them, two dozens monster changelings are flying, showing their craws, teeth, and sickles, ready to attack. Among them is Chrysalis. Panic spreads among the normal changelings as they begin to fly away to escape, only for chains to appear and trap half of them, created by the monstrous Discord. Shadows spread in the ground and wrap around others.

As changelings are yelling and struggling to escape, Grogar approaches, starting to use his power to turn them into more monsters while giving a loud cackle. "Yes! Let them know I'm back! Spread the fear! Make my power grow even more!"

---

The changelings who have managed to escape reach the Crystal Empire in the following hour, spreading the news of Grogar's return and what he's done. Fearing that the powerful ram and his army of monsters are now approaching the empire, Cadance and Shining Armor immediately order the evacuation of the city.

But they quickly understand that there's no way to escape. The empire is in the cold of the North, and the only safe way out is the train, which can only hold a few hundreds ponies at once.

They really should have thought of a way to rapidly evacuate the empire in a worst case situation...

Shining Armor sighs. "Take Flurry Heart and go. I will remain behind to... try and protect the empire."

"What?" shouts Cadance while holding their newly born daughter. "I can't leave you."

"Better me than you. One of us needs to remain behind to assure the crystal ponies that we are not abandoning them, and the other must escape to save our daughter from Grogar."

"Grogar is here!" yells somepony. "Grogar is-"

A giant dark beam suddenly hits and destroys the barrier protecting the city, leaving it at the mercy of the elements and the monsters. The yells of panic from the ponies double in intensity.

Shining puts a hoof on Cadance's cheek. "Now, please, go."

Crying, they give each other a last hug before Cadance climbs in the train with the alicorn foal just before the train closes its doors and leaves, followed by the changelings transformed into cold resisting birds each transporting a pony, generally a foal.

---

The news reach Canterlot, and from there, spread to the whole Equestria. Celestia quickly acts to ready an army to counter Grogar's, but without Discord, and knowing how easily he has been defeated, doubt rapidly fills her. But she must act strong, make sure that her ponies aren't filled with fear, because fear powers Grogar. So she has rapidly sent ponies to spread the words everywhere that she, Luna, and the Elements will stop Grogar and that they don't have to worry. She has also gone to Griffonstone to ask for help while Luna has gone to the Dragonlands, but despite Gilda's work, the griffons still have a long way to go and won't be able to help. Torch, however, knowing how much of a threat Grogar is, has accepted to come with his strongest dragons.

As for Sweetie Belle, the last they have seen of her, she went to the south to deal with some evil empire she discovered. Hopefully, she will come back rapidly. She may be their best chance.

---

Grogar's army is slowly approaching by the north of Canterlot, and waiting for him at the base of Canterlot's mountain is an army composed of ponies, changelings who escaped Grogar, and some dragons under Torch's command, the Dragon Lord easily as tall as an Ursa Major, dwarfing all the others.

"Here they come," says Torch before frowning. "They got the Yaks."

"I feared this..." says Celestia.

"Remember, our only chance to win is to steal Grogar's Bell," reminds Luna to everyone.

"Leave it to me! I will take it from under his muzzle before he knows it!" yells Rainbow Dash.

"Don't underestimate Grogar, pony. He will not let someone approach his Bell that easily," says Torch. Then, hearing something approaching from behind, he turns his head and smiles when he sees the origin. "And here she comes."

"Mmh?" asks everyone else before they look at what Torch is looking, seeing a star approach. They all smile in relief at this.

The star crashes in front of them, and Sweetie Belle jumps from it just before. The filly is now pretty much back in shape, living her muscles more visible. Levitating in her magic are a purple unicorn with a broken horn and some white furred creature that looks like a monkey with two hooves instead of feet. The monkey thing is unconscious and very badly beaten.

"Hello everyone! Seems like I come just in time! There!" She throws the monkey thing at Celestia's hooves. "The leader of the empire of the south, calling himself the Storm King! More bark than bite if you want my opinion. The empire was easy to destroy, but it had a lot of territories that I had to free from its influence. And, there," She drops the unicorn who is not daring to look at anypony in the eyes. "A reformed villain named Tempest Shadow. She was working for the Storm King so he could reform her horn. I convinced her that she didn't need her horn. Now, she just needs some friends." Her smile becomes wide. "I also made a lot of friends! I found the hippogriffs who had to become seaponies to escape the Storm King, the abyssinians who were conquered are now interested in opening negotiations with Equestria, and the Storm Creatures are now nicer to be around!" She then stops smiling and looks at the army of monsters approaching. "So... what's going on now?"

With a sigh, Celestia quickly proceeds to explain the situation, making Sweetie Belle facehoof. "Chrysalis... I swear..." She then turns around and starts to walk toward the army of monsters.

"Are you really thinking of facing Grogar and his army of monsters alone?" shouts Luna is disbelief.

"Of course. They're just monsters."

"But Shining Armor, Sombra, Chrysalis, Tirek, and Discord are among them!"

"And they are thousands!" yells Cadance.

"I know!" shouts back the filly with a big smile. "Finally, maybe a real challenge to test my skills before my fight against Kirby!"

Everyone's jaws drop.

So she advances toward the terrible army, alone. When he spots her, Grogar orders his monsters to stop and smirks.

"So, you're the filly I've been warned about! You are small, but I can feel that you impose much more than the giant dragon behind you!"

"Thanks! I've been training really hard!"

Sweetie Belle stops a few dozens meters in front of the army, looking at her adversary, her cape floating in the wind.

"You went through a lot, uh?" asks the ram.

"You have no idea," replies the filly, smiling back at him. "I hope you aren't expecting me to be scared of you, but I fought many abominations that make your monsters look like kitties in comparison."

Grogar chuckles. "I'm already getting enough power from the fear of the ones behind you." He then glares at the filly with a smirk. "And each of my monsters is strong enough to exterminate a dozen of experienced soldiers by themselves!"

Sweetie's smile becomes a smirk. "Come, then!"

"Attack!"

Immediately, every monsters in Grogar's army charge at the filly who begins to advance again.

A first changeling reaches Sweetie Belle, only for the filly to avoid its sickle before punching it on the cheek, sending it flying to the side. Another changeling reaches her, and she jumps before dropping on its head. She then lowers herself and gives an uppercut to the next changeling, sending it flying to the air. She catches the sickle of a fourth changeling and spins, making it slam into other monsters before she throws it at more monsters.

She surrounds herself in her ten double beam swords, grabbing one, and starts twirling them around, defeating dozens of monsters thanks to them. She then thrusts a hoof, sending a giant fist-shaped shield slamming against a dozen more monsters, before slamming this same hoof on the ground, causing dozens of dark spikes to emerge from the ground, hitting even more monsters surrounding her. Some of them start to attack her with magical beam and even spit fire at her, but she quickly counters them by creating many mirrors that start moving around her to deflect the projectiles.

Discord then snaps a claw, surrounding Sweetie with dozens of swords. The filly teleports and appears directly in front of Tirek, and the huge monster centaur swings one of his claws at her. Suddenly, Sweetie Belle grows in size and grabs Tirek's arm before using him as a meat shield against a beam from Shining Armor. She then slams the centaur, crushing many monsters including the ex-captain of the Royal Guard. She quickly returns to her normal size as monster yaks charge at her with their horns, and slams a hoof on the ground. Suddenly, the ground under the yaks rises, sending them flying high in the air.

She is then surrounded by a dome of shadow, but she destroys it with an explosion of energy, sending Sombra to the air before slamming him with a shield to send him crashing on Shining Armor. A monstrous ursa minor then drops on her to crush her, but again, the filly grows in size and throws the ursa, crushing some monsters before the ursa transforms to reveal that it has been Chrysalis. Dark crystals come out of the ground, and Sweetie Belle flies away only to be pinned down by Discord, making her vulnerable.

Or they think, because the filly is able to wrap her whip around Discord, and with her spinning, he's slammed against a lot of monsters before he's sent flying on the way of one of Tirek's beams. The spinning stopping, Sweetie Belle then teleports to avoid that same beam, appears above the centaur, and turns her body into metal before dropping on his head.

Sombra and Chrysalis then attack her from both sides, each firing a huge beam. Sweetie Belle drops from Tirek's head just before, and the centaur is the one getting hit by both beams on the head. The filly then grabs Sombra and Chrysalis with giant hand-shaped shields and slams them against each other before slamming them on Discord who has been about to fire at her with a gatling rocket launcher. She then throws her toward Shining Armor only for him to protect himself with a shield. But Sweetie Belle then slams her hoof, and the ground under Shining Armor rises to crush him against his own shield.

Despite all this, only a few monsters are unconscious. Those things reveal to be very resistant, and already, Tirek and the others are getting up from this beat down, which makes Sweetie giggle in glee. As dozens of monsters charge at her from all directions, she readies her cannons, smiling like Pinkie Pie.

---

Their jaws are dropping. Celestia, Luna, Twilight, Torch... even Grogar. It's the only thing they can do at what they're witnessing. Not a word is even muttered. In front of them is an ocean of bodies, none of them moving, and in the middle of it stands a mountain. A mountain made of hundreds of unconscious monsters. And sitting on this mountain, is Sweetie Belle.

Sweetie Belle huffs and puffs, regaining her breath. Her body is now covered in scratches with some burns. Behind her, she hears a monster growling, slowly crawling toward her despite its injuries. So, without looking, she slams ones of her cannons on its head, sending it to dreamland.

She turns to Grogar, smiling. "Did you like the show?" She giggles. "You should close your mouth, or you will eat a fly."

Grogar shakes his head, recovering from his shock. "I underestimated you... You are more a monster than any monster I created."

She smirks. "Are you... scared?"

He looks at her in outrage. "I'm impressed! Not scared! I can't be scared! Others are scared of me!"

Dong! Dong!

Grogar fires a beam at the mountain, spreading its effect to the ocean of bodies, and drains the magic of all the monsters, gaining more power than ever while Sweetie Belle floats away to not get caught. He then unleashes it, causing the earth to shake and the sky to be covered by dark clouds, creating a very powerful storm. Strong dark winds are now circling the ram, and black lightning now constantly comes out of him. As some of the unconscious monsters are sent flying by this, Sweetie Belle resists, protecting her eyes with a hoof and smirking again at Grogar.

"Wow! Nice backdrop! I didn't know you were one for drama!"

"There's not much that you know about me!"

"I know enough to defeat you!"

Grogar slams a hoof on the ground, causing it to crack for miles. "Don't be so sure, you arrogant pest!"

Father of Monsters
Grogar

Sweetie Belle surrounds herself in a spherical shield, protecting herself from the wind. From the shield, she creates six arms each ending with a hand. In the first hand, she creates an energy sword. In the second, she creates an energy gun. In a third, she creates an energy whip. In a fourth, she creates an energy hammer. In a fifth, she creates an energy spear. The last one holds nothing, but points a finger at Grogar. Behind her, her ten cannons circle her, each ready to fire at the ram, while she creates dozens more elemental and energy weapons of all kind.

"Here's some of the fruits of my training!"

Dong! Dong!

Grogar fires a dark beam at Sweetie Belle to drain her magic, and Sweetie Belle flies out of the way. From the hand with the finger pointed at Grogar, she then fires dozens of hollowed stars that the ram easily blocks with the help of his Bell. She then sends all the weapons she has created toward him, and again, Grogar blocks all of them, only for Sweetie to appear behind him and to thrust her energy spear at his back while swinging her energy sword. Grogar teleports in the air and fires a giant dark beam at her, only for Sweetie to open a portal on its path and to open another beside the ram like she had done against Tirek.

Despite being taken off guard by this, Grogar manages to block the beam, but ends up bonked on the back by Sweetie's energy hammer, sending him crashing on the ground. As he recovers, he then see a shadow appear in the ground under him and quickly jumps out of the way, then charges back, ramming the filly who flies out of the shadow. Despite it, Sweetie is able to wrap her energy whip around him and slams him on the ground a few times before firing some energy beams that the ram blocks. But the beams are a diversion that lets her charge at him, her round shield covered in fire.

But then, Grogar slams a hoof through her shield, grabs her, and throws her out of it toward the sky before firing a dark beam. With a spin, Sweetie Belle avoids the beam, then avoids the dark claws that come out of it to chase her before charging back toward the ram, her cannons firing beams and elemental streams. Grogar blocks the projectiles and prepares to intercept the filly, only for her to surround herself in blue and purple energy before the resulting orb separates in two. The two halves then fly to his sides, and Grogar barely jumps out of the way as they crash into each other where he has been standing, only for the crash to create a huge explosion of energy that catches him.

In the middle of the explosion, Grogar teleports just above the center where Sweetie Belle is and slams her with both front hooves, making her crash and causing a crater to form. He then fires a dark beam, only for the filly to sink in the earth and disappear in it. A huge stone statue of Sweetie Belle then comes out and tries to crush Grogar under its hoof, but the ram destroys the hoof with just one punch before firing a beam at the statue, destroying it. Out of the statue, a dozen Sweetie Belle comes, and Grogar destroys all of them, revealing them to be mirror copies. The copies break into shards that charge toward him, but Grogar teleports, only to be hit by a storm of lightning bolts.

Teleporting away, Grogar looks at the origin and sees an one-eyed cloud surrounded with spikes which seems to be a painting given life. Again, Grogar fires a beam and destroys it, then jumps forward to avoid a now metallic Sweetie Belle almost dropping on him. She's followed however by a rain of explosive balls, one of them catching Grogar in its explosion. Recovering from it, he slams the ground and causes a part of it to rise under Sweetie Belle, sending her in the air, before he teleports and directly fires a beam at her, sending her crashing again. He then fires another beam, this time with his Bell, to drain her magic.

Using her hooves, Sweetie Belle propels herself out of the way, and continues to avoid more beams fired by Grogar, until the ram is suddenly impaled from behind by an energy sword. Coughing blood, Grogar teleports away and sees that he has been impaled by Sweetie Belle's round shield still there despite the filly not being inside it anymore. He quickly uses his magic to heal the damage caused by the sword, stopping the bleeding.

The shield throws its energy spear at him before firing at him with the gun, and Grogar teleports again before using the Bell to block dozens of projectiles fired by the cannons, only to have to teleport again to avoid three beam swords charging at him. He sees the shield fire a beam at him from its weaponless hand, and uses the Bell to absorb it, only to discover that he can't because the beam isn't made of magic! Before he can protect himself, he's hit by the beam and sent flying right into the path of an Ultimate Doom Laser. He teleports out of it, breathing heavily.

"This isn't magic!" he yells.

Sweetie Belle giggles. "Like I said to Chryssi, I can use other energies than magic. Celestia told me that your Bell can absorb magic..." Dark energy then starts circling her. "But as I thought, it can't absorb Dark Matter or any of the energies I create from it!"

Spreading her hooves, dozens of black spikes begin to randomly pock out of the air or the ground while dozens of dark orbs are fired from her body toward the ram who does his best to protect himself from the onslaught.

Sweetie Belle readies her beam swords and says "Since I came back in this dimension a few months ago, I trained hard to master this ultimate power of Creation and Destruction! The power..." She slashes a hole in space. "of the Gods!" A space beam comes out of the hole, and Grogar teleports away, only for Sweetie to slash another hole, and another, and another!

Eventually, Sweetie Belle stops slashing holes, leaving Grogar some respite as they both breathe heavily. "The power of the Gods? Seriously?"

"Of course, I am not a God, I can't create whole universes thanks to it. I'm not powerful enough." She places her hooves before her, and starts using energy to create what looks like a small sun, about as big as a beach ball. She then smirks. "But at least, I can still do that." She throws the sun at Grogar who easily jumps out of the way, only for the sun to create a huge explosion that badly burns him. Groaning in pain, he opens his eyes, only to see a meteor come toward him. He teleports away, and appears directly behind Sweetie Belle to punch her, only for the filly to disappear into shadows that surround the ram, only for eyes to chaotically appear in the darkness before firing dark lightning bolts.

Roaring, Grogar unleashes a huge explosion of dark magic that destroys the shadows and immediately spots Sweetie Belle as she has been thrown away by the attack. He then teleports above her and fires a dark beam, sending her crashing, before he fires dozens of smaller dark projectiles that all home in where she has crashed. Suddenly, Grogar spins around and fires another dark beam, destroying the round shield that has been about to stab him again. But then, an Ultimate Doom Laser comes from where Sweetie Belle crashed and engulfs him, sending him flying for a mile or two before he crashes.

He opens his eyes and sees Sweetie Belle charging toward him, hoof ready to punch, a huge quantity of energy surrounding it. He materializes the most resistant shield he can creates, and the filly punches it, the shock causing a huge wave to spread for miles.

To his horror, his shield starts cracking.

"Is this fear I see on your face?" asks the filly with the biggest smirk she can give.

More cracks.

As the shield breaks, Grogar places his Bell on the way of her hoof.

It starts cracking too.

"Ponies fear you, the Father of Monsters..."

More cracks.

"But monsters..."

More cracks.

"fear me."

BOOM!

In a phenomenal explosion of magic that is felt in all of Equestria and beyond, the Bell explodes, and Sweetie Belle's punch hits Grogar in the gut, creating a huge crater as he coughs blood. For a few seconds, the earth shakes.

To Sweetie Belle's surprise, by the time it's over, Grogar is still conscious, but barely, breathing heavily, terribly injured. Coughing some more blood, Grogar opens his eyes, and when he sees her, he starts panicking, but isn't able to move.

Giving a huff, Sweetie Belle puts her muzzle on his and says "Bring everyone back to normal."

Grogar nods rapidly, then does a spell.

Once he's done, Sweetie Belle grabs one of his legs. "Now, you're coming with me," she says before she walks back toward where she has fought the army of monsters dragging Grogar behind her. "By the way, thank you for the fight. Thanks to you, I think I'm ready to face Kirby."

Chapter 118: Sweetie Belle's Return to Dreamland

Everyone, especially the alicorns and Torch, can barely believe what they are witnessing. Not only Sweetie Belle has single handedly defeated an army made of thousands of powerful monsters created by Grogar including, in the lot, Sombra, Chrysalis, Tirek, and Discord, the filly is now standing against the ram himself despite him being in possession of his Bell and having more power than ever!

Then, Sweetie Belle manages to stab him, and everyone's jaw drops.

"She managed to stab Grogar... despite him having the Bewitching Bell..." says Celestia.

Luna sighs. "Is this really a surprise? Remember Galacta Knight? He was much more powerful than Grogar."

The ponies nod, Twilight saying "I remember. And I remember that she still has that hidden unknown power."

Torch looks at them in disbelief. "'Hidden unknown power'?" He points at the filly. "She isn't using her full power?!"

"Far from it..." answers Celestia as Sweetie Belle catches Grogar in one of her Ultimate Doom Lasers, causing a big explosion that shakes the earth. "At this point, all I know is that if she was to unleash it, she would probably devastate Equus..."

Torch continues to watch as Sweetie Belle creates a lot of dark spikes and throws a lot of dark orbs at Grogar before beginning to slash the very space to send very destructive beams from the created holes, devastating the landscape. "I can believe that..." The filly then creates a small sun that causes a huge explosion that could have blown the whole Canterlot Castle. "I believe that."

The fight continues for a small moment before another Ultimate Doom Laser sends Grogar flying a few miles away, and Sweetie Belle goes after him, energy gathering around one of her forehooves. Then, a few seconds later, a strong shockwave comes from where they have gone, toppling everyone excepted the bigger dragons. The shockwave is quickly followed by a magical explosion never witnessed in the history of Equus, causing everything to shake for a long time.

Thanks Celestia the princess has proofed Canterlot against earthquakes, or the city would have been destroyed.

Then, it all stops, and the calm returns. Just as some start wondering if it's over, they then see the ones that Grogar turned into monsters returning to normal as they also can see magic returning to them.

"Welp. It's over," says Applejack. "Let's go help those poor folks."

Celestia nods and sends her army to go help the monsters turned back to normal, followed by the changelings, Cadance, and Fluttershy, those last two flying toward Shining Armor and Discord.

Rainbow Dash huffs. "She could have at least let us have some action. Now we gathered here for nothing!

"Not for nothing," says Pinkie as she finishes a bag of popcorns. "We got to watch an awesome fight!"

"Eh. True."

Twilight points to Chrysalis, Sombra, and Tirek. "What do we do about them?" she asks to Celestia.

"We heal them under heavy guard, and then, we decide of their fate."

"Tartarus, of course," says Luna.

"Unless they decide to stop their villainy after what happened."

Luna rolls her eyes. "These three? Stopping?" Then, after some thinking, she says "Unless the knowledge of Sweetie Belle defeating Grogar pushes them to stop, at least for their safety."

"If those three summoned back Grogar, I don't think they care about their safety," says Torch. "By the way, I see the filly Sweetie Belle approaching..." He starts howling in laughter. "and she's dragging Grogar like a bag of potatoes! Oh! How the mighty has fallen!" He stops laughing, squints to better see, then starts rolling on the floor laughing. "And he's still conscious! He's staring at her like she's his mom about to spank him!"

.............

"I want to see that!" shouts Luna before she flies in the direction of the filly.

"Me too!" shouts Celestia, following her.

"Hey! Wait for me!" shouts Twilight. As she takes off, she turns to her friends. "You should go help transporting the ex-monsters back to Canterlot."

"Wait! I want to come too!" shouts Rarity.

Twilight nods and lets the white mare climb on her back before she follows the two other princesses.

---

As Sweetie Belle continues to drag Grogar, she sees the three alicorns and her sister approaching and waves at them. Almost immediately after landing, as Rarity hugs her, Celestia and Luna begin to laugh at seeing how Grogar is staring at the filly. The ram growls at the alicorns but is immediately calmed by a death stare from Sweetie Belle, making him whimper which leads to more laughter from the princesses, including Twilight this time.

"So..." starts the filly. "Is everyone back to normal?"

Celestia calms down and answers. "Yes, they are. The royal guards and the changelings are transporting them to Canterlot to be healed.

"Nice to see that the changelings can be nice when they aren't forced to follow such a stupid queen. Speaking of, what will happen to Chryssi and the two others?"

"They will be healed and sent to Tartarus with Grogar and the Storm King."

"Okay. You know, I will miss them. They were fun to mess with."

---

Chrysalis suddenly awakens and rises only to yell in pain because of her injuries, forcing her to lie down again. Her yell causes Sombra and Tirek to awaken only to yelp in pain too before the yelps turn into groans. Looking at their bodies heavily bandaged and plastered, they quickly understand why.

"I knew this was a bad idea..." says Tirek.

"Shut up..." says weakly Chrysalis. "Where are we?"

"In the hospital wing of Canterlot Castle," answers a voice they all recognize. Slowly looking at the wall at the end of the room, they see Sweetie Belle sitting on a chair, looking at them one after another with an amused expression. She's slightly bandaged, but nothing too bad compared to them. "Hi."

They all look at her in disbelief. "You're still alive...?" the three of them ask.

"Yup."

Chrysalis starts looking around. "But then... Where's..." She then spots Grogar also on a bed, his body as heavily bandaged and plastered than her and the others and staring at the filly as if she is the Devil about to take his soul.

"Yeah. I defeated Grogar. But let's give him credit, he gave me more difficulty than the three of you together."

Chrysalis' brain seems to shutdown. "She... She... She..."

"I give up!" half-shouts Tirek. "Send me back to Tartarus or whatever, I don't care anymore! If even Grogar couldn't defeat you, nothing will!"

"Why are you there?" asks Sombra with a growl. "To rub your victory?"

"Nope. I'm just here to guard you and ensure that none of you try anything stupid, and also so Grogar remains still." She smiles sweetly at the ram. "Little Grogy now knows better than to try anything in my presence, especially now that his Bell is destroyed. Right, Grogy?"

She's answered by a whimper.

"The mighty Grogar whimpering at a filly..." sighs Sombra. "When has everything gone so wrong?"

"When that pest came back from wherever she was sent to!" yells Chrysalis. "Couldn't you have remained stuck in this other place?!"

Sweetie Belle giggles and approaches Chrysalis' bed. "Come on, Chryssi-"

"Don't call me that!"

"You know there was no way for me to remain stuck in this other dimension, not with Discord keeping watch. And thanks to it, I got to have so much fun with you." She goes to rub Chrysalis' cheek, only for the changeling to bite her hoof. But she then yells in pain, some of her teeth now broken because Sweetie's hoof is now made of metal. "See?" says Sweetie Belle with a giggle. "You are just so fun to mess with." She taps Chrysalis' cheek a couple of time before returning to her chair. "Too bad this ends now. Once you are healed, you will all be sent to Tartarus. The Storm King already went ahead. He wasn't that injured. But, hey! If you stop being bad guys, then we could remain together and become friends!"

"Never!" they yell.

Sweetie Belle shrugs. "Too bad. You know, you should really test that friendship stuff. It's very nice. Many former villains that I know would say the same. You should think about this in Tartarus."

---

A few weeks later, the villains are healed enough to be sent to Tartarus. They are all placed in cages beside each others so they can keep each other company in the slight hope that they become friends and discover that having friends is better than remaining alone trying to conquer everything. In her mind, Sweetie also hope that they will come up with a scheme to escape, forcing her to go after them and have fun with them again. Although Grogar will clearly not try anything anytime soon. Poor guy has totally lost his spirit. To help him regain it, Sweetie Belle put a photo of her with written under it "Please, come out quick!" outside his cage to remind him that she's here, waiting for him to come out. She will be sure to give him a crushing hug the day this happens.

As for Sweetie Belle, she has told her family and friends that she thinks that it's time for her to return to Popstar to fight Kirby, and she has asked them if they want to follow her to pass some time together there, which Rarity and the others have gladly accepted. Celestia is also curious to explore Popstar and, why not, start some negotiations with Dreamland and Floralia. She would like also to visit Patch Land, and more exactly, that land made of cakes.

Luna has charged Sweetie Belle to make sure that Celestia never enters this land of cakes, or any other similar lands existing in this universe.

And so, at the beginning of the next period of vacation, Sweetie Belle, her sister, their friends (including Spike), Celestia, and Spiky, enter the Lor Starcutter (now floating above a platform made for it beside Twilight's castle).

"Ok Lor, time to return to our other home!" says the filly happily as the ship activates itself around them.

Already, in the main screen, the Lor is making the preparations to travel from Equus to Popstar while Sweetie's chair appears in front of the keyboard and others appear around it for everypony else to sit.

"Oh! Lor! Can you make my chair into a spinning chair?" asks Pinkie Pie.

Almost immediately, Pinkie's chair becomes a chair standing on a single bar that separates into four feet, and the bar is separated into two parts, the superior one able to spin with the chair. So the mare begins to spin with it.

"Weeeeee!!"

After some giggling at Pinkie's antics, the ship finally takes off, and after taking some height, it fires a beam that opens a star-shaped portal that it traverses. The Lor comes out of it in the space above Popstar, facing the planet and letting everypony admire the star-shaped planet.

"Beautiful..." says Celestia.

"Remember, if you want to see it more directly, you can come out. We can survive in space here," says Sweetie Belle. At her words, an exit appears, and the filly walks toward it, saying "Follow me!"

And so, they come out on the deck of the Lor where they can directly admire Popstar, its two rings, the sun and the moon slowly circling it, Dedede's space resort barely visible...

"And wait until we enter the atmosphere and the yellow disappears to let us see the lands and the oceans," says then Sweetie Belle.

"Won't we... you know... burn?" asks Rainbow Dash.

"The Lor will protect us," answers the filly.

Taking it as its cue, the Lor starts approaching the planet, and soon, they enter the atmosphere. As Sweetie Belle has said, thanks to some sort of barrier surrounding the deck of the Lor, the ponies aren't burned, leaving them to look in awe as the yellow disappear and the surface becomes visible. Rapidly, they can discern everything, oceans, grasslands, forests, deserts, mountains, star-shaped islands, visible for miles and miles.

Already, they can see in the horizon the Dreamstalk and the islands forming Floralia, with Sweetie's palace at the top beside the flower. Below, on a mountain not far of the base, they eventually spot Dedede's castle, as sinister-looking as ever with its two windows forming two angry eyes. The Lor passes beside it, Sweetie Belle waving at the guards patrolling on the walls, revealing to them that she's back.

After that, the Lor goes to land at the base of the mountain, and the ponies exit the ship not long after, looking around at the peaceful land.

Sweetie Belle turns toward them and spreads her forelegs. "Welcome to Dreamland!" She then starts pointing at different directions. "So, Dedede's castle is, as you know, at the top of this mountain behind us! Over here is the Dreamstalk leading to Floralia! You can choose to climb it on hooves, but I advise you to take one of the elevators that has been built along it. Much faster. Over here is the coast where you will find Meta Knight's HQ! Over here is the forest where Whispy likes to spend most of his time! Over here is Kirbyland! And over here is Kirby's home! And remember, watch where you walk, or you may accidentally walk on food!" she finishes with a giggle. "Oh, I can't wait to have a picnic with you in my favorite spot, or to go visit the Rainbow Islands with you! Maybe we will even go to New Halcandra!"

"And I suppose you can't wait to see your coltfriend," says Rarity with a knowing smile.

Sweetie Belle glares at her, blushing. "Kirby is NOT my coltfriend!"

"Of course of course," says Rarity with a giggle and a roll of her eyes.

At this instant, a red and blue blur comes from nowhere, and before everypony knows it, Sweetie Belle has disappeared.

"Sweetie Belle!! You're back!!" they then hear someone yelling while crying further at their left. Turning their heads, they see Dedede on the floor, giving Sweetie Belle a bear hug while rubbing his head against hers.

"Dedede... Can't breath..."

Dedede gets up, still hugging the filly, but thankfully less strongly. "I really missed you, y'know?"

Sweetie Belle laughs while giving Dedede a bump on his torso. "I saw that. I think I never saw you run that fast!"

Dedede guffaws at this. "Ahahahah! Ah! Eh! You seem lighter."

"Of course. Outside of your bad gluttonous influence, it was easy to lose all the weight I gained there."

"Me? A bad influence?!" shouts the penguin before putting his face directly in front of Sweetie's. "Did you forget who turned the little squeaky furball that you were into the superheroic warrior that you're now?"

"Certainly not you! You wanted to turn me into a weapon to fight Kirby for your own butt! There was never anything heroic intended in it!"

"But I planted the seeds!"

"Yeah! By forcing me to punch an innocent, adorable Waddle Dee!"

They glare at each other, growling for a few seconds, before bursting into laughter, Dedede rubbing his head against hers again.

"I really missed that!" says the king.

"Me too! But you're still a bad influence!"

"A bad influence, but the best influence!"

"My figure says otherwise!"

While the two are happily bickering, the rest of the ponies keep their distance, leaving the two friends to their reunion.

"It's like they're best buddies!" comments Applejack.

"I know, right?" suddenly says a voice beside them, making Fluttershy hide behind Celestia. When they look at the origin, they see that Bandana Waddle Dee is now beside them, also looking happily at the reunion. "It's hard to think that the first time they met each others, the king almost crushed her under his hammer," he says before turning to them. "Hi! You must be Sweetie Belle's friends from Equestria? Nice to meet you! I'm Bandana Waddle Dee, but friends just call me Bandana Dee, or Bandana!"

"Eeeeeeee!"

Before he knows it, he's suddenly hugged by Fluttershy. Her shout gains the attention of the two bickering friends who turn toward them. Seeing Bandana Dee, Sweetie Belle smiles widely.

"Bandana!" shouts the filly before she jumps out of Dedede's arms and runs toward the Waddle Dee to hug him.

---

Later, in the castle.

"To Sweetie Belle's return!" shouts Dedede while rising a cup.

"To Sweetie Belle's return!" repeats everyone else in his army as they also rise their cups, starting the banquet.

Yes, already a banquet. Dedede. Enough said.

Of course, The ponies and Spike are all guests in this banquet, already discussing with one of the many friends Sweetie made in this castle.

"So, tell me, what have you been up to back in your world?" asks Dedede.

"Nothing. I gave a bad time to some mid-class villains, and defeated the most powerful dark lord of my world's history."

"Why am I not surprised?" says Broom Sunglasses with a chuckle.

"What about you?"

"Nothing special. I just started building my second battleship, the Warhammer 2. No villain attacked since you left. However, I learned that Halcandra finally appeared right in the middle of the ring of New Halcandra. Our battle against Void Termina probably accelerated its coming. Magolor is already working in making it habitable again."

"Great!"

That's when a Maxim Tomato pie is placed in front of Sweetie, and the filly frowns at it, gulping, before glaring at Dedede.

"Are you trying to fatten me up again?"

"Why are you thinking that? It's just your favorite food as a gift to celebrate your return!"

Sweetie Belle stares at the king for a few seconds. "I can accept that," she finally says before she starts to eat the pie.

"So, the big day is coming?" asks Dedede.

"Yup. I'm going to finally fight Kirby. But before..." She looks at Rarity and the others. "I will pass some days with them to make them visit around."

---

They first go to Kirby's house, which is now also Void and Galacta's house, meaning that it's now bigger, more the size of a normal house with three chambers, a bathroom, a kitchen, and a dining room, while also keeping its cute original design.

Celestia is the only one who hasn't followed Sweetie Belle, the princess remaining in the castle to talk with Dedede.

The filly knocks on the door, which is also bigger to let Void pass. Kirby is the one opening it with a "Poyo?" Then, when he see that Sweetie is the one who has knocked, he smiles and shouts another "Poyo!" before hugging her.

"Control yourself, Flutter," says Rainbow Dash.

"It's hard..." replies Fluttershy as she does her hardest to not rush to hug the puffball.

Behind Kirby, Void comes. "Well, what a surprise. Welcome back Sweetie Belle."

Sweetie Belle looks at him, only to raise an eyebrow. "You have hands now?"

Void shows his new hands to her. "I just had to wait for them to develop. What? Haven't you remarked that all adults of our species have hands? Kirby will have hands too once he reaches adulthood."

"Uh... I just thought that you and Kirby were... different because... Well..."

Void nods. "I understand what you mean. We are special, yes, but we are still of the same species than Galacta Knight and Meta Knight."

"Ok. And where's Galacta?"

"Training with Meta Knight. He's not has powerful, but he is surprisingly skilled. The two are now toe to toe, as long as Galacta doesn't use the Matters to boost himself. Speaking of, where are you at in your training to master the Dark Matter?"

"Well, I'm here, so you can guess."

"I see," says Void with a chuckle before he advances, Sweetie and Kirby moving out of the way so he can exit the house to greet the visitors.

At the thought that they're in presence of a real God, some of the ponies faint.

---

The following days, Sweetie Belle and Kirby lead the ponies to visit a lot of places all over Popstar and the Dream Universe.

They visit Floralia, and more particularly, Adeleine's school and Sweetie's palace that lets the ponies absolutely speechless at its size and beauty. Sweetie Belle also takes the occasion to visit the hangar that has been built in her absence where her own battleship is being built: the Unique Horn.

Then, after a quick passage to Meta Knight's HQ to say hi, they go to the Rainbow Islands, ending their visit by climbing to the top of Dark Castle.

"You know, this castle needs a different name," says Rarity.

Sweetie Belle shrugs. "Dedede likes his castles and fortresses to have a foreboding aspect."

The next day, they have a picnic at Sweetie's favorite spot beside the lake.

"I can see why you like coming here. It is very calm and nice," says Fluttershy.

"Mmhmmh," agrees the filly as she lies against her sister while admiring the view.

After that, they visit some friends a little everywhere, from Marx to Daroach. The next day is passed entirely in Kirbyland, while the next day is passed in Dedede's Resort in the Popopo Islands. After that, they explore various known places all around Popstar, like Cookie Country, or the Sky Tower of Nutty Noon.

They then go to explore other planets, starting with Patch Land (where Sweetie Belle has to drag Celestia away from Treat Land), before they visit some of the planets Sweetie Belle and Kirby traversed during the incident with Marx and Nova, having a nice snowball in Floria. They then go to Shiver Star, Twilight having a field trip in the factory, before they go to Ripple Star where Fluttershy and the fillies have a lot of fun playing with the adorable fairies.

Seventopia comes next, recolored, and much safer. The ponies pass a lot of time there sculpting.

And finally, they visit New Halcandra, encountering Magolor, Susie, and the ex-members of the Jambastion Religion. The ring world is now repaired, with a new Moon, and as Dedede has told, Halcandra is now present in the center where they meet the Landias.

A few more worlds are explored randomly after that, discovering so much more wonders before they return to Popstar to rest. There, Sweetie goes to the training room.

"A last training session before your fight against Kirby?" asks Bandana Dee as he follows Sweetie Belle in it with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo.

"Yup," answers the filly as she approaches the console. "I want to try something." She then begins to press some buttons.

"What will ya do?" asks Apple Bloom.

"Just look," replies the unicorn as she finishes setting the parameters.

She has set the training room to be in 'wave mode' before pushing the difficulty to 'absolutely impossible'.

Fight all the powerful enemies ever encountered in Kirby and Sweetie Belle's adventures one after another, from Kirby's first fight against Whispy Woods to the ultimate battle against Void. For the case of enemies fought more than once, like Whispy Woods or Kracko, you will have to do all the different fights. Be ready to fight through over one hundred battle!

Post scriptum from Magolor: I sadly couldn't fully reproduce the full power of Void but, at least, the reproduction should be half as powerful as the original, which is already good enough. Also, the fight against the Access Ark isn't included for obvious reasons.

Number of people succeeding at this difficulty: two.
Names: Kirby, Void.
Good luck. You will need it.

Sweetie Belle raises an eyebrow. "Kirby and Void already did it? Void, I understand, but why Kirby? He never trains unless there's food as a reward, and this difficulty was judged too impossible to give any reward." She shrugs. "Oh, well, time to be the third." At this, she enters the other room under the looks of disbelief of Bandana Dee, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo.

"Eh. I bet all my economies that she succeeds," says Scootaloo.

"Hey! Ah wanted to-"

"Too late."

"Then Ah don't bet!"

"Spoilsport."

Some hours later, Sweetie Belle exits the training room, smiling proudly, under the amazed stares of her friends.

"Don't tell anyone anything you saw in there!" she shouts to them as she walks away, humming the Gourmet Race song.

---

The next day, finally...

Someone knocks at Kirby's door in the morning, and the pink puffball opens it to reveal Dedede.

"Kirby..." he starts ominously. "It's time. She's waiting for you."

Kirby understands what he means and asks "Poyo?" Where?

"Sweetie Belle is waiting for you," repeats Dedede, misinterpreting the question, making Kirby facepalm.

"Po... W... Where?"

"Where it began...

---

at the Fountain of Dreams."

Sweetie Belle is sitting in front of the Fountain of Dreams, staring at the water, and at the Star Rod with a nostalgic smile.

Then, she hears the familiar sound of a Warp Star landing behind her, and she turns her head to look at Kirby, smiling. "You are there... Thanks for coming."

"Poyo."

Sweetie Belle signs to him to come sit beside her, and Kirby does so.

"The Fountain of Dreams... I thought that it would be fitting to end this where it started." She giggles. "I still remember the day as if it was yesterday." She points at a spot behind them. "Right here, you hugged me, ending our first fight before it could even start," she says with a laugh.

Kirby laughs too. "Poyo."

Kirby falls from the sky, and Sweetie Belle barely suppresses a squee at how adorable he is.

Then, at seeing her, Kirby tilts his head and says "Poyo?" almost causing the filly to come and hug him.

After taking some calming breathes, Sweetie Belle starts talking. "Hum... Hello! My name is Sweetie Belle! You are Kirby, right?"

She is answered by Kirby smiling, nodding and waving at her while saying "Hiiii!"

Again, she has to stop herself from tackle hugging him. But in the end, she didn't need to, because Kirby comes and hug her.

"H-hey! What are you doing?! Stop! You shouldn't hug me! I'm an enemy! I'm working for Dedede! I have to beat you and... and..." she turns her head toward Dedede who's hidden behind the fountain. "I can't! I'm sorry! I can't hurt him!"

Dedede facepalms. Hard.

"And then, you fought Dedede and revealed your Copy Ability. It was the talk of the castle the next day! And after Dedede, you fought Nightmare, and caused that huge crater that we can now see on the Moon. To think that Nightmare was only the first villain in a long list... Leading to us going on so much adventures together... Starting with the Rainbow Islands and our fight against Dark Matter."

Sweetie Belle and Kirby defeat some hedgehog thing before opening a bag, revealing a giant hamster in it who nuzzles the two of them in thanks.

Kirby kisses her, and Sweetie becomes all red before she shouts a high pitched scream and yells "T-t-t-t-t-th-th-t-thatwasmyfirstkiss!"

Sweetie Belle punches Whispy Woods, only to be hurt at her hoof. "Ow!"

"Did you really expect to be able to punch a tree?" mocks Whispy.

"My friend's big sister and big brother can! I just need to get stronger!"

"Well, to get stronger, you need to eat your fruits. Here are some apples for you," finishes the tree before he starts raining apples.

"CUTIE MARK CRUSADER, BOAR RIDER! YEAH!!!"

Kirby jumps on her back. "Poyo!"

This makes Sweetie laugh. "Kirby! You don't need to..." But she is then stopped by another unexpected event. A sudden light appears around her, and her fur turns into white stone! "Wh... WHAAT?!"

They have finally defeated Dedede, and now, they merge the collected Rainbow Drops to form a rainbow colored sword that they use to force out whatever has taken possession of the penguing.

When the Dark Matter flies away toward space, Kirby jumps on Sweetie's back, making her mane and tail looking like Celestia's and rainbow colored, before they take off to chase the dark being.

Sweetie Belle sighs. "And then there was the Halberd, and Marx, and Zero, and Zero Two, and Dark Mind... Drawcia... Dark Nebula... All the way to Void. We went through many crazy or awesome moments, like when we went inside Nova, the whole adventure against Drawcia, or the battle against Star Dream where we got to pilote battleships. We got a lot of fun moments, and some less fun moments... And each time, we were both getting stronger. We were supposed to become mortal rivals, but in the end, we became best friends and friendly rivals. And while, yes, I want to fight you to keep the Pinkie Promise I made to Dedede, I also want to fight you just because I want to see if I can finally defeat you. It was my first goal, the reason why Dedede started training me seriously before I became a hero." She lies against Kirby. "But no matter the outcome of this fight, Kirby, this will change nothing between us. You are my best friend, that I win, or I lose."

Kirby nods, smiling. "Poyo," he says before lying against Sweetie Belle, the filly putting her tail around him as they both look at the Fountain of Dreams, reminiscing all those memories.

---

Rarity and Void, among their friends, watch Sweetie Belle and Kirby lying against each other through a portal created by Discord so they can watch the future fight before sighing.

"They are so cute together," says the mare.

"I know, right?" replies the God.

They then look at each other, nod, and give each other a hoof/fist bump.

"If, by the time they reach adulthood, they aren't together, I cut my mane."

"And me, I give up my powers as a God."

"Shipping partners?"

"Shipping partners."

For some reason, Sweetie Belle feels a shiver.

Author's Notes:

So, as you remarked, I put the rating of the story to teen. That's because, let's say it, this story has some moments really not kid friendly. The whole Dreamland 3 for starting (especially Zero's fight), but also the backstories and some other dark stuff.

Second, the next chapter will probably take a few weeks to come out. Kelduo is finishing a little project for the final fight, and it takes some time. Also, there will be a big song with a lot of lyrics, which will take time to write.

Finally, is there anyone that would like to draw some splash screens for the final fight? Please?

Chapter 119: Duel Against the Hero

Author's Notes:

Here we go! After months of work!
Thanks to The Kelduo for doing the first two songs of the second phase of the fight. It's not perfect, but he still did a great job.
Thanks to Spellflame for editing and uploading the songs in Youtube.
Thanks to Angel Midnight for doing the drawings of the forms of Sweetie Belle for the phases 3 and 4. You can go to his DeviantArt there: Link But I advise you to wait to read the chapter before following the link to not be spoiled of Sweetie Belle's forms.

It was really hard to do, but I did it. Enjoy the fight!

All over the universe, portals are opened by Discord so everyone could watch the greatly awaited coming fight between the two heroes, Kirby and Sweetie Belle. Every single ones of them are present. Daroach and his Squeaks in their hideout. The animals in the Rainbow Islands. The robots on Shiver Star. The fairies on Ripple Star. Magolor and the others on New Halcandra...

And Discord finishes by appearing beside Luna in a crowd in Ponyville, and with a last snap, creates another portal for them to watch.

"Who do you think will win?" asks Luna.

"I have no idea," answers Discord.

---

Under the eternal night sky of Rainbow Resort, not a sound is heard, not even from the many people watching behind portals, all holding their breath.

Sweetie Belle and Kirby are facing each other in front of the Fountain of Dreams, separated by a dozen meters.

"Ready?" asks the filly with a smile.

Hero of Popstar
SWEETIE BELLE

Kirby nods, determined, but smiling too. "Poyo!"

Hero of Popstar
KIRBY

.......................................................

They charge at each other.

Sweetie Belle is the first one to attack with a punch that Kirby easily avoids thanks to his flexible body. The puffball then gives an uppercut to Sweetie's chin, but the filly spins, avoiding it, and gives him a buck that Kirby parries with his arms, but it still makes him slide back a few meters. He rolls to avoid a beam sword thrown at him like a spear, grabs it, and throws it back at the filly who easily catches it in the air. Kirby then charges back at her, and Sweetie readies her sword, only for Kirby to give her a sliding kick through her legs, making her trip, but while on the ground, she fires an energy ball from her back legs at the puffball, only for him to roll out of the way.

As she gets up, Kirby tries to inhale her, so she turns her body into metal to resist the vortex, so he gives up, jumps, and gives a drop kick that she parries before she grabs his leg and slams him on the ground, only for Kirby to use his arms to stop himself from being slammed. With his arms on the ground, he then starts spinning while Sweetie is still holding his leg, throwing her away, but she quickly comes back to headbutt him, so Kirby propels himself away, and Sweetie headbutts the ground instead, creating a small hole.

Grabbing one of her beam swords, she then charges at Kirby and swings, swings, swings, only for Kirby to avoid all of them by flattening his body or dodging. So Sweetie Belle fires a magical beam that Kirby deflects with his arm before he tries to punch her, leading Sweetie to place her beam sword on the way. But then, a familiar sword appears in Kirby's hands, and catches Sweetie Belle off guard with it, forcing her to jump back to not be cut.

Sweetie Belle looks at Kirby in surprise. "The Sword Ability?! But you haven't even eaten a sword or a sword user!"

The sword in Kirby's hands disappears as he smirks at her. Then, he charges at her before he's suddenly enveloped in fire, turning him into a fireball that is stopped by a shield that is almost broken.

"And now the Fire Ability?" shouts the filly. "Kirby... Have you discovered how to use abilities without inhaling, like your father?"

"Poyo!" shouts Kirby with a nod and a smile. "Father train!"

Sweetie Belle blinks. "So you really trained? I had a hard time believing it when I went in the training room. You never trained before. Did you train for me? For this fight?"

"Poyo!"

She giggles. "I'm flattered." Her ten cannons start levitating around her. "Time to get a little more serious then." And she charges back toward Kirby.

The staff appears this time in Kirby's 'hands' and he uses it to parry eight of the ten swords. The last two slash from his left and right, but Kirby then suddenly becomes very tiny, and the two swords pass above him. As he recovers his normal size, he then quickly jumps to avoid a beam fired by Sweetie Belle. Now above the filly, Kirby then turns into metal. Sweetie Belle quickly jumps back to avoid being crushed and immediately tries to punch him with an energy-covered hoof that would hurt Kirby even in his metal form.

Rather than avoiding it, Kirby intercepts it with his own punch, creating a shockwave as the two collide. As the two begin to exchange punches by the dozen per second, Sweetie Belle positions her ten cannons around Kirby to fire at him. But then, wings appears on Kirby's back, and he suddenly ascends, avoiding the ten beams. He then dives back at Sweetie Belle, who quickly forms back her staff and uses it to stop Kirby. After a small clash, Kirby then bounces from the staff to land behind Sweetie Belle and immediately attacks her with a series of slash with the cutter blade. The first slash hits her back, but the remaining ones are blocked by a shield.

Kirby then teleports just in front of Sweetie Belle and punches her in the muzzle, sending her flying dozens of meter away. Sweetie Belle recovers mid-air and lands on her hooves before she sends a series of energy balls homing in Kirby. He avoids all of them with a series of small teleportations before he stops as Sweetie Belle teleports just in front of him with a shield-hammer ready to crush him. Kirby quickly materializes his hammer and the two clashes again, only for him to be tripped by Sweetie Belle. Before he could even hit the floor, the filly then gives him a back-kick.

As soon as Kirby lands from the kick, he turns into a wheel and rolls toward Sweetie Belle, who quickly creates a ramp out of the ground on his path, causing him to jump above her. In the middle of his jump, Sweetie Belle then uses her whip and wraps it around him to attempt to slam him, only for Kirby to turn into a rocket and to fly away, dragging the filly behind him. Sweetie Belle has to turn herself into metal and to trap her back hooves in the ground to stop this before she spreads electricity through the whip, electrifying the puffball. But in the middle of being electrified, Kirby surprises her by sending his own electricity at Sweetie Belle, and the filly has to release him.

Kirby then lands and returns to normal before he materializes his bow and fires dozens of arrows at the sky, making them rain on Sweetie Belle. Instead of using a shield, Sweetie Belle digs and disappears in the ground. Kirby immediately uses his wings again to fly, hoping to avoid being attacked from under the ground this way. He, however, hasn't expected Sweetie Belle to teleport just above him before blasting him to send him crashing. Sweetie Belle is in turn taken off guard by a whip wrapping itself around her neck, and she finds herself following Kirby and crashing just after him.

Kirby is the first to recover and quickly punches Sweetie Belle in the belly, and as she's sent flying, he wraps his whip around her again to bring her back to him to punch her again, only for Sweetie Belle to wrap herself into a ball before she turns her hairs into needles. Seeing this, Kirby turns into metal again to reduce the damage, but Sweetie Belle turns too into metal, and the two collide, in the end hurting each other.

The two of them end up on the ground again, but quickly jump away from each other.

They aren't even winded yet.

"Woo!" shouts Sweetie Belle, a big smile on her muzzle. "That's a good warming up! But I think it's time to stop playing around. Don't you think, Kirby?"

This makes Kirby frown in determination, and he quickly takes a defensive position. "Poy!"

Sweetie Belle takes the same expression. "Alright then..."

Sweetie Belle then starts to levitate herself and slowly ascends as she begins to sing, her ten cannons forming a circle behind her.

"Ah ahah ahaaah...
Ah ahah ahaaah..."

ARCHMAGE OF THE VOID
QUEEN SWEETIE BELLE

Here she comes... thinks Kirby as the familiar aura appears around the smirking filly, and the ten cannons now face him.

"We've come so far together."

The cannons fire.

"Once I was a filly like the others, innocent, who simply lived her life.
But one day, I found myself transported to a world, to a life full of strife."

Lasers after lasers are fired by the cannons, and Kirby avoids all of them, using this to charge electricity around him before he fires it at the levitating filly who flies to the side to avoid it, only to be headbutted by the puffball enveloped in fire. Despite the pain, Sweetie Belle smacks Kirby from above with a shield, and he crashes on the ground, but the puffball quickly moves before he could be hit again by a giant shield fist.

"And then I met the King!

From day one, a loyal servant I became,
To a king who hated your very own name."

Sweetie Belle creates several giant shards of ice that she drops all over the area around Kirby, one after another. When they reach the ground, they sink halfway in it, creating a circle of spikes of ice spreading out. Kirby opts to fly with his Wing Ability to avoid them easily, but then, the giant shards of ice explode one after another, sending smaller shards in all directions, and Kirby is hit by one of them while Sweetie Belle uses a mirror shield to protect herself and send more of them toward Kirby, who protects himself with his own mirror shield.

"I was trained so one day I could confront you
Without expecting everything I would go through."

Kirby throws a bomb toward Sweetie Belle, but she easily avoids it. However, he uses his power from his ESP Ability to levitates the bomb back behind the filly just before it explodes, and she is caught in the explosion. In return, she rains bombs all over the place, and the puffball has a hard time avoiding all the explosions.

"That was my dreamed chance.
My magic was behind all the others.
I started this dance,
So I could catch up to all the others."

Sweetie Belle materializes a small ball of energy and begins to juggle with it with her fore legs. Each time that she touches it, it becomes bigger and more powerful until she kicks it toward Kirby, who uses his hammer to send it back. The two begin to hit the ball back and forth, the ball gaining speed and power each time.

"Now today we are, facing each other!"

Then, instead of sending it back at Kirby, she kicks it toward the ground just beside him. Kirby has barely time to run away before the ball reaches the ground and explodes, and he is still close enough to be sent flying.

"Here it all began, before we became a team.
Here it will finish, observed by the Great Giver of Dreams."

Using the Ball Ability, Kirby bounces from the ground without damage and then uses the Wheel to roll back toward Sweetie Belle, moving left and right to avoid the spikes of stone coming out of the ground in his path. Once he is close enough, he stops and uses Hi-Jump to do a powerful jump toward Sweetie Belle that she easily avoids, only for Kirby to throw a spear at her. Despite the surprise, Sweetie Belle easily gets rid of it.

Kirby then begins to expel water and to freeze it to slide on it around the filly.

"It's all come back to this, to you versus me.
I won't hold back, Kirby!
We may be friends, but it was our destiny
To battle. Only one will have... the last victory!"

While sliding on the ice, Kirby fires lasers from a high-tech visor appearing on his head, but they are all reflected by a mirror shield. But then, Kirby jumps, materializes an axe, and smashes it on the shield, breaking it. But Sweetie Belle is able to parry it with her staff, and she quickly separates a cannon from it to fire at Kirby from the side, forcing him to jump away. Sweetie Belle then uses her ten cannons as double beam swords to attack Kirby from a distance without giving him respite until he teleports.

He appears right behind Sweetie Belle, grabs her around the barrel, and smashes her on the ground, only to receive a kick on the face, sending him flying as Sweetie Belle recovers.

She chuckles. "Come on, Kirby! I'm only starting!"

Then, a shield taking the shape of Dedede's mecha hammer appears on her right hoof, and another taking the shape of Meta Knight's sword appears on her left hoof. Finally, a shield shaped to be some fusion of Dedede's mask and Meta Knight's mask appears on her face.

And she restarts singing.

"A powerful king,
Heavy hammer he swings;
A fast little knight,
A sword he uses with might."

The hammer opens to fire missile-like shields homing in Kirby. With a series of rolls and jumps to the side, he avoids them, and sees that like real missiles, the fakes explode, probably thanks to some explosive energy put in them. He then has to use a sword to parry several sword beams sent at him. While he parries them, Sweetie Belle does a big jump and does several circles in the air with the 'reactor' put in the fake hammer. Just before she reaches Kirby, the puffball rolls right under her. The hammer smashes the ground where he has been the previous second and creates a shockwave above which Kirby jumps. In the middle of the jump, he then kicks Sweetie Belle on the head, then uses the kick to bounce away to avoid the sword.

"Two strong, fierce rivals
We had to outrival
Again and again,
Our battles were hurricanes!"

They constantly move, attack, dodge, parry, and counterattack, exchanging blow for blow before Kirby jumps away as Sweetie Belle begins to spin with the hammer. Before his eyes, a tornado forms around her, and he quickly runs to the side as it is sent in his direction. He avoids it, but more tornadoes follow the first before he has the idea of using his own Tornado Ability to counter them, approach the filly, and attack her as her spinning is slowing down. In return, Kirby receives several slashes from the sword before they separate.

"Now look at us being at the top!
Too bad that this victory cannot be shared!
So it's time to fight and let's not stop
Until only one is remaining in there!"

Sweetie Belle suddenly throws the sword above her before she duplicates herself! The second Sweetie Belle then catches the sword, and the shield-masks on both of them morph to fully copy Dedede's mask for the Sweetie Belle with the hammer and Meta Knight's mask for the one with the sword. The Sweetie Belle with the swords then flies at the other side of Kirby, and the puffball understands that he's gonna have a bad time.

"As the wind is howling with my sword
And the earth is shaking each time my hammer strikes,
I'll unleash the strength I have stored
To make you understand what defeat feels like!

From you and them, from other friends and old foes
I learned everything to battle you toes to toes."

Sword Sweetie Belle sends with a slash a crescent wave, not at Kirby, but at Hammer Sweetie Belle, who prepares her weapons. Hammer Sweetie Belle then hits the wave with a swing, sending it toward Kirby, who dodges it. However, Sword Sweetie Belle flies to intercept the wave, and the two thus start sending the wave back and forth, with Kirby always forced to dodge, which becomes harder as the wave gains speed and grows in size. Then, Hammer Sweetie Belle sends the wave at the sky above Kirby, and Swords Sweetie Belles intercepts it before hitting it again. But this time, her hit breaks the wave into dozens of smaller ones that rain all over the area below.

Kirby runs toward Hammer Sweetie Belle, managing to avoid the waves, then dodge left to avoid the hammer before he uses his own hammer to hit her on the cheek. Hammer Sweetie Belle uses the force of the blow to do a full turn and tries to hit Kirby again, but the puffball jumps and avoids it, only to be hit by a sword beam fired by Sword Sweetie Belle. Despite this, still in the air, Kirby uses the Beam Ability to hit Hammer Sweetie Belle several times before he has to fly away to avoid another hit.

"And to keep my promise I will not do any favors to you, Kirb!"

The two Sweetie Belles charge at Kirby to attack him, but as they reach him, the puffball surrounds himself in a freezing aura. It doesn't trap them in ice however, so Kirby has to defend himself against the both of them, having to parry and dodge at the same time.

"A powerful king,
Heavy hammer he swings;
A fast little knight,
A sword he uses with might."

From there, the filly repeats the song from the start as she and her double continue to attack Kirby. After a time without successfully getting a hit, Hammer Sweetie Belle jumps away while Sword Sweetie Belle flies up. Sword Sweetie Belle then levitates several boulders out of the ground and throws them either at Kirby or at Hammer Sweetie Belle, who proceeds to hit them to send them at the puffball. However, Kirby uses this against them as he turns into a ball and bounces from boulder to boulder until colliding with Sword Sweetie Belle, getting her to stop.

The ball bounces away before the filly could counterattack, so she sends instead several crescent waves after him while Hammer Sweetie Belle runs toward him, but Kirby evades the waves with the Wheel and rolls toward the running filly in an attempt to ram her. Hammer Sweetie Belle jumps to the side to avoid him, only for Kirby to jump after her and hit her on the barrel. He then returns to normal, grabs Hammer Sweetie Belle, and uses a suplex to throw her at the fast approaching Sword Sweetie Belle.

Despite the collision, Sword Sweetie Belle recovers rapidly and flies up with her double in her hooves, then spins faster and faster, helped by her double thanks to the hammer's 'reactor' before she throws her toward Kirby. As she's thrown, Hammer Sweetie Belle readies her weapon.

With a panicked "Poyo!' Kirby teleports away, and the hammer hits where he has been with such force that the ground shakes and crackles in a large area and forms a small crater around the impact point. While this happens, Kirby appears just beside Sword Sweetie Belle, and with a powerful swing of his hammer, sends her to crash on her double. With Beam, he then sends a big ball of energy after her, the ball hitting the Sweetie Belles just after they collide.

The Sweetie Belles rapidly recover from this and stare at Kirby now flying with Wing before they merge back into one.

"Hey. How about a trip down memory lane?" she then asks with a smirk as the mask and the weapons disappear.

Only for a new shield to appear around her. Rapidly, it takes a shape that Kirby easily recognizes: the dark wizard of dreams, Nightmare!

"Poyo?!"

"Surprise!" shouts Sweetie Belle from inside the fake Nightmare. "This really brings back the memories. And you will see I copied more than his look. Prepare yourself to see stars!"

She points a finger at Kirby and fires several hollow star-shaped projectiles.

"In the night he appeared out of nowhere like a very bad dream.
A nightmarish dark wizard who loved to make others suffer and scream."

Kirby flies to the side to avoid the projectiles and charges toward Sweetie Belle, only for her to teleport. She does a few more teleportations before she appears just above Kirby and fires more projectiles, this time from the ten fingers making the projectiles rain in a larger area around Kirby. With some difficulty, the puffball manages to slalom between them and headbutts the fake Nightmare, propelling it backward a little before it recovers and teleports away.

"He was the first real villain that you had to fight to save Popstar,
I could only look alongside Dedede with my eyes turned to the stars."

Sweetie Belle appears beside Kirby and attempts to claw him with the fake Nightmare's sharp wingers, but misses and teleports again to avoid a spear. Three more attempts to claw Kirby later, the last one with the two hands, Sweetie then teleports several times, charging energy in the hands, before she appears above Kirby and unleashes a huge laser. Kirby flies away just in time to avoid it and rewards the filly's attempt with several bombs on the face.

"Hidden behind his cloak
Nightmare was not a joke
He fancied scaring folks
Until their spirit broke."

Sweetie returns Kirby's attack by crossing the fake Nightmare's arms, firing a smaller laser from each of the fingers (excepted the thumbs), and doing a cross-slash motion with them, the lasers of the right hand hitting and burning the puffball. As Kirby falls as a result of the hit, she then punches him, sending him crashing near the fountain.

With a shake of his head, Kirby recovers and restarts flying. However, this time, he uses the Cupid Ability, white wings, halo, and bow with heart arrows appearing. One of the few abilities Sweetie Belle has never seen, only the corresponding button in the training room.

"He was almost a God
Fearing only the Rod
Handled by the bizarre
Warrior of the Stars."

Sweetie Belle teleports in front of Kirby. He fires at her, and she teleports again before any of the arrows could hit her. From behind Kirby, she fires star projectiles at him, but Kirby avoids them and counterattacks with arrows, and she avoids them with another teleports. This continues a couple of times before Sweetie Belle appears further away and passes above Kirby's cloak open, raining dozens of star projectiles on the way. Kirby uses a mirror shield to protect himself only for the fake Nightmare to appear upside down just above him and to dive at him, almost giving him a headbutt. He teleports out of the way, appears beside the fake, and attacks it with a charge with the Jet Ability.

Sweetie Belle teleports away, and a dark energy appears in the fake Nightmare's hands. The next instant, the whole area becomes darker and darker until Kirby can't see anything anymore. And Sweetie's voice as she sings seems to come from all directions at once.

"Dream and Nightmare oppo-BOOOM EEEEK!!"

Before Sweetie Belle can even attack Kirby, the puffball suddenly uses the Crash Ability, creating a huge explosion that hits and badly damages the fake Nightmare. Before Sweetie can even recover, Kirby finishes this by spinning with his hammer before throwing it at her, destroying the shield.

But the fake Nightmare is immediately replaced by a new shield that takes the familiar shape of Dark Matter, the first one ever fought with its swordsman form.

The newly created fake Dark Matter then points its sword at Kirby as the weapon takes the color of the rainbow, becoming the Rainbow Sword.

"Aaaa shadooow iiiin the niiiight
Wiiiith a swoooord liiiike a kniiiight."

Sweetie Belle fires several beams from the sword, but they are all deflected by Kirby's own sword before he uses the Crash Ability again, not wanting to fight his worst enemies one after another as it was clearly what his friend/rival has planned.

But then, Sweetie Belle uses the Rainbow Sword to cut the explosion of the Crash Ability, much to Kirby's, and everyone watching's, shock.

The eye of the fake Dark Matter then comes down to its 'belly' and fires several dark lightning bolts at Kirby who has to fly rapidly using the Jet Ability to avoid them.

It stops when Sweetie Belle fires a lightning bolt at the Rainbow Sword, coating it with black electricity.

"Greeeeat Darkneeeess fiiiilled with haaaate
Fooooreveeeer chaaaanged my faaaate."

With to slashes, Sweetie sends two electric waves who teleports and appears just in front of her, ready to swing his sword. Before the two swords could clash, Kirby suddenly teleports again and appears just behind the filly before attacking. She manages to turn around and block, and even cut the sword, but before she could hit Kirby, he teleports and appears behind her again, and this time, uses the Jet Ability to violently headbutt her back before he uses the Tornado to land several more hits.

But then, familiar balls come out of the bottom of the Dark Matter, and since Kirby is so close, he isn't able to avoid the first, the ball exploding on him. Quickly recovering as he has been sent flying by the explosion, he uses Spark to destroy the other balls before they could reach him.

"In tiiiime of striiiife, frieeeendship's boooorn,
Toooo save theeee woooorld we'd swoooorn"

Sweetie Belle points the electrified Rainbow Sword at Kirby and unleashes a storm of electricity in his direction. Kirby teleports, avoiding the electricity, and appears beside the fake Dark Matter before duplicating himself and creating three clones. The four then surround the fake, and when Sweetie cuts one of them, they reveal to be mirror clones. The destroyed clone is immediately replaced by a new one, and the four of them begin attack the filly.

She plants the sword in the ground and creates a black column of electricity destroying the clones and hurting the real Kirby.

"Toooo bring baaaack theee rainboooows
Weeee faced hiiiim, maaaade him boooow."

Despite the pain, Kirby uses this to coat his sword with the dark electricity, and once the dark column disappears, he plants the sword in the fake Dark Matter, electrifying it and Sweetie Belle inside it. The filly resists and slams herself on the ground, side with Kirby first, but the puffball flies away before and smashes his hammer on her.

Just as Sweetie Belle restarts singing the lyrics from the beginning, she forces him to fly away with a swing of the Rainbow Sword. In the air, Kirby takes his hammer and charges it, fire appearing on it. Then, he flies toward Sweetie Belle and begins to spin while teleporting left, right, left, right...

The Rainbow Sword and the charged hammer clash.

And then, while keeping the hammer in his right 'hand', Kirby materializes his spear, coats it in the fire of the charged hammer, and plants it in the eye of the fake Dark Matter, destroying it and burning slightly Sweetie Belle.

The filly teleports away and creates a new shield around her. It takes a round shape... with special wings made of hexagonal 'feathers'... and a jester hat.

Marx.

Kirby quickly uses the Doctor Ability (another that Sweetie has never seen before today) to create a healing mixture. He will need it, badly. In a common agreement, they won't use the Fountain of Dreams' water to heal, but it doesn't mean that they can't heal themselves with their own abilities, and Kirby knows that Sweetie Belle has been constantly healing herself since the start of the fight. The absence of injuries visible on her body despite everything proves it. If only he had some kind of Wizard Ability where he could heal himself with just one flick of a wand... Sadly, the Magic Ability doesn't work this way. Unless he could get a Maxim Tomato out of the hat? He should try next time.

"When Sun and Moon started fighting,
Day and Night alternating,
On a ball, the small jester came with a smile
And sent us to a new trial."

Sweetie Belle starts to teleport around. Kirby quickly finishes the mixture and heals himself before the filly appears beside him and sends several cutter blades at once in all directions. Used to this move, Kirby inhales one of the blades and spits it back at the fake Marx only to miss as it teleports again and sends more blades. Kirby jumps aside to avoid them and throws a bomb, but Sweetie teleports again. Kirby has expected a third wave of cutter blades, but instead, the filly appears further away and flies above Kirby, sending dozens of cutter blade below her all the way. Again, Kirby avoids them by placing himself in the right place and throws his own cutter blades in return, using the boomerang effect they have to reach the fake Marx as it flies away from him.

"Soaring very far,
Wish upon a star.
Jester's wish so bizarre."

Some of the blades manage to hit, but Sweetie Belle quickly teleports, avoiding the rest. Kirby looks around in search of the filly, only to not see her reappearing.

He immediately understands and looks down, seeing a huge shadow under him in the ground. He has just enough time to jump to the side, barely avoiding the fake Marx flying out of it. After ascending a little, Sweetie Belle suddenly creates a dozen seeds hat she let rain randomly on the area around before she disappears again.

""Well, I want to control Popstar!"
Marx asked the wish-giving star.
Betrayed and hurt we chased and fought the mad clown
And we did never back down."

As the familiar dark branches of energy sprout all over the area, limiting Kirby's movements, the shadow reappears under Kirby. Instead of running to escape it (it would be hard because of the branches), Kirby jumps and turns into stone (taking the form of a statue of Kirby and Sweetie Belle sitting side by side), thus dropping heavily on the fake Marx as it flies out. Despite the stone, Sweetie Belle continues to fly up, letting the stone slide aside and fall back on the ground, before she teleports yet again.

Kirby returns to normal, only for Sweetie Belle to appears above him and to drop several ice bombs one after another, the bombs exactly like the ones spit by Marx, so the puffball has to run and jump above the spreading ice. But then, in the middle of his jump, Sweetie Belle teleports again and appears beside him. Kirby immediately teleports, avoiding a huge laser fired from the fake Marx' mouth.

"Madness incarnate!
He had no regrets!
We had to end this threat."

Sweetie Belle teleports near Kirby and splits the fake Marx in two, the filly remaining in the lest side, before disappearing as a black hole appears. As Kirby runs from the black hole, the filly reappears, the fake Marx whole again, she drops from the eyes two black gooish balls that bounce after the puffball. Using Wheel, he escapes just before the black hole disappears, then, as he is busy avoiding the black balls, Sweetie Belle does the thing with the eyes turning huge and firing dozens of sweeping lasers in all directions.

"With powers volatile
Despite looking comical
The consequences would be phenomenal.

Suffering for his amusement."

As he does his best to avoid the bouncing black balls and the lasers, Kirby fires arrows after arrows at the fake Marx until it stops and teleports once the black balls have all disappeared. When Sweetie reappears further away, she uses Marx' arrow attack, but instead of firing them at Kirby directly, she fires them at the sky. The fired arrows eventually drop back all around, and Kirby rapidly uses the Animal Ability to dig the ground and protect himself from this rain of arrows.

"But would we let him get away with it? Not a chance!
We destroyed the heart of Nova before making our advance.
Working together, we ended Marx's insane dance!

And then our kind hearts offered him a second chance."

When the arrow rain stops, Kirby suddenly teleports beside Sweetie Belle and charges at her with the Fire Ability before using Tornado coupled with Sword to do a lot of damage. When Sweetie Belle teleports out of harm's way and fires another laser, Kirby simply uses the Tornado to spin out of the way. Sweetie Belle then does several teleportations, each time firing cutter blades, before she stops to fire another laser only for Kirby to teleport above her and smash her with his hammer. The filly immediately splits the fake Marx in two, creating a black hole, and with how close Kirby is, he isn't able to avoid being sucked up into it.

Whatever happens in this black hole, Kirby comes out of it badly hurt just as Sweetie Belle restarts to sing the song from the beginning. And knowing how and when Kirby would come out of the black hole, Sweetie Belle has prepared a laser that she fires immediately upon seeing him, catching the puffball in it before she teleports.

When Kirby recovers, he sees the shadow appear under him, and he quickly does like before: jumping and using Stone. When he sees Sweetie Belle drop dozens of seeds everywhere, he then uses the Cook Ability to draw all of them into a pot. When Sweetie Belle teleports and readies herself to fire a new laser, wanting to take this occasion as Kirby is busy cooking, the puffball inhales the pot with the soup and the cooked food in it before they could even come out, healing himself, and immediately teleports away. He appears above Sweetie Belle and smashes her again with the hammer.

This time, the fake Marx is destroyed, and Sweetie Belle finds herself hit on the head by the hammer as a result before she teleports away and materializes a new shield.

This one takes a giant spherical shape with a single feature: an eye.

Zero.

"Body round and white like the snooow
Single eye red like the blood heee makes flooow."

Sweetie Belle doesn't expect 'Zero' to last long, his big size and his lack of mobility making him an easy target, and he doesn't even teleport! Even if they have been one of the biggest threats of the universe and a pain in the butt, Zero and his Dark Matters really have been some of the easiest enemies they fought. Their only advantages had been their number and their quasi-invincibility, which she doesn't have here. But she intends to make the most of it!

And so, she takes Kirby totally off guard by starting the fight, not by firing 'blood', but by dropping on Kirby, crushing him under the big body of the fake Zero (and leaving a round crater behind). It takes a few seconds for the poor flattened Kirby to re-inflate.

"The universe he was plaguing,
The Darkness spreading,
And entire worlds he was destroyiiiiing.

This abomination wouldn't have stopped until everything was brought back to Zero!"

Several blobs of liquid, not blood, are fired from the fake Zero, and many fake Dark Matters are materialized out of it. The fake Dark Matters are all flying after him, but Kirby easily destroys them with Sword while he avoids the 'blood'. Like in the original fight, those fake Dark Matters aren't as strong as the first one. And he takes the occasion to send several sword beams at the fake Zero. Sweetie Belle then tries to roll on him, the round body of the fake Zero forming a perfect boulder, but the puffball simply teleports away to not be flattened again.

"With his great army of shadooows,
Popstar's sky blackened as if theeey were crooows."

When Sweetie Belle stops rolling, Kirby teleports at the top of the fake Zero and begins to attack with everything he has while destroying the few fake Dark Matters that pop out.

"Friends became foes in the dreeeamworld,
Hate spread everywhere in theee star world."

"But with the power of love the master of Darkness was destroyed or that's what we thought."

Sweetie Belle makes the fake Zero roll again in an attempt to crush Kirby but the puffball runs on it like Marx on his balls and continues his attacks. Annoyed, Sweetie Belle flies very high into the sky as she sings back from the start and drops back to the ground like a meteor in the hope that it will work, but Kirby uses the Needle Ability to cling to the fake Zero even during the violent crash. But Sweetie sees this as her opportunity as in his Needle stat, Kirby is stuck, so she rolls again, and this time, successfully crushes Kirby, getting rid of him.

But Kirby quickly re-inflates himself and flies up using Wing before he starts throwing bombs. Since he has to remain far enough to have the time to avoid the 'blood', then most of his bombs miss as the fate Zero flies backward to avoid them. But then, Kirby uses Archer to fire an arrow at one of the bombs. The arrow plants itself in the bomb, the point sticking out at the other side, and continues its course toward the fake Zero, finishing by planting itself right in the eye. The bomb then explodes.

This destroys the eye and a good chunk of the fake Zero around it, but doesn't totally destroys it.

Instead, it tilts backward 90° and slightly changes shape. The hole closes and is covered by a bandage, a halo and particular wings appear, and a new eye appears at the front.

The fake Zero is now Zero Two.

"We thought we could say goodbye
To our enemies of darkness but
Zero refused to die
And again we had our job cut."

Kirby immediately goes on the offensive before the fake Zero Two could even fire the explosive projectiles from its eye. He flies around it with Wing, avoids the wings attempting to slap him, cuts it, burns it, freezes it, electrifies it, and does everything else he can think of.

But then, Sweetie Belle starts to spin very rapidly while she materializes Zero Two's cactus-like tail. As a tornado begins to appear around the fake Zero Two, the tail expels some poisonous gas that is caught in the formed wind, turning the tornado into a poisonous one. Kirby quickly teleports away.

"Crystal shards rained in the night sky
We were called by
A people's cry."

Sweetie Belle flies after Kirby in an attempt to headbutt him, but the puffball, with the Wing Ability, is just too fast for Zero Two. He easily dodge the headbutt and restarts what he has been doing earlier, so Sweetie quickly does the poisonous tornado again to force him to move away.

Seriously, even with Kirby's full powers, Dark Nebula and even Dark Crafter could put up a better fight than this. What a joke. The most feared and dangerous of Void's creations is actually the weakest.

"Darkness was back for a third round
Another world was their playground"

Sweetie Belle fires explosive projectiles and 'blood' at Kirby, and even decides to create fake Dark Matters to send them after the puffball, but he escapes or destroys everything easily and Sweetie Belle has to uses the poisonous tornado again.

"We had to search those crystal shards
Jump from planet to planet to
Fight the monster who left me scarred
Once and for all say him "ad-""

Sweetie Belle sends more fake Dark Matters, and as Kirby is busy destroyed them, she charges at him for a new attempt at headbutting him only for Kirby to use the Crash Ability again, destroying the fake Dark Matters and also the fake Zero Two.

But Sweetie Belle immediately begins to attack with her ten cannons, firing beams after beams at Kirby while still singing.

"Now today we are, facing each other!"

A Rainbow Sword materializes in her hooves, and she charges a great quantity of energy in it.

"Here it all began, before we became a team.
Here it will finish, observed by the Great Giver of Dreams."

Sweetie Belle swings the sword several times at different angles, creating many giant rainbow-colored sharp waves of energy that Kirby has to avoid along with the beams still fired by the cannons. He has understood immediately that he shouldn't try to parry them.

The waves leave deep gashes in the landscape behind them.

"It's all come back to this, to you versus me.
I won't hold back, Kirby!
We may be friends, but it was our destiny
To battle. Only one will have... the last victory!"

Sweetie Belle suddenly teleports above Kirby and expels a cloud of Zero Two's explosive projectiles all around her before she creates a black hole. Kirby now has to run away from the black hole while avoiding the lasers of the cannons and the explosive projectiles that are sucked up by the hole. When he almost runs into one of those projectiles, he teleports away and immediately jumps to the side to avoid Sweetie Belle flying out of the ground like Marx, only for her to stop at his level and to fire a huge laser, catching him in it.

After recovering from it, Kirby uses the Magic Ability to test his theory and successfully take a Maxim Tomato out of the hat while keeping an eye on his adversary.

"We still have a long way to go, Kirby. I hope you aren't getting tired already," says Sweetie Belle before she surrounds herself in a new shield that takes the shape of Dark Mind's first form. Two mirrors appear around it.

"Divided!
Five Kirbys united
Their goal was decided:
To defeat the evil Master Mind!"

Sweetie Belle teleports a couple of times before she hovers over the ground above Kirby, the mirrors flying around the fake Dark Mind in an attempt to hit the puffball with them. When Kirby jumps to the side to avoid them, Sweetie follows him, forcing him to keep moving while he throws cutter blades to hit her with their boomerang effect.

"The heroes,
Venturing to and fro,
Saved the shards from tough foes
To fix the mirror and face off against Dark Mind!"

Then, while still flying after Kirby, Sweetie Belle fires star-shaped projectiles, and one of them hits the puffball from behind, making him fall on the ground. He quickly teleports before one of the mirrors could it him. Instead of teleporting after him, Sweetie Belle fires a beam at one of the mirrors and uses the two of them to make the beam move back and forth and try to hit Kirby repeatedly with it.

"All of the shards found, Team Kirby journeyed on
Into the amazing mirror, and their next foe would prove to be strong!"

Kirby throws two kunais at the mirrors while avoiding the beam, breaking them. He then avoids the shards homing in on him and throws more kunais at Sweetie Belle, these ones having red burning parchments attached to them. When the parchments fully burn, they explode, causing a lot of damage to the fake Dark Mind.

"His shadow looming in the solemn realm, he wasn't who they thought they would fight..."

There's a flash, and Kirby suddenly finds himself as if he and the whole world around him are upside down . It's really destabilising, but he is now used to this, so he has no problems avoiding the star-shaped projectiles fired by Sweetie Belle and the beams deflected by the mirrors that she has recreated.

"Black wings, silver blade, and a grim mask, it was a Dark Meta Knight!"

Another flash, and the world returns to normal for Kirby only for more flashes to follow, and with the constant alternating between normal and upside down that results of this, the puffball quickly gets dizzy. Sweetie Belle uses this occasion to fire a huge laser from the eye of the core of the fake Dark Mind.

"After him, they weren't done yet
The knight was not the true threat"

The laser hits, badly burning Kirby, but it helps him recover from his dizziness and he is able to teleport before Sweetie Belle could send something else. He appears just beside the fake Dark Mind and strikes it at the core several times with his sword, forcing Sweetie Belle to teleport away.

"When Dark Mind showed his face
The many heroes all gave chase!

Divided!
Five Kirbys united
Their goal was decided:
To defeat the evil Master Mind!"

Kirby teleports after Sweetie Belle and barely avoids being slapped before he continues to attack with the sword only to be hit by star projectiles because he's too close to dodge. So he flies away and does the same bomb-and-arrow trick that he used against the fake Zero, but the fake Dark Mind uses a mirror to protect itself. The bomb destroys the mirror, and its shards go after Kirby. As the puffball flies up to avoid them, Sweetie Belle suddenly teleports behind him and smashes Kirby, sending him crashing, before she fires a storm of star projectiles.

As her song repeats, Kirby uses his own mirrors to deflect the stars back at the fake Dark Mind. He then has to avoid Sweetie's mirrors doing eights before he jumps and rock-punches the core, then charges at it with Fire before he pierces it with a spear covered in ice. He quickly teleports as Sweetie Belle fires another huge laser from the eye of the core. The filly follows him with her own teleportation only to be greeted by an axe which finally destroys the fake Dark Mind.

As Kirby attacks again with his axe, Sweetie Belle catches him with her magic and throws him away before she create a new shield that takes the shape of a familiar witch: Drawcia.

"Our home turned into paint,
Dark witch gave us constraints:
Me hornless, you limbless
But we still made progress

Throoough theee paaaintiiing!"

She starts by sending several energy balls like the ones the real Drawcia used to send while floating around. Kirby easily flies around them with Wing while charging at the fake Drawcia, ready to slash it with his axe, but then, a canvas and a paintbrush appears beside the fake Drawcia, floating in the air, and the paintbrush quickly paints a wall on the canvas.

The next instant, a wall pops out of the ground between Kirby and the fake Drawcia, and the puffball hasn't time to stop himself before he crashes into it. When the wall disappears, it reveals a small army of painted Bronto Burts that immediately assaults Kirby who simply decides to use the Mike Ability to destroy all of them.

"The Paintbrush by our side,
We explored far and wide
Chasing the evil witch
Since we were her plan’s hitch.

Caaan’t stooop traaainiiing!"

Sweetie Belle then paints a spike on the canvas, and the next instant, giant spikes form out of the ground. When one appears just below Kirby, he teleports beside the filly and slashes the fake Drawcia a few times before he's bonked on the head by the paintbrush, sending him crashing. At the same time, a second paintbrush appears and paints one of those giant antlion-like enemies encountered in their adventure to save Ripple Star that could come out of the ground to attack by surprise. Seeing this, Kirby teleports away just before one of these enemies pops out of the ground under him, leaving behind only a bomb to destroy it. Kirby then appears again beside the fake Drawcia and attacks it with his sword only to be parried by one of the paintbrushes.

"Aaat laaast, iiin heeer ooown wooorld,
We fought very hard to make sure Drawcia’s master plan unfurled!"

The scepter of the Beam Ability appears in Kirby's other 'hand' and he charges energy in it before unleashing it into a giant ball that Sweetie Belle avoids by flying up before she fires her own energy balls while painting several Bronto Burts, Scarfys, and Propellers that are all easily destroyed.

"Buuut sheee haaad aaa strooong wiiill,
So both the dark Sorceress and her Soul we needed to kill!"

Sweetie Belle suddenly paints a meteor, creating a meteor shower. Kirby still manages to avoid them and teleports yet again beside the fake Drawcia. Sword and paintbrush exchange several blows before Kirby begins to breathe fire at his rival, damaging more the fake Drawcia. But Kirby is suddenly interrupted by a painted Dedede dropping right on him, crushing him once they reach the ground.

While Kirby is busy with the painted Dedede, Sweetie Belle takes the occasion to do two paintings at the same time, using two canvas.

Thus, she paints Drawcia and Paintra.

"Purple ball with five eyes
Who’s bent on our demise,
Brandishing its great maw;
That’s the terror we saw:

Drawcia’s dark Soul!"

They both start by firing colored balls of energy at Kirby just as he cuts the painted Dedede into shreds. He avoids the balls with a jump to the side and materializes a bow before he fires dozens of arrows in rapid succession at the two living paintings as well as at the fake Drawcia.

Painted Drawcia then paints random creatures while her sister paints wrecking balls and spiked pillars. At the same time, the fake Sweetie Belle's fake Drawcia surrounds itself in paint to form a ball that bounces around before attempting to crush Kirby.

"To destroy our nation,
To bring devastation,
Enslave planet Popstar,
Prove how vile her skills are

That’s Drawcia’s goal!"

Kirby avoids destroys the painted creatures and avoids Paintra and Sweetie Belle's attacks as best as he could before he materializes two whips that he wraps around the neck of the two painted sisters. As Sweetie Belle sends several of the red, blue, and yellow Dark Matter-like balls that Drawcia's Soul used to expel from her body, Kirby then drags the two sisters to hit and destroy all the balls before they could attack before he sends them crashing into Sweetie Belle. This destroys the two paintings, but Sweetie Belle isn't done yet as she sends more of those red, blue, and yellow one-eyed balls.

"Hearing her dreadful roar,
You and I challenged Drawcia Soul to the ultimate paint war!"

While Kirby destroys them with arrows, Sweetie Belle then charges at him covered in fire, and the puffball barely avoids her while hitting her a few more times with cutter blades. The filly does a second try, this time moving randomly left and right to be less predictable, but Kirby still manages to avoid her. Sweetie Belle then charges at him a third time, this time from above while still moving left and right.

"With a m--Ugh!"

Kirby jumps to the side, avoiding her again, only to be hit as dozens of balls of paint are expelled from the fake Drawcia as she crashes where Kirby has been the previous second. After the first hit, however, Kirby quickly uses a mirror to deflect the following balls back at the fake Drawcia which was finally destroyed after taking a dozen of these balls.

The filly herself is hit by the remaining deflected balls before she teleports away and creates a new shield shaped like a certain star-like enemy: Dark Nebula.

The fake Dark Nebula then begins to constantly change color, switching between red, green, and white, corresponding to the real Dark Nebula's three mode, fire, spark, and ice. As a result, no way for Kirby to know in advance which element Sweetie Belle will use.

But she begins by simply flying around while firing stars in different, random patterns while remaining away from Kirby. When Kirby decides to just teleport beside the fake Dark Nebula, he gets electrified as Sweetie Belle surrounds herself in electricity, the fake Dark Nebula taking a green color for this. The puffball quickly moves away.

"Unknown thieeeeves stole the caaaake
To the caaaastle you raaaaced!"

Sweetie Belle sends a stream of fire at Kirby who avoids it by flying to the side before he charges electricity around him and sends it as a big ball which hits the fake Dark Nebula.

"But the king was not the thief
He turned over a new leaf!"

Sweetie Belle fires dozens of fireballs in all directions, only for them to home in Kirby. Just as he begins to fly to avoid them while firing projectiles at the fake Dark Nebula, he sees it turn white before it fires an ice beam. He avoids it and, seeing that the beam is following him, he flies away, using the Water Ability to extinguish the fireballs about to hit him.

Once the fireballs stop coming, he flies closer and starts to drop bombs from above. Sweetie Belle zaps them with bolts of electricity, making them explode before they could explode on her. When Kirby turns into stone to drop on her, she uses again the spark form to zap away, then re-zaps above Kirby before she fires another ice beam on him just as the puffball returns to normal.

Kirby finds himself frozen, leaving him at the mercy of Sweetie Belle who follows her ice beam with a stream of fire, now burning him.

"The real thieeeeves were the Squeeeeaks!
A cursed treeeeasure they seeeeek!"

Kirby quickly teleports away from the fire and, this time, uses the Laser Ability to attack while also firing arrows at the fake Dark Nebula. Again, Sweetie Belle zaps around to avoid most of them while she fires back bolts of electricity, fireballs, and ice shards.

"Doc, Spinni, Storo, Daroach,
The murine thieves we reproached!"

Suddenly, the fake Dark Nebula is covered in fire before he charges at Kirby with the speed of lightning. Caught off guard, the puffball is rammed and burned, but he quickly recovers and copies the move (without the lightning speed), ramming the fake Dark Nebula on the eye before he switches to Beetle and impales the eye with his horn. It isn't enough to destroy it however, and he teleports away before he could be electrified by Sweetie Belle surrounding herself in electricity again.

"They ran away, but we said nay; time to save the day!"

The fake Dark Nebula turns white before it begins to spin while facing the ground. Then it fires a powerful ice beam at the ground while it begins to erratically move in all directions, the beam creating big spikes of ice. Not long after it has started moving, ice shards start to come out of its body, going in all directions while slowly dropping to the ground.

So Kirby has to be careful of the beam while the fake Dark Nebula moves around, of the ice spikes sprouting because of it, and of the ice shards raining everywhere. It seems to be a lot, but Kirby still has no problems avoiding all this thanks to Wing and ESP. But then, the fake Dark Nebula's five branches extend into blades made of ice while it is still spinning, and it now flies after Kirby who avoids it by flying up. But the fake Dark Nebula quickly does a 180° and flies toward Kirby for the second time, and he has to teleport to avoid it this time.

Sweetie Belle, however, continues to chase him, now starting to switch between the ice, fire, and spark elements, so the ice beam turns into a stream of fire that creates walls of fire and a column of electricity that projects random bolts of electricity around, the ice shards turn into fire balls and bolts of electricity, and the ice blades turn into fire blades and electric blades. While in spark mode, the fake Dark Nebula also zaps to random directions.

"The Squeaks weeeere stubborn fooooes
Many boooosses aroooose"

Kirby eventually to fight the fake Dark Nebula's charges with his own charges, doing his best to avoid the elemental projectiles. However, each times they're about to hit each other, at the last second he flies out of the way and fires some projectile or another at it, slowly damaging it.

"We triumphed over each one
Our journey had just begun!"

This continues for a few seconds before the fake Dark Nebula stops and turns to face Kirby. Then, still randomly switching element, it fires an ice beam/stream of fire/beam of electricity at Kirby, following him, while firing stars and elemental projectiles in all directions. Kirby flies for a small moment to avoid all this, and then, teleports behind the fake Dark Nebula. He then impales it with Sword, switches the Sword to Axe while the weapon is still planted, and swings, creating a big gash that almost cuts the fake Dark Nebula in half, destroying it.

Instead of attempting to attack Sweetie Belle, Kirby uses the occasion to paint a fridge full of food to heal himself. Dark Nebula has been easy to fight, but this fake one has been another story.

While Kirby heals, Sweetie Belle creates a new shield that takes the shape of the next villain in the list: Yin-Yarn.

Or at least what he would look like if he was 'normal' instead of made of yarn.

"Woven Waddle Dees came out of nowhere
I saw through the scam and fought them right there

His plan unraveled, Yin-Yarn showed his face
So I made sure to put him in his place!"

Sweetie Belle starts by knitting a dragon like the one Yin-Yarn had made, and as Kirby is forced to deal with it, she throws the fake Yin and Yarn at him like spears. Kirby, however, has no problems cutting the dragon to shreds with Sword and easily avoids the needles before he teleports beside the fake Yin-Yarn and slashes at him several times. Using the needles like swords, Sweetie Belle parries most of his attacks, limiting the damage.

"The wizard turned out to be Yarn and Yin,
The bad life-infused knitting needle twins!"

Sweetie Belle already finds herself in quite the bad situation. Forced to use the needles to protect herself, she can't knit and send minions of yarn to fight Kirby. So she decides to cheat a little and she transforms her fake Yin-Yarn into a fake Mega Yin-Yarn before she begins to fire missiles made of yarn from its mouth. Contrary to the original Yin-Yarn, she only targets Kirby while firing the missiles at the same rate that he fired them at the end of the battle. This forces Kirby to fly away, leaving Sweetie Belle free to use the needles again. And so, while still firing missiles at Kirby, she starts knitting minion after minion, especially ones with long ranged attacks like Bow Waddle Dees, or flying ones like Bronto Burts.

"But the pair of Dark Crafter’s creations
Failed to rule over the Patch Land nation,

Thanks to me, you, and Patch Lander Prince Fluff!
Yin-Yarn’s “master plan” was just a big bluff"

Kirby cuts anything that comes too close to shreds with his sword, and drops bombs to destroy the rest, also targeting the fake Mega Yin-Yarn as much as he could. Seeing that Kirby still has no problems despite everything she's sending at him, she starts knitting strongest foes, like the dragon again, Whispy Woods, Kracko, Dedede, Dark Matter, and so on. She also knits a few additional turrets for the fake Mega Yin-Yarn to make it fire even more missiles, turning it into a real mobile fortress.

"Prince Fluff and you wove together Patch Land,
While against Yin and Yarn I took a-EEP!"

Kirby destroys the strongest creations of yarn one after another, but as soon as he destroys one, a new one takes its place, and between them and the dozens of missiles constantly fired at him, he just can't approach the fake Mega Yin-Yarn.

So he decides to use the Crash Ability. In a big explosion, he destroys all the creations as well as the fake Mega Yin-Yarn.

Sweetie Belle recovers from this with a shake of her head. "I should've seen this one coming and put a better armor..." she says before she teleports to avoid a bomb dropped by Kirby.

Far enough, she then creates three new shields, one covering her forming Necrodeus' body while the others float around forming the hands.

"Spliiit aaagaaain
Buuut iiin teeen"

Sweetie Belle claps the hand in an attempt to crush Kirby, and when he avoids it, she attempts to punch him with the left hand while she begins to fire electric balls that bounce on the ground with the right hand.

Kirby understands that he will have to destroy the hands first to have an easier time attacking the body, so he starts attacking them, left hand first since it is trying to punch him.

"Your heart gave me all your powers
For Rainbow Medals we scoured
To bring the skulls’ final hour"

The fake Necrodeus opens its mouth and fires a giant beam at Kirby. As he has been busy dealing with the hands, and the original Necrodeus hadn't spit anything from his mouth while he still had his hands, this totally catches him off guard and he's engulfed in it.

"Guardians protecting the seals: Whispy, Ivy, the King, Skullord!
Our full might we made them feel; after them, the boss we pushed toward!
In his home land Necro Nebula,

The vile Necrodeus…"

When the beam ends, before he could even recover from it, Kirby is then punched by the left hand and ends up crashing. The right hand then floats above the hole in which Kirby is now and fires several lightning bolts in it. But then, Kirby teleports behind the hand and drops on it in his metallic form, crushing the hand under him and badly damaging it. He then finishes it by smashing it with his hammer before he teleports to avoid another giant beam.

Sweetie Belle then makes the fake Necrodeus spit several of these mines that shoot lasers at four directions when they explode. Well, they're copies made of metal she has materialized and in which she has put a concentration of energy that explodes after a time delay, but they're as effective as the originals, to Kirby's grief. He still manages to avoid them as he attacks the remaining hand, eventually destroying it too.

"A warlock who wants only complete darkness
Whose skull army would bring distress
Staff in hand, he advanced into Popstar’s light
And to Kirby he brought the fight"

The lost of the hands doesn't deter Sweetie Belle who makes the fake Necrodeus spit fake Skullions that chase Kirby. More Skullions are spat, and Sweetie Belle makes them gather like swarms of insects to form hands. The filly then uses them to attack Kirby while also making the fake Necrodeus spit more Skullions, mines, beams, and also giant electric balls. By now, the fake Necrodeus' mouth is constantly kept open.

Kirby quickly attacks the hands made of Skullions, but each time that he manages to damage them by destroying some of the Skullions, more Skullions come to replace them. This leaves Kirby with no choice but to attack the fake Necrodeus' body directly.

"He tried to go on the attack but we managed to push him back
We confronted him in his home, saved the staff, and got him dethroned!"

Kirby then gets an idea that should have been obvious. He teleports just behind the fake Necrodeus and clings to the back of its skull. From there, none of what it spits could reach him excepted the Skullions, which he could easily destroy if they approach too much. While clinging to the skull, he then uses both Needle and Spark at the same time, piercing the fake Necrodeus and electrifying it constantly.

"Using the staff, ten became one and you got your heart"

Eventually, without warning, Sweetie Belle slams the fake Necrodeus back of the skull first against the ground, crushing the puffball. She then leaves the holes she has formed and sends the Skullions forming the hands to punch where Kirby is recovering. But Kirby uses the Fire Ability to fly right through one of the hands before he uses the Wheel to approach.

"With the skulls gone,
We could carry on."

After moving left and right to avoid the mines and a beam, he then jumps and switches to the Fighter Ability. In the air, he spins several times, accumulating energy around one of his arms, and teleports just before a giant electric ball could hit him. He then appears right in front of the fake Necrodeus before he punches it on the forehead.

The momentum he gained and the energy he accumulated have made the punch much more powerful, causing big cracks to appear on the fake Necrodeus as it's sent flying a few meters back. As the song loops, Kirby switches to the Ninja Ability and sends two kunais with explosive parchments right in the eyes of the fake Necrodeus. Finally, just after that the kunais explode, Kirby finishes the fake Necrodeus by using the Missile Ability to turn into a rocket and exploding on it.

Sweetie Belle, however, almost immediately flies out of the remains of the fake Necrodeus and sends Skullions and Dark Matters at Kirby while making a paintbrush paint and knitting needles knit more minions, all at once with her magic!

"Now today we are, facing each other!"

In a flash, Kirby feels himself upside down again, and it's while having this feeling that he has to fight the small army of fake Dark Matters, fake Skullions, painted minions, and yarn minions that Sweetie Belle is sending at him.

"Here it all began, before we became a team.
Here it will finish, observed by the Great Giver of Dreams."

Sweetie Belle's ten cannons make a grand return and start to fire beams and star projectiles from various directions, forcing Kirby to teleport, and then to use Wheels to escape while surrounding himself in electricity to destroy any minions getting too close. But, suddenly, Sweetie Belle teleports on his path and creates a black hole that Kirby rolls right into.

"It's all come back to this, to you versus me.
I won't hold back, Kirby!
We may be friends, but it was our destiny
To battle. Only one will have... the last victory!"

Kirby comes out of the black hole badly hurts, but quickly recovers as he finds himself surrounded by the minions, and the cannons continue to fire at him, mirrors now deflecting their projectiles to make them more dangerous.

So he uses the Crash Ability again, forcing Sweetie Belle to teleport with his cannons while all her minions are destroyed. She returns after the explosion as a shadow in the ground right under Kirby, who quickly spots her and jumps to the side before she flies out of the ground.

With another flash, Kirby then stops having the upside down feeling before Sweetie Belle surrounds herself in a new shield that takes the form of Magolor's ultimate form when he was controlled by the Master Crown.

Sweetie Belle smirks. "Come on, Kirby! Only a few remain!" she shouts before two Ultra Swords appear in the fake Magolor's hands.

Kirby begins to sweat, heavily. He hasn't even gotten time to heal himself.

"Mysterious portal brings a galactic ship from afar
The interstellar ship crash-landed on Pop Star
Robed alien within had us explore near and far

So the ship’s parts we found"

Despite his thoughts, Kirby charges toward the fake Magolor who readies its swords. with a Hi-Jump, Kirby avoids them and follows it with a drop kick that hits above the 'mouth'. Kirby then materializes his sword, and both he and the fake Magolor begin to teleport around while while attacking each other, regularly clashing (the Ultra Swords having the advantage obviously).

"When we got all the parts of the ship back, Magolor felt in debt
So he kindly used the ship to take all of us to his home planet
In Halcandra, we encountered yet another threat:

The guardian of the Crown"

Sweetie Belle suddenly replaces the Ultra Swords with a maximum-sized Grand Hammer and is able to hit Kirby with it. Before crashing into the ground, Kirby turns himself into a ball, thus bouncing harmlessly. After a few bounces, he turns into a wheel and charges back at the fake Magolor, avoids several dark orbs and vine-like spikes made of solidified space. Once close enough, he switches to Tornado allied with Fire, enveloping himself in a tornado of fire as he spins toward the fake Magolor who readies its Grand Hammer.

"Like all the other foes, we defeated this one
But little did we know our journey wasn’t done"

As Sweetie Belle brings down the Grand Hammer, Kirby teleports behind the fake Magolor while still spinning and hits its back. He's forced to teleport away as Sweetie Belle envelops the fake Magolor in the Flare Beam. When she sees Kirby reappear further away, Sweetie Belle then charges and fires a giant beam at him. Kirby easily avoids it, but then, the beam disappears into a portal.

"Magolor put on the Master Crown and then fled
The dragon Landia helped give chase
It turned out that Magolor was the fiend instead
After him we raced!"

Another portal opens not far of Kirby who quickly uses Wing to fly away before the beam comes out of it, only to enter another portal. Kirby thus has to avoid the beam several more times, as well as two Monster Flames fired at him by Sweetie Belle at the same time. He still forces her to teleport a few times by charging energy with the Beam Ability and firing it as giant energy balls.

"Magolor was a descendant of the magic tribe of Ancients
Because he was related to them, he thought that it meant
It was his right to steal the Master Crown and make his ascent

And rule the universe!"

Suddenly, there's a flash, and Kirby feels himself upside down again.

Right, Magolor told them that he also had this power while in this form, but never got the occasion to use it during the fight.

But because of this, Kirby loses his senses long enough that he's hit by the beam. As he recovers, badly hurt, the world flashes again, and the upside down feeling disappears.

Only to return with another flash. And a dozen more flashes follow, the upside down feeling appearing and disappearing again and again, resulting in Kirby getting dizzy, and Sweetie Belle takes the occasion to hit him with another giant beam.

Heavily injured, Kirby uses the Animal Ability after recovering from this and digs into the ground.

"Beating the ship he stole, we managed to corner him
Pushed to its limit, the Master Crown, with its powers so grim,
Possessed Magolor’s soul and our chances of winning were dim

It couldn’t get much worse!"

After quickly digging a big enough place, he then paints a fridge full of food and eats it whole, fully healing, only for Sweetie Belle to fire another giant beam into the hole, causing a huge explosion that levels a big chunk of the ground.

Kirby is sent flying high into the air by it, but he quickly recovers with Wing and teleports back beside the fake Magolor to attack it, this time with the Spear Ability.

"I was forced to sing my newly-learned Soul Song
Soul energy made my whole body strong"

He has to teleport away again as Sweetie Belle creates a black hole. Once she spots Kirby, she then rapidly draws and sends several geometrical forms made of dark energy. Kirby teleports again after avoiding some of them, and Sweetie Belle parries his following attack with an Ultra Sword. While they clash, she then creates several vine-like spikes, forcing Kirby to move away, only for him to send several feathers as sharp as blades.

"Together… we battled until the end!
I fought on… in order to save my friends!"

The feathers plant themselves into the fake Magolor, and Kirby continues to send them as he flies around the fake Magolor until he's forced to retreat again because of another black hole.

"When it was all over, the Crown was destroyed
And with it, powers of Void

Magolor disappeared in a flash of light
And we-WAHH!!"

As soon as Kirby as the occasion, he returns close enough to send more feathers to plant into the fake Magolor, avoiding the Ultra Swords, spikes, dark orbs, and attempts of punching and slapping him.

Then Kirby smirks before he starts glowing, using the Crash Ability again. But to Sweetie Belle's surprise, he doesn't use the Ability like he has always used it: to create a big explosion. Instead, he makes the feathers planted into the fake Magolor glow and explode, destroying it!

Recovering from this, Sweetie Belle looks at Kirby in wonder before she quickly creates a new shield, this one taking the basic, queen bee-like form of Sectonia. She will have to be careful of feathers and whatever else Kirby can make explode from now.

One by one, she then makes several giant vine-shaped shields come out of the ground before she starts to fly and teleport left to right and right to left.

"Beauty and grace
Put a smile on Sectonia’s face
But that is her downfall:
She tried to have the most beauty of all!"

Materializing copies of Sectonia's scepters, she then teleports just above Kirby, who uses Wheel to roll away before she smashes them into the ground, creating a shockwave of crystals. She immediately teleports above Kirby's path, and the puffball quickly turns left before she creates another shockwave of crystals. Kirby then switches to Wing, flying above the two shockwaves and barely avoiding cutter blades sent by the fake Sectonia who has appeared beside him again.

"She sent the mage
To trap the hero in his magical cage
And then bring it to her
He caught the one with white fur!"

Before Kirby could attack it, Sweetie Belle teleports away, higher in the sky. She then sends the vines to attack Kirby and also creates half a dozen copies of those one-eyed flowers the real Sectonia had used. Half of them let out a sword while the others begin to fire seeds at Kirby. And obviously, contrary to the real Sectonia, attacking and destroying them does nothing to the fake one. So, after destroying two of them, Kirby teleports directly beside the fake Sectonia.

"The Kirby gang joined the fray,
Much to the puppeteer’s dismay!"

He avoids the two rapiers, does several rapid slashes with the swords, and quickly flies away as a golden ring appears around the fake Sectonia. At the same time, the four remaining flowers fly to Kirby and attack him.

"You all defeated me
Which caused me to be freed
From Taranza’s evil twines!"

As the flowers distract Kirby, Sweetie Belle sends the golden ring toward him. But Kirby avoids it by flying up, and he sends several feathers at the flowers, as well as at the nearby vines. By making them explode like he has done previously, he manages to destroy the four flowers and even one of the vines, but as he turns to face Sweetie Belle, he sees her creating more flowers.

Time to use another power he has hidden until now.

First, he takes his sword and coats it in ice, and then, Like Zan Partizanne and Dark Nebula, he uses Spark to rapidly zip and zap from flower to flower, slicing them with his ice sword.

"Taranza called to the queen
But she knocked him out of the scene"

Sweetie barely has time to parry Kirby's ice sword. But then, Kirby uses Mini to shrink and pass her defense before returning to his normal size and headbutting her while using Metal.

Sweetie Belle immediately teleports away and sends her vine to attack Kirby again while creating new flowers.

"We made sure to beat her,
But she was a cheater
Who fused with the vine"

Kirby simply teleports after her, avoiding the rest. To this, Sweetie Belle answers by sending dark electricity at him, but Kirby uses Mirror to deflect it back at her. He then materializes and throws his hammer at her, but Sweetie Belle easily avoids it by moving to the side. But then, Kirby uses the ESP Ability to mentally move the hammer and make it bonk the back of the fake Sectonia's head. At the same time, Kirby impales it with his sword.

"Battle with the fatal bloom
To bring her impending doom

The end came near, but she unleashed her Soul
And her new goal? Kill this foal!"

Despite all this, Sweetie Belle manages to grab Kirby with one of the fake Sectonia's hands. The puffballs defends himself by using Spark to electrify her and damage the giant bee/wasp-shaped shield, but Sweetie Belle resists the pain and fires several lasers at him. She then throws him toward a group of her flowers, ready to attack Kirby with their swords. Kirby, however, recovers mid-air and uses Tornado and Cutter at the same time to throw dozens of cutter blades in all directions, destroying the flowers.

"Amazing Mirror, dark knight within
When Sectonia chose to look in,

The darkness knew that the time was nigh
Taranza cried. “The queen must die…”"

More flowers come and begin to spin while moving toward Kirby, petals ready to cut him. Flying away from them and from a vine attempting to grab him, Kirby materializes a canvas and quickly paints two Dark Matters on them, the paintings gaining life. The Dark Matters then attack the flowers with their dark electricity, leaving Kirby to deal with the fake Sectonia who fires more lasers at him.

Despite their number, Kirby numbly avoids them and sends several feathers at the fake Sectonia, only for it to teleport, avoiding them. The fake Sectonia randomly teleports around him and then appears behind him before attacking him with its rapiers. Kirby avoids them with a quick move forward, but the fake Sectonia restarts teleporting randomly after that.

But as it is about to attack him again with its rapiers, Kirby suddenly wraps them with a whip before he turns into metal, dropping heavily to the ground and taking the fake Sectonia with him. As he crashes, he violently tugs on the whip, making it crash more violently.

"Beauty and grace
Put a smile on Sectonia’s face
But that is her downfall:
She tried to have the most beauty of-"

Sweetie Belle quickly recovers from this, teleports away, and surrounds herself with four flowers before she begins to gather energy with them. Before Kirby could move, a fake vine suddenly comes out of the ground under his feet and wraps him before tightening. The puffball, however, escapes with Mini just before Sweetie Belle fires a huge laser. Kirby then flies alongside the laser toward Sweetie Belle and rams her with Fire before finishing the fake Sectonia with a storm of punches.

The flowers and vines disappear with the copy of the ex-queen, leaving Kirby time to heal himself again as Sweetie Belle surrounds herself in a new shield that takes the form of their next foe: Dark Crafter.

Sweetie Belle then uses the fake Dark Crafter's big hands and some clay she has materialized to craft a big spiked ball. She then sprays red and orange paint on it, and the next instant, the paint turns into fire, enveloping the ball in it.

"Our home’s color drained
Color that Claycia gained
Second crafty journey
Many art enemies"

Sweetie Belle then creates a chain out of the ball and uses it to make it spin above the fake Dark Crafter. Before sending the ball after Kirby, she sends several copies of these mines that the real Dark Crafter used as he attempted to escape. As Kirby avoids the raining mines and attempts to approach, she then sends the ball at him, making it do an arc that forces Kirby to fly up only to be hit by a mine. Before Kirby could recover from the explosion of the mine, Sweetie Belle sends the spiked ball at him again, this time from above, sending him crashing back into the ground while also burning him.

"Fighting through the clay foes
No threat the small ones posed
Although things did get rough,
It was never too tough!"

Sweetie Belle then remakes the chain part of the ball before throwing it with all the strength she could muster with the fake Dark Crafter. Kirby, however, recovers from the crash and materializes his hammer before he uses it like a baseball bat and manages to send the spiked ball back at the filly who punches it back at Kirby, the two beginning to exchange the ball back and forth.

"Then we finally reached the clay sculptor
Though, Elline’s dear friend Claycia seemed to abhor her"

Sweetie Belle punches the ball yet again, only to have the surprise of seeing Kirby jump from behind it. It seems that after sending the spiked ball back at Sweetie Belle, Kirby has clung behind it. The puffball then hits her with the Missile Ability, doing a lot of damage to the fake Dark Crafter before Sweetie Belle surrounds IT with purple paint that morphs into poisonous gas, forcing Kirby to retreat.

"Drawcia, Paintra, and the cousin
We gave the three artists repercussions
Once Claycia was beat, the real fiend came after
The fight: Dark Crafter!"

She then mixes blue, red, and yellow paint to create black paint before sending it at Kirby, the paint morphing into a black hole. The puffball hasn't been prepared for a black hole made from paint and is sucked up by it. When the holes spit him out, Sweetie Belle has been ready, and she punches him, sending him crashing again. The filly then uses clay to create two laser cannons that she then uses as giant laser guns to attack Kirby as he recovers from the crash. Kirby, however, uses Mirror to deflect them, so Sweetie Belle quickly stops using them.

"But Dark Crafter was smart
Enough to take off fast as a dart
We caught up and made him meet his end
To save our home and friends!"

Kirby takes this occasion to teleport closer (but not too close) and attack back with various projectiles. Against this, Sweetie Belle restarts sending the mines while she creates with the clay a smaller version of Bastron, forcing Kirby to deal with it. To make it harder for him, she also sculpts many flying creatures to distract him, leaving him more open to her using paint to create all kinds of projectiles without him deflecting them with Mirror. She also attempts another black hole, but Kirby avoids it this time.

"The universe we’ll defend…"

Kirby eventually destroys the small Bastron with his explosive feathers and quickly deals with what remains of the enemies of clay before he switches to missile and strikes the fake Dark Crafter, stopping it from sculpting another Bastron. He then swiftly avoids a punch before he suddenly turns into a wheel. Landing on the fake Dark Crafter, he then couples Wheel with Needle to remain on it as he rolls all over it, also piercing it by the same occasion.

As the song loops, Sweetie Belle manages to grab Kirby, getting the hand grabbing him pierced by the needles, and she squeezes strongly only for Kirby to turn into Metal. She quickly lets him go before his weight would drag the hand with him to the ground, but she then sends the hand after him to punch him as he crashes and returns to normal. However, Kirby teleports just before he could be hit, and he appears not far behind her. Seeing him, she quickly moves to the side, barely avoiding several of his explosive feathers.

Only to be hit by a series of Giga Force Blasts, which finally destroys the fake Dark Crafter.

But Sweetie Belle immediately replaces it with a new shield, one that takes the form of a heart. More exactly, the heart of the Access Ark controlled by Star Dream.

"Access
Our planet plunged in distress
Due to some robotic madness
It was time for us to clean up this technological mess"

Sweetie Belle begins by constantly teleporting in a circle around Kirby, who readies himself to use Mirror to deflect cutter blades. But then, the heart appears just above him and suddenly slams itself down on him, crushing him, before it floats back up and fires two pink lasers, sweeping the floor in two side-by-side arcs with them so, after Kirby avoids the first laser with a back jump, he has to do another back jump to avoid the columns of pink energy coming out of the ground following the second laser.

"Virus
The bots would have to go through us
Each and every one got smashed; thus
We could find the source of the fuss"

After avoiding this attack, Kirby teleports beside the heart and begins to attack it with his sword coated in electricity, remaining careful. To his surprise, however, four legs, smaller versions of the Access Ark's ones, form from the heart, and Sweetie Belle begins to swing them around to slap Kirby, forcing him to fly back. The filly goes after him, doing dozens of thrusts with the four legs that force Kirby to back off again while using Beam to attack. While doing the thrusts, Sweetie Belle accumulates energy and unleashes it as a huge laser that Kirby barely avoids by teleporting behind the heart.

Only for him to be hit by a ring-shaped red shockwave released by the heart that violently sends him flying several dozens of meters. He lands and rolls a few more meters before he finally stops, very badly injured.

He has to heal, and quick, and this time, he does it with the Doctor Ability, mixing products to obtain a healing mixture while he flies back toward the heart that has continued to release those red ring shockwaves at random heights. When Kirby comes close enough, Sweetie Belle stops sending the shockwaves and releases instead several of those heart-shaped mines that move to various places in the air before all exploding at once. Kirby manages to avoid the resulting bursts only by luck.

"Haltmann
Company we’d put to an end
Star Dream
Machine that plotted its own scheme"

Not wanting to risk getting too close and being hit by a red shockwave again, Kirby attacks from the distance, firing a storm of arrows coated in ice at the heart while also using the Laser Ability. At this, Sweetie Belle teleports again around Kirby, leaving behind each time she teleports a small portal, out of which comes a beam that Kirby deflects with Mirror.

"Star Dream fused with the President’s soul and mind
To defeat it, our forces we combined
With my Sweetie Bot and your own Robobot,
The Halberd and Warhammer became the Star Killer and chased down the bot"

Sweetie Belle then does a succession of teleport-and-charges with one of the legs thrust forward, and Kirby does his best to avoid them while surrounding himself in electricity to damage the heart as it passes beside him again and again. Just before one of the charges, Kirby suddenly teleports up and intercepts the heart by impaling it with a spear from above while dropping, turned into metal, causing the heart to crash with him at the top.

Before he can move away, Kirby is engulfed in a big laser, but he is able to teleport while in it, leaving a bomb behind. But then, the heart separates in two halves, one blue and the other purple, and the two parts move to crush Kirby between them while they accumulate energy. Again, Kirby teleports, avoiding being crushed as well as the big explosion of energy that follows the two halves reforming the heart, but it repeats the move a few times, forcing him to quickly move while still attacking with projectiles.

"As we fought, Star Dream was deleting Haltmann’s soul
But saving him? We could not fulfill that role
Star Dream trapped his soul in numerous pillars
So defeating Star Dream meant that we were also President Haltmann’s killers"

After a last explosion, Sweetie Belle suddenly launches the legs at Kirby while sweeping the ground with the pink lasers. Careful of the pink columns of energy created by the lasers, Kirby manages to catch one of the legs while avoiding the others, and he quickly teleports beside the heart before impaling it with the leg. The puffball then quickly flies away before he could be hit by a red ring shockwave followed by the heart spinning while firing a huge laser.

Two fake light-bulbs are then created and sent after Kirby. He manages to destroy one, but the other reaches him, and he barely avoids the following explosion, spreading bolts of electricity in all directions. While Kirby avoids the explosion of the light-bulb, Sweetie Belle creates a spyglass that begins to rotate while firing a laser as well as a protractor that begins to shoot circular projectiles randomly.

"A giant drill...
Gone for the k-"

Kirby avoids the laser and projectiles as best as he can before he teleports beside the spyglass and kicks it to make it turn toward the heart, which is finally destroyed by the laser.

But Sweetie Belle doesn't lose time and immediately replaces it by a spherical shield.

Void.

And she begins like Void did back then: by firing dozens of energy pellets in all directions followed by several waves of lasers. Kirby quickly uses Mirror to deflect the pellets while he moves between the lasers, getting out of this bullet hell without being hit and taking the occasion to heal.

"The God,
Who had seen his children fight over him, grew bitter and enraged
The tech clan
Banished the magic clan and sealed the God in the Jamba Heart cage
Then came Hyness in a new age"

Sweetie Belle then duplicates the fake Void, and the two of them begin to bounce around before they each attempt to crush Kirby. After failing to hit the puffball who has avoided them and is now attacking them with Spark allied to Beam, the two fake Voids then resume bouncing around while duplicating again, meaning that there's now four fake Voids bouncing around and attempting to crush Kirby. That number then doubles to eight, and now, not an instant goes by without one of the fake Voids attempting to crush Kirby.

"Casting a magic spell, Hyness attempted to remove the seal and take out the Heart Spears
The Jamba Heart shattered, sending hearts everywhere, corrupting some friends we held dear"

After a few more attempts, the fake Voids stop bouncing and place themselves at various points in the air around Kirby before they all use the Needle Ability. Kirby manages to avoid it, but the fake Voids then quickly retract the spikes, move to a new place, and attack again with Needle. They then repeat the move again and again, faster and faster, and Kirby quickly decides to use Metal to avoid being turned into cheese.

"In spite of all, we saved our friends and went on
To prove to Hyness that friends are stronger than brawn"

Sweetie Belle finally stops and merges the eight fake Voids back into one before she materializes two Ultra Swords that she coats in fire. She then swings them to send sharp fiery shockwaves homing slightly in Kirby.

"He got launched into the Heart, which he fused with out of hate
We searched for hearts in Another Dimension to set things straight"

While Kirby avoids the shockwaves and attacks back with various projectiles from various abilities, Sweetie Belle eventually turns the fake Void into its Dark Matter-like form and begins to fire lasers from the eye, all the while still attacking with the swords. One of the lasers hits Kirby, but the puffball quickly recovers and teleports away before a shockwave could hit him.

"Heart Spears broke the Jamba Heart so we could fight
Hyness and purge him of the darkness using our light"

The fake Void also begins to teleport around while firing the lasers and also starts to use mirrors made of energy to deflect the lasers. The swords are eventually replaced by giant bows firing ice arrows and fire arrows while spears coating in electricity begin to rain all over the area; the spears causing shockwaves and explosions of electricity once they hit the ground.

"But as we prepared the heart, the mages came to his “rescue”
They were furious at us, so we had to beat them too"

How is she not tired yet?! thinks Kirby as he spams Mirror and teleportations to help himself to avoid this second bullet hell while he continues to attack, not stopping once. He's himself beginning to feel a little drained. If it hadn't been for that training he took with Void, Galacta Knight, and Magolor's training room, the fight would have been over long ago.

"The hearts
Combined were able to revive the mage-sisters but not quite Hyness
A cloud
Consisting of pure darkness fully enveloped and whisked away Hyness
The mages were in distress"

Sweetie Belle suddenly stops all attacks and envelops the fake Void in fire before she charges at Kirby. After a few charges, she begins to send cutter blades in all directions so, even if Kirby avoids the charge, he has to deal with the blades, making it harder for him to not be hit unless he teleports.

"We could not let the Dark God have victory, so we worked with the aid of the sisters
The Friend Hearts gave birth to a mighty weapon: the Star Allies Sparkler!"

Sweetie Belle then restarts bouncing around, this time while sending those weird purple symbols that Void's cocoon used. Like back then, the symbols home in Kirby, and with the constant bouncing, they come from all directions. Because of this, Kirby only avoids being crushed by Sweetie Belle bouncing on him by turning into metal.

"Void Termina exuded immense power
But the Star Allies had no reason to run away and cower

We boldly flew right to his core, and fought both him and his Soul
Victory was ours, but the Void was still not made whole

After a break, we came back for round two
In order for us to rescue him with our many hearts so true

Reaching out to those we knew, calling out to our friends
These heroes re-taught Void to be a dear friend"

Despite Sweetie Belle clearly not able to use the full power of the real Void, it still feels as if for Kirby as she throws everything at him, even restarting the energy-pellets-and-lasers storm while randomly teleporting and flying around.

Not long after the song loops, Kirby eventually dodges a giant axe that Sweetie Belle has sent spinning around while still doing that pellet and laser storm and finally decides to use another attack he has kept secret until now. He turns himself into a big stone statue and uses ESP to throw himself through the projectiles right at the fake Void's face. Then, again with the help of the ESP Ability, he materializes ALL his weapons, coats ALL of them in an element, and throws ALL of them at the fake Void, finally destroying it.

How has he lived so long without the ESP Ability?

But now, Kirby quickly teleports away from Sweetie Belle. Now that they have gone through all their main foes, he fears what she'll do. The filly is taking heavy breaths, but as she looks at Kirby, she's still smiling.

She's not finished yet.

Suddenly, exactly like Void did back then, she creates two clones of herself who fly a little away behind her.

Just as she smirks, the two clones begin to play music, and suddenly, Sweetie Belle's mane and tail turn into fire as she's enveloped in an even brighter aura and the whole area begins to shake before her ten cannons appear one by one behind her, all facing Kirby.

Oh boy... She is NOT messing around anymore... thinks a very sweating Kirby at this.

The first clone then begins to sing.

"Let’s go, me and you
Show our friends what we can do"

Followed by the second clone.

"This fight’s victory
Will settle our great rivalry"

And while they sing and begin to fire music notes and sonic waves in rhythm, the real Sweetie Belle charges at Kirby.

Yikes! He turns himself into metal and materializes his sword before placing it in front of him, and Sweetie Belle collides with it only for him to be swept off the air by her.

The fight immediately turns into chaos as Kirby unleashes all his abilities (or all the useful ones at least) on Sweetie Belle, and the two begin to teleport around at a speed hard to follow while exchanging all kinds of attacks, using weapons, using elements, throwing projectiles...

"Allies from the start,
We now test our battle smarts"

"Think you’ll win this fight?
I’ve yet to use my full might!"

Sweetie Belle covers her hooves in metal and smashes Kirby despite him using an axe to protect himself, sending him crashing. She then sends her ten cannons after him, but immediately after crashing, Kirby uses Wheel to escape, moving left and right, decelerating and accelerating to avoid the huge lasers the cannons are now firing. He then switches to Animal to dig into the ground, barely avoiding a wall-sized wave of fire. Sweetie Belle goes after him in the ground, which almost immediately explodes as the two clash under it.

"Unicorn who’s trained to use Matter, elemental magic,"

"And while fighting a galactic knight, may have discovered an all-new hidden trick"

Sweetie Belle duplicates herself again, creating three more clones (without the fiery mane and tail) who respectively start to paint, knit yarn, and sculpt clay, rapidly creating dozens of beings of paint, yarn, and clay, especially strong ones such as Whispy Woods, the Ice Dragon, and so on. Kirby finds himself having to spam Crash and Mike while dealing with the real Sweetie Belle, who continues to attack him with everything she has.

With her constant healing, being hit by Crash and Mike doesn't matter to her and her clones. They continue attacking and singing and creating no matter what.

"Pink puffball who can inhale and copy powers of his foes,"

"But through special training, you’ve no need to copy; that’s how much you have grown!"

Using mirrors and portals, she fires from her cannons many lasers that she deflects and warps in all directions, making them unpredictable. Kirby deflects them too with Mirror, but they reveal to be a big distraction that results in him taking a serious beat down from Sweetie Belle herself that ends with him being smashed to the ground. The filly immediately follows this by a very, very boosted Ultimate Doom Laser that causes a huge explosion that Kirby barely escapes with a last second teleportation.

He appears right behind Sweetie Belle, grabs her, and does a Big Suplex, sending the both of them to the ground with Sweetie Belle crashing in it head first.

"I may be part of Dedede’s army, but that’s no longer why
I’m fighting you right here and now, my heroic ally"

"Having learned new powers, I want to put them to the test
What better way than to challenge one of the very best?"

The filly immediately recovers from this and smashes the ground, causing the next instant countless spikes to sprout out of it all around her in a vast area that Kirby again barely avoids with a teleportation as they destroy some of the created minions from the clones.

Speaking of, Kirby appears this time near the three clones creating the minions and attacks them, the damage they take being also felt by the real Sweetie Belle. It doesn't stop them from creating minions, but the healing tires the filly a little more by the time she teleports to him to stop him with a storm of projectiles.

"Between your Copy Abilities and my fearsome Soul Song
We’ve formed a duo that’s proven to be incredibly strong
Facing off against many vicious god-level threats,
Now we fight in the very place where we first met!"

Using her ten cannons in sword mode, she then cuts space again and again, sending powerful space beams without stopping as she also begins to create black holes. The clones also stop creating minions and instead create and throw/swing countless elemental weapons of all kinds at Kirby.

The poor puffball is totally overwhelmed, but he returns this in kind by spamming Crash and attacking with his most powerful projectiles, especially the fully charged Beam and Spark that can hit several lined clones at once.

Feeling herself getting tired, Sweetie Belle has to merge back with her clones, stopping the song, and thus stopping the power boost. Instead, Sweetie Belle grabs one of her cannons and turns it into double sword mode.

She does a few exchanges against Kirby, who also has to avoid the attacks from the other cannons, mostly done thanks to Mirror. Then, he suddenly uses the Beam Ability to send a charged ball of energy at one of the cannons, destroying it. The filly makes him pay for this by sending a tornado with her double sword. Kirby being too close, he is not able to avoid the tornado in time, but he uses it to his advantage by using Stone while caught in its winds. Thanks to a good timing, he almost falls on Sweetie Belle, who has quickly moved back to avoid him.

However, as Kirby falls beside Sweetie Belle, she punches him even if he's still in his Stone mode, and manages to hurt him, forcefully turning him back to normal. Kirby returns this by grabbing the hoof that punched him and throwing Sweetie Belle to crash to the ground. Instead of going after her, he fires another charged beam at one of the cannons, destroying a second one, quickly followed by a third and a fourth one that has been side by side.

Sweetie Belle calls the remaining cannons to her side and fires a less powerful version of the Ultimate Doom Laser that Kirby easily avoids. But she starts spamming it, and Kirby flies all over the now ruined area to avoid the lasers.

Until he suddenly teleports beside one of the six cannons and destroys it with another charged beam that also destroys a second cannons behind. But then Sweetie Belle assembles the four remaining cannons back into their Whip mode and wraps it around Kirby before making him crash.

Before Kirby can recover, she then teleports beside him and punches him, only to be punched back. Sweetie Belle replies with a blast from her horn that propels Kirby, but as he's sent flying, Kirby suddenly materializes his whip and wraps it around Sweetie Belle's neck, and the filly finds herself dragged by the puffball who lands on his feet and punches her in the belly, followed by a suplex. Sweetie Belle uses the momentum of the suplex to make both her and Kirby roll on the ground until she ends on top of him, and she begins to pummel his face.

Only for Kirby to yell at her with the power of Mike, stopping her before kicking her to get her off of him. He then uses Hammer to send her flying several meters away. As Sweetie Belle recovers from this, he then heals himself by painting a Maxim Tomato.

Despite this, they're now both reaching their limit.

But then, as she recovers from the hit of the hammer, Sweetie Belle starts giggling.

"Sorry Kirby, but victory is mine. Remember what I said in that song? I have an hidden trick," she says with a smirk before she frowns. "I didn't want to use this. It's dangerous. I don't know what will happen. I won't be able to control myself. But you leave me no choice. And I'm sure you will survive. Void can always stop me if I go too far... I think." As she talks, she takes off her clothes and gauntlets and teleports them away along with her four remaining cannons.

"Poyo?" wonders Kirby before he understands what she's talking about, and horror fills him.

This makes Sweetie Belle giggle again before she says, "Here we go..."

And then, she's engulfed in light, and the whole area shakes again, parts of it even beginning to float.

The light then disappears...

Revealing the new Sweetie Belle, with a body made of pure magic.

Resolve of a True Hero
Sweetie Belle Soul

Kirby immediately readies his sword, his mirrors, and pretty much all his other abilities to be used. When Sweetie Belle teleports just in front of him, he immediately swings his weapon, only for the filly to pulverize it into dust with just a punch. Kirby turns himself into metal while also using Needle, but the transformed filly just cut the needles with some sharp winds, letting her approach enough to give him an uppercut that sends Kirby flying so high into the sky that he almost reaches space.

With just one teleportation, Sweetie Belle joins him to punch him again, but Kirby avoids her and hits her with a long series of Vulcan Jab until she teleports. When she appears not far, she then materializes several weapons out of pure energy and sends them to do multiple rushing slashes at Kirby from all directions. She follows it with a literal cage of projectiles (mainly beams) that hit him without respite for several seconds.

When this stops, Sweetie Belle then appears just above the barely conscious Kirby and fires at him at close range a supercharged humongous laser that engulfs him and sends him back to the ground.

Right on the Fountain of Dreams.

When the laser hits it with Kirby, it creates an explosion that obliterates the fountain and a good part of the Rainbow Resort, even causing the tower not far to topple.

---

"THE FOUNTAAAAIN!!!!" yells Dedede in horror.

"Don't worry, King Dedede, I can recreate it," reassures Void.

"Shouldn't you rather be worried about Kirby?" asks Twilight.

Void chuckles. "No need. Sweetie Belle isn't the only one who has an hidden trick like that." Some sweat then appears on his forehead. "I rather worry that I will have to intervene to do damage control..."

---

His whole body hurts...

It's a miracle he's still conscious after taking THAT.

But it means he has the occasion to use his own hidden trick. He just has to hurry before Sweetie Belle comes to finish the job.

Time to do like Galacta Knight showed him. Thanks to his origins, he has total control over the four Matters, and thanks to Void and Galacta Knight he has been able to reach a new level, thanks to which he has been able to unlock that possibility to switch between all his known abilities.

But he hasn't just learned to do that.

Focusing, not thinking of the pain he's feeling, he starts gathering the surrounding Matters, using their positivity to greatly boost himself and even have a minor transformation that gets him closer to what he will be once he matures.

In a flash, a pair of white wings like Galacta's appear on his back. However, the feathers look more like the ones Void Termina had in his bird form, all colored white excepted the extremity ones that are red. Then, in another flash, a star-shaped yellow mask appears on his face. Finally, an Ultra Sword materializes in his 'hand'.

Stella Knight
Kirby of the Stars

Kirby, now prepared, flies at unbelievable speed toward Sweetie Belle, who has begun to send countless projectiles of energy at him, of all sizes and forms. Mirror easily deflects them, and even the huge laser that the filly fires an instant later, letting Kirby approach her close enough to attack with his Ultra Sword. Sweetie Belle protects herself with a shield powerful enough to resist the sword, and after a violent clash, she teleports away before sending a giant fist-shaped shield.

A max-sized Grand Hammer stops it, and then, Kirby fires several Flare Beam that are all deflected by Sweetie Belle. While she deflects them, Kirby teleports beside her and attacks again with his Ultra Sword only to be stopped again by a shield. He then has to fly away to avoid several giant lasers materializing right from the air around him.

Coating the Ultra Sword in fire, Kirby then does several swings, sending sharp giant fiery waves with each of them. Seeing that Sweetie Belle avoids all of them, he then goes to the level above and sends instead fiery tornadoes while also sending dragons of fire from his hand not holding the sword.

It starts a violent battle in the sky of Pop Star, where the two opponents unleash the forces of nature at their foe. The sky becomes red with all the fire now in it, giant constructs of ice rain everywhere, thousands of powerful lightning bolts strike each second, the winds reach speeds never seen on the planet before as giant tornadoes and hurricanes appear.

Several times, Kirby attempts to slash Sweetie Belle with his sword, but each time, he's pushed back by a shield. But he continues, because he feels that he can break it, and as long as he isn't able to break it, then he won't be able to hit Sweetie Belle, and this fight is as good as lost for him, even with this boost. Sweetie Belle is constantly ready to put a shield or a mirror if something gets too close. Because of this, Sweetie Belle hasn't taken a single hit while Kirby has already taken several, but thanks to the Doctor Ability, he has made several healing mixtures that he keeps levitating near him with ESP.

Then, finally, Kirby breaks the shield with his Ultra Sword and slashes Sweetie Belle several times with it.

But suddenly, one of her hooves morphs into a claw that she uses to grab Kirby and squeeze him before she drops back to the ground with him at the speed of sound, Kirby under her.

The crash destroys even more of Rainbow Resort and spreads cracks all over Pop Star, making the whole planet shake!

---

"Damage control, uh?" asks Dedede while eyeing Void with a "What are you still doing here?" look as he gets back on his feet after falling on his butt because of the earthquake.

Void shrugs. "As long as I can repair it, that's alright. If it goes too far, however..."

"Because almost breaking Popstar into pieces is not going too far for you?"

"I can repair it, so yes."

---

Kirby almost immediately recovers from the crash before he uses Needles. Boosted as he is, the needles are as big as spikes and force Sweetie Belle to release him. Free from the claw, Kirby then sends a huge quantity of silk that traps the filly into a giant cocoon that he makes explode with the Crash Ability, the explosion being of much bigger proportion, and so, more powerful thanks to the boost.

Suddenly, out of the explosion come... Meta Knight, Dark Meta Knight, Galacta Knight, and Morpho Knight?

Copy versions made of solidified energy.

The four of them fly toward Kirby, ready to strike, but the puffball then begins to spin, creating a huge tornado that catches the four knights. He then puts fire and electricity in the tornado, destroying them.

But while he has been doing this, Sweetie Belle has created copies of Marx and Magolor who both fire a huge laser at Kirby from opposite sides before disappearing. As Kirby is still spinning, only starting to stop, he gets hit by the lasers that are followed by a copy of Zero suddenly appearing above him before dropping on him, crushing him before disappearing too.

Kirby then teleports, avoiding a rain of lightning bolts from a Copy Kracko, and appears above Sweetie Belle before he uses Stone and Metal to turn into a giant metal sphere that drops on her. To his surprise, however, Sweetie Belle sends him flying with just a punch.

When he lands further away, he returns to normal and sees Sweetie Belle sending a copy of the whole Squeak Squad followed by copies of various creatures like Bonkers or Bugzzys or Mr. Frostys after him. Using Water, he sweeps all of them with an electrified tsunami that is, however, frozen by the filly creating an army of copies of the Ice Dragon, all breathing ice at the water.

They're all cut horizontally in half with a single sharp wave sent with the Ultra Sword. Kirby isn't sure how much that helps to destroy the copies before they disappear, but better safe than sorry.

Kirby then teleports beside Sweetie Belle and attacks her with the Grand Hammer that she avoids with her own teleportation. The next instant, a copy of Star Dream comes out of the ground in front of him and fires from its eye a beam. Kirby jumps above it and uses again the Grand Hammer to pound the copy and destroy it before he teleports after Sweetie Belle.

He quickly destroys a copy of Sectonia's Soul spamming lasers at him and is about to attack Sweetie Belle directly when, suddenly, there's a flash, and he now feels upside down. Looking at his left, he spots the origin: a copy of Dark Mind (in his spherical, Zero-like form).

It doesn't matter much in the end for Kirby and he still attacks Sweetie Belle, but he keeps an eye on the copy of Dark Mind, which isn't disappearing. Then, a copy of Void appears on the opposite side, and the two fire lasers at each other, deflecting them back and forth with their mirrors, with Kirby in the crossfire.

They're both destroyed with a giant arrow, the destruction of the Dark Mind copy stopping the upside down feeling, and Kirby immediately restarts clashing with Sweetie Belle.

Again and again, copies of enemies are created to attack him. A copy of Haltmann in his Business Suit that randomly jumps around. A copy of Nightmare, Dark Mind's first form, and Dark Nebula spamming the star projectiles. A copy of Void Termina attempting to ram Kirby with its left wing (above which Kirby jumps before he slices it). Copies of Hyness and the Three Mage Sisters attacking with dark orbs and elemental magic. A copy of the Lor Starcutter that Sweetie sends to crash on him.

Despite all of them, Kirby manages to hit Sweetie Belle several times, but their number rapidly grows, making it harder and harder for him to avoid the attacks while attacking the filly who still protects herself a lot with mirrors and shields. At this point, he's sure that he has destroyed at least a copy of every single enemy encountered in his adventures, even of their friends.

The most incredible is when Sweetie Belle creates a whole forest made of copies of Whispy Woods and other Woods encountered in their adventures (such as the Twin Woods or Iggy Woods).

At this, Kirby just goes "Screw it!" and uses the Crash Ability. But boosted, the result is a gigantic explosion that levels everything at about a mile around. Pretty much nothing is left of Rainbow Resort at this point.

Thankfully, the area has been evacuated before the fight.

The only thing that remains after the explosion, beside Kirby of course, is Sweetie Belle slowly floating down until she lands, facing Kirby.

Instead of waiting for her to do something, Kirby attacks first, charging at her, sword ready. Sweetie Belle meets him with a black hole, catching him in it. Once he gets out of it, Sweetie Belle opens more black holes at random places, forcing Kirby to be careful as he and the filly charge at each other and clash again and again.

In a clash, Kirby manages to punch Sweetie Belle in the face, sending her flying far in the sky. When he joins her with a teleportation, the filly suddenly duplicates herself into a dozen Sweetie Belles who all attack him with weapons and projectiles of energy while dozens of black holes are opened again around him.

Kirby swiftly moves to avoid most of them, and uses mirrors and even his Ultra Sword to deflect many others while he uses attacks hitting wide areas to counter them. He pretty much turns into the white Dark Matter from Ripple Star as he does attacks very similar to it, like the explosive bubbles, the columns of fire, or the ice shards levitating around him, but much more effective. Thus, the explosive bubbles are much more numerous and much more powerful, and instead of just creating a ring of ice, he totally surrounds himself with them and launches them after a time if they haven't been destroyed.

The clones eventually surround him and all ready a spear of energy before they charge at him. Kirby teleports away, only for the Sweetie Belles to surround him again and to repeat the attack. This time, he simply flies through a gap, and quickly changes direction once the Sweetie Belles repeat the attack again and again. Lasers are eventually fired from random places in the air, making it harder for him to correctly avoid the attack.

Then, the Sweetie Belles gather above him in a circle, gather a huge quantity of energy, and fires it in the form of a very huge column two dozen meters wide. Rather than avoiding it, Kirby readies twelve giant spears that he coats in wind before gathering them in a small circle, their point touching at the center. He then charges with the spears at the column while spinning, and the spears strike it and successfully separates it into several smaller, less powerful lasers that strike the surface below; not doing much damage. Kirby, meanwhile, moves up through the column with the spears until reaching the Sweetie Belles, at which he throws the spears, one for each clone.

The Sweetie Belles rapidly recovers from the spears and merge back into one. She then charges toward Kirby, who also charges at her, and the two begin to fly all over Popstar while regularly clashing, each clashes causing a big shockwave and one of them causing the Sky Tower of Nutty Noon to collapse. At a moment, the Sun is even forced to move to the side to avoid them before it decides to join the Moon at the other side of Popstar where it's safer.

Projectiles are regularly exchanged, Sweetie Belle particularly firing waves of them, forming an arc of circles, creating rings of them surrounding Kirby, fields of explosive ones, or just giant sweeping lasers. But in the end, they don't really do much as Kirby avoids or deflects most of them, and Sweetie does the same with Kirby's projectiles.

Far in space above Popstar now, Sweetie Belle suddenly grows until reaching a size close to Void Termina's titanic form, multiplying the strength of her physical attacks by a lot. All that Kirby can do from there is dodging, but he doesn't mind as Sweetie Belle's giant form leaves her more vulnerable to his attacks even if she remains fast and surprisingly agile, without forgetting that she can still teleport and use mirrors.

After taking a Vulcan Jab (boosted, each punch of this attack hits like a train), Sweetie Belle then surrounds Kirby with thousands of beams. Before they begin to rain on him, Kirby quickly materializes his weapons, levitating them thanks to ESP. Then, the attack begins, and Kirby deflects the beams by twirling his weapons around him. The attack still lasts several long seconds, near a whole minute, and in that time, some of the beams manage to pass Kirby's defense and to hit him, but he doesn't stop twirling his weapons until the attack ends.

Once it's over, Kirby then teleports above Sweetie Belle with all his weapons coated in all the elements, gathers them, makes them grow in size like he did with the Ultra Sword back in the fight against Magolor, and strikes down, sending the both of them back toward Pop Star.

Kirby makes sure that they crash back in the middle of what remains of Rainbow Resort so that, when they crash, he uses the Crash Ability again to create another huge explosion. Once the explosion clears, revealing Sweetie Belle back in her normal size, he then strikes her with each of his weapons one by one, finishing with the Ultra Sword.

And Sweetie Belle collapses, and Kirby takes a big breath.

But before he can even think that he has won, Sweetie Belle suddenly goes back up and lets out a loud shriek of rage as pure Dark Matter starts to gather around her before being absorbed by her body.

There's then a big explosion of light that forces everyone, even the ones watching from portals, to close their eyes. When they can open them again, only a scorch mark is left where Sweetie Belle has been previously.

---

Everyone looks at the portals showing the fight in confusion or disbelief.

"This explosion looked like the one that happened to Twilight before she..." says Rainbow Dash.

Twilight turns to Celestia, awed. "Did you feel it? Has she really...?"

Celestia nods. "Yes, she has... I felt exactly the same thing when it was you and Cadance." She gets up from her chair. "I must go and-"

She's interrupted by everything suddenly shaking strongly. The shaking continues for a few seconds, growing in intensity, before suddenly, in the portal, back at what remains of Rainbow Resort, they can see a hoof punch through space, cracking it.

Or rather... a hoof-shaped hole, as if made of void.

A second hoof-shaped hole then punches through space beside the first one, making it crack even more before pieces of it start collapsing, revealing a...

A pony-shaped hole.

A filly-shaped hole, with a horn, wings, but not hair.

And behind it, Twilight recognizes the dimension where she has been sent before she became an alicorn, with all the movies showing parts of her life, actually parts of Sweetie Belle's life...

Collapsing.

The pony-shaped hole - Sweetie Belle? - then slowly advances while the hole it has created in space slowly closes until nothing remains.

The thing then stops, seemingly staring at Kirby, not doing anything else, letting everyone holding their breath in wait of what will happen next.

#̸͔̣̙̞̞̗̖̠̓̽̃̀̈̆̾̍̉͆̔͠@̸̼̰̬̪͇̮͔͑̓̋̃͗̈́́̇̅̍̐0̶̨̡͇͙̬͈̟̯̪̰͉̫̳̘̈̾͆̊̇̅̓̿̾&̴̢̛͈̟͖͙͈̼̞̼̭̩̟͈̾̏͗̑#̷̱̗̓̈́̓̎%̸̡̨̠͓̑͑̆̔̈̅̌
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Void sweats.

For the first time in forever, he feels terror.

---

Kirby hesitates as he stares at Sweetie Belle's new form. He can't feel her anymore. Until now, he could feel her and her power thanks to the Matters, but now, he feels... nothing.

Like this form. This form is a hole. A Nothing shaped like his friend.

It makes him want to flee to the other side of the universe, or even to another universe.

But against all his instincts screaming at him to GET THE HELL OUTTA HERE, he charges at her and swings his Ultra Sword.

Sweetie Belle puts a leg in its path, and stops the sword right there, without even needing to use a shield.

Despite his shock, Kirby teleports behind her and swings again, only for her to do a small jump, letting the sword pass below her. Kirby then does a third try, this time from above as he strikes down, but Sweetie Belle simply steps to the side, letting the sword plants itself in the ground.

She then slightly punches it, and suddenly, the sword disappears, turned into hydrogen atoms.

Kirby immediately teleports away and sends a powerful Flare Beam.

With a swing of her hoof, Sweetie Belle deflects it.

Kirby then lands and trips. He quickly rolls to the side only for a meteor falling from space to crash on him. Recovering from this, Kirby then fires several arrows, but they all miss.

Sweetie Belle then finally moves and advances, only to disappear as if she walks through a wall. Thinking that she has turned invisible, Kirby fires many projectiles all over the area between him and where Sweetie Belle has disappeared, only to hit nothing.

And yet, right in front of him, Sweetie Belle appears again, as if walking through a wall.

And before Kirby can even move. His time is stopped before he's punched. Because of his time being stopped, it looks as if he hasn't been hit by anything, so Sweetie Belle starts punching him from all directions, hitting him thousands of times.

Once she stops, she steps back, and Kirby's time restarts. Almost immediately, he receives the thousands of punches, making it looks like he's being punched by someone invisible and possessing dozens of arms.

Just as the attack finishes, Sweetie Belle then appears right above him and smashes him, sending him flying right through Popstar and far into space.

When Sweetie Belle joins him, Kirby is still conscious, but back to his normal form, without the wings and the mask. Then, she gathers a lot of Dark Matter into a small dark orb.

Suddenly, she swings a hoof, sending Void flying just as he appears in front of her to ask her to stop. With Void out of the way, she sends the dark orb at Kirby, only for him to be replaced by one of Dedede's training dummies. When the orb hits it, it unleashes a cosmical explosion that reduces into oblivion the dummy and anything that has been caught in it.

But before the explosion even ends, Sweetie Belle fires two beams, one behind her where Discord is with Kirby, and one at her right a little above. Discord teleports with Kirby to avoid the first beam, only to appear in the path of the second beam that hits him, badly hurting him.

Void then returns and places himself between Sweetie Belle, Kirby, and the hurt Discord, the last two behind his back.

"Stop that, Sweetie Belle! you could have killed Kirby! Return to your senses!"

Sweetie Belle tilts her head.

Must defeat Kirby...

Then she raises a leg, readying behind her millions of dark beams.

Sweating, Void duplicates himself into countless clones, each readying two Ultra Swords.

"If you don't stop, then I will have no choice..."

"Mmh... What are your chances of victory?" asks Discord behind him as he looks at the real wall of beams that extends in all directions for miles and remembering all that Sweetie Belle has done since she has become like this.

Atomic manipulation.

Seeing the future.

Manipulation of the writing.

Time stopping.

Moving using dimensions above the third.

Void hesitates before answering. "Low enough that I should as well say that I have no chance at all... But... Maybe I can help her recover her senses before she does something she will regret." He then smiles when he remarks that Sweetie Belle hasn't attacked yet. "I'm sure she can do it."

However, Sweetie Belle eventually sends the beams at Void.

No... I must stop... Or they will... all die...

Chapter 120: Battle of Gods

Again, Sweetie Belle must fight.

But this time, it is not a dark or corrupted being threatening Dream Land, Popstar, or the universe.

It is not a God turned crazy by hate and pain.

It is not a rival that she must surpass.

It isn't even a simple hostile creature blocking her path to her goal.

It is herself. Her own Soul. Her own Will.

She wants to defeat Kirby. And as a Soul, it is all she desires.

At all costs.

Even if she must kill everybody in her way, including her friends and family. Even if she must destroy planets.

Even if she must destroy the universe.

But she doesn't want any of that. She doesn't want to kill anybody or to destroy anything.

And so, now, she wants to stop.

She must stop! Or they will ALL die!

But her Will is strong... And so, despite her attempt to stop herself, she still sends millions of beams at Void and all his copies now protecting Kirby and Discord.

But she will continue to fight, to stop.

---

With difficulty, the many Void Copies deflect the beams with their swords, but they are so many that many are missed and hit them. Some even manage to pass between the Voids to threaten Kirby, but Discord uses his own chaotic powers to stop them.

But then, the next instant, Sweetie Belle is beside Discord with a hoof morphed into a blade threatening to behead him. But just as suddenly, Sweetie Belle stops herself, shaking, giving enough time for Discord to remark her and use a giant red boxing glove to punch her and send her away.

Seeing the close call, Void sends two of his copies beside Discord and Kirby to protect them.

"You were able to punch her?" asks one of the copies.

"She stopped herself and remained immobile, so it was the perfect occasion," answers Discord.

So it seems that they may have a chance finally. If Sweetie Belle continues to immobilize herself and to give them occasions to attack, then they may be able to win by knocking her out instead of just waiting for her to regain control.

With this in mind, the many copies of Void place themselves in defensive position while facing all directions and surrounding Discord and Kirby, not leaving any blind spot. Sweetie Belle is pretty much untouchable because of her omniscience, so he has no choice but to defend and wait for the occasion to hit.

Meanwhile, Discord heals Kirby with a Maxim Tomato. It won't regenerate his stamina, but at least he will be able to fight and defend himself if he needs to.

At this instant, time is stopped for Kirby, Discord, and all the copies of Void, but the last two manage to get out of this in time to stop Sweetie Belle from attacking Kirby. Instead, Sweetie Belle begins to gather energy, and with a "Yikes!" Discord quickly teleports everyone to a corner of space without anything at thousands of light-years around. Sweetie Belle then releases all the accumulated energy into an explosion that has nothing to envy to a supernova that would have totally pulverized Pop Star and a few other planets and destroyed all life on many others.

The scariest part is that where it would have taken Void many seconds (maybe about half a minute) to do something similar using a lot of his power, it has only taken Sweetie Belle a couple of seconds, and she doesn't seem at all drained afterward.

It takes a lot from Void to protect himself, Discord, and Kirby from this explosion even with the draconequus' help, and a couple of his copies are still destroyed, hurting him a lot. But Discord has had no choice but to teleport everyone and not just Sweetie Belle, because the filly would have just immediately come back to unleash the explosion, and this would have destroyed Pop Star. And Kirby needs their help to defend himself. He wouldn't have been able to do anything against this explosion alone.

At least, when the explosion clears, Sweetie Belle remains immobile, holding her head long enough for Void to unleash everything he could at her with his many copies. Sweetie Belle, however, attacks back by sending hundreds of powerful beams in all directions directly from her body, hitting all the Void copies as they have all been too busy attacking to act in time to avoid.

Void has to merge all his copies back into one to limit the damage before he teleports away. But then, a beam is fired at Discord and Kirby. As Discord readies himself to snap, Void teleports in the beam's path only to be knocked out of the way by Sweetie Belle ramming him from the side, and Discord has no choice but to teleport himself and Kirby away. However, Sweetie Belle, or rather, a copy is awaiting them at the place where they appear and she almost touches Kirby. The hoof almost touching him is sliced off by Kirby using Axe however, Sweetie Belle surprisingly not avoiding this attack as well as the anvil dropped on her by Discord. The Axe and the anvil, however, are turned into atoms upon contact, and the sliced hoof quickly regenerates.

Void is still busy with the first Sweetie Belle, so he sends a copy to deal with the second one, only for Sweetie Belle to create another copy, and when Void sends a second copy to deal with it too, she creates yet another one. And so, the two of them create copies again and again until dozens of them are flying around fighting each other, the Sweetie Belles having the advantage despite being regularly hit when one of them suddenly stops moving for a few seconds.

Sweetie Belle reveals however that she can create FAR MORE copies than Void as she creates thousands of them that she sends to attack Kirby like a swarm of insects. Seeing no other choice, Kirby uses Crash, only for the explosion to be contained by some of the Sweetie Belles, and by the time it stops, he and Discord are surrounded. No hope to escape. If they teleport, Sweetie Belle will know where they will appear immediately and this won't change anything. Some of the Copy Voids teleport to Kirby and Discord's side to protect them, but they doubt this will help much.

Sweetie Belle Soul is really too powerful, even for Void.

With a pleading look, Kirby suddenly yells, "POYO!!!"

This has the immediate effect of making all the Sweetie Belles stop before they could attack.

"Po-poyo! Poyo!"

Some of the copies visibly shake as they attempt to attack, only to stop themselves. Some also begin to hold their head.

And the Voids take this occasion to assemble and use their power to create a huge cosmic storm that ends up electrifying all the Sweetie Belles with thousands of lightning bolts that force them to merge back into one. The Voids also merge, having only one body being less risky for his health if Sweetie Belle decides to reply with something as or more powerful.

And she does! By creating and gathering an astronomical quantity of matter to create a star that she's planning to throw at Void, Discord, and Kirby! Kirby is forced to use his boost again to resist the very high temperature, but he isn't sure how long he will be able to keep it. Water and Ice abilities won't work, the ice and water will immediately turn into vapor upon use.

They wait for Sweetie to throw the star, and they teleport out of the way, only for Sweetie to modify the trajectory of the star to make it move where they appear, forcing them to teleport again only for the filly to modify the trajectory of the star again. It repeats a couple of times before Sweetie Belle holds her head and lets the star go, opening herself for more attacks from Void.

Only for him to be suddenly punched in the middle of one of his attacks, propelling him right through the dimensional wall into another dimension. Through the hole left, they could see nothing except darkness. But when Void comes back through it, Kirby could swear he could see for a brief moment in the distance a glowing ball of light appearing out of the darkness before the hole closes.

Void comes back just in time to stop Sweetie Belle from beheading Discord, who has defended Kirby with his chaotic magic as best as he could. The puffball has tried to help him, but none of his attacks have hit and only has barely avoided being atomized thanks to the draconequus shielding him with his magic. It's not easy considering that Sweetie Belle predicts their moves and attacks in consequence. Even Discord's unpredictable nature isn't unpredictable enough for Sweetie Belle, which is what has almost gotten him to lose his head, definitively.

After that, Sweetie Belle stops moving for several seconds while holding her head, leaving her open again for Void, Discord, and Kirby to attack her.

"You can do it, Sweetie Belle! Stop this fight!" shouts Void.

"Come on. You don't want to kill your good pal Dissy, right?" asks Discord.

"Poyo poyo!"

Struggling against herself as she hears her friends' pleads, Sweetie Belle is not able to do anything for several more seconds before, suddenly, a huge quantity of energy is expelled from her, followed by cracks in the fabric of space spreading all around her.

And the whole universe begins to shake as the cracks spread further and further and space-time itself begins to distort.

The whole universe is starting to collapse.

Void mutters a curse before he blasts Sweetie Belle away and takes her place in the middle of the chaos. Using all his powers, he then tries to stop the collapse, but only manages to slow it down as long as he continues to pour the totality of his energy into it.

This definitively gets him out of the fight, leaving Kirby and Discord to deal with the filly.

"Uuuh... I think I will call some reinforcements..." says Discord with great worry over the situation.

As he talks, Sweetie Belle, still struggling with herself, slowly raises a hoof toward him and fires a powerful beam before he can snap his fingers. But then, a portal is sliced open between Discord and the beam, and out of it comes Galacta Knight who quickly moves out of the way as the beam enters the portal (which he has made sure leads to nowhere). Thanks to Galacta's intervention, Discord has time to snap his fingers, bringing in the area many allies, starting with Celestia, Luna, and Twilight, but also all the friends that helped Sweetie Belle fight Void (giving the ones who can't fly the ability to float around like in their fight against Void).

Discord has hesitated to bring all of them, especially the weakest ones like the animals, but like against Void, he has the feeling that they will all be useful in stopping Sweetie Belle before the universe collapses. She's already fighting a lot against herself to regain her senses just by fighting him, Void, and especially Kirby, but all of them at once? The filly will tear herself in two! But it's very risky. Many of them could easily be killed. Discord will have to remain away of the fight to keep an eye and ensure the protection of everyone.

Bringing Sweetie Belle's parents, Rarity, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo would have certainly been effective, buuut... Yeah, no...

The new arrivals have all watched the fight thanks to Discord's portals, and so know the situation and how dire it is. So, seeing where they now are (they haven't been warned before being brought here), they quickly understand what they have to do, exchange a general nod at each other, and join Kirby and Galacta Knight in attacking a now almost constantly struggling Sweetie Belle. It seems like all these attacks are having an effect on her, as the filly seems to have less and less difficulty fighting to regain control.

And with all these friends now present, many of them pleading for her to regain her senses and to stop, Sweetie Belle is now pretty much an immobile target, attacking less often. But the attacks remain powerful, and often hard to avoid, as the Soul seems to get more and more desperate.

The heroes often crash against each others, but thankfully, Discord is there to teleport anyone about to be killed. Sweetie Belle often targets him as a result, but with her constant struggling, he easily escapes all her attempts.

Sweetie Belle then accelerates her own time while decelerating theirs, making her look much faster than everyone. So, despite her struggling, she manages to throw a spear made of energy at Dedede, the spear exploding upon contact with him, disintegrating him and catching Gooey, Magolor, Rocky, Bonkers, Poppy Bro jr, Gim, and Waddle Doo in it.

Nooo!!!

Suddenly, time rewinds. The explosion reforms into the spear that returns to Sweetie Belle before disappearing, and Dedede and the others are back in one piece. And then, her struggle doubles in intensity while her powers start to go wild around her, with all kinds of energies starting to come from her in all directions in the form of streams, lasers, waves, and clouds.

Because of the time rewinding, nobody remembers what happened excepted Discord and Void, but they both opt to never tell the others. They can see it's already hard on the filly. If only Void wasn't stuck trying to stop the universe from collapsing!

Speaking of, with Sweetie's powers going wild, bending space and time and randomly creating and destroying stuff, the situation becomes worse for the universe. The heroes can even see the galaxies starting to move in random directions! And it's only a matter of time before they start colliding with each other, which would be a real disaster!

If they don't want the Dream Universe to end like the other dimension, they have to hurry!

"Come on, Sweetie Belle! It's getting dangerous there, even for me!" shouts Marx as he barely teleports out of the way of a newly created planet that is quickly cut into small pieces by Galacta Knight and Kirby. "You gave me a second chance despite everything I did, knowing how risky it was! Are you reconsidering your decision?"

Yin-Yarn orders an army of yarn Bow Waddle Dees on the back of yarn Birdons to fire their arrows at Sweetie Belle.

"You cured us of Dark Crafter's corruption!" shouts Yin.

"You saved us!" shouts Yarn.

"You and Kirby did so much good together! You saved many of us, and the whole universe! Don't ruin all this! So, please, come back!" shouts Claycia, who fires a huge beam with a cannon she has created from clay.

"You and the others stopped me and made me open my eyes!" shouts Magolor.

"Thanks to you, I got to know the Magic Paintbrush and to work with it to achieve my dream!" shouts Adeleine.

"Me and my Squeaks would be under Dark Nebula's control!" shouts Daroach.

By now, the universe around them is a real space-time mess, but then Sweetie Belle stops holding her head and, shaking, keeps her hooves at her sides as the filly is finally able to force back some control to herself. But it's still not over as her powers are still creating a cosmic cataclysm around her, and the universe is still collapsing despite Void's efforts, the purple erasing space appearing at some places.

But it's starting to slow down.

"Continue everyone! She's doing it!" screams Discord. "Send everything you have and hit her with all your friendship!"

This prompts everyone to go all out as the amount of attacks and pleads doubles.

"I helped you discover about Dream Land, and you helped me learn to fight at your side! I wouldn't be the Waddle Dee I am today without you!" shouts Bandana Waddle Dee.

"You will let yourself become a Destroyer? You're stronger than that! My ex-second can't disappoint me like that!" shouts Dedede.

"Don't give up! You can do it! Like you were determined enough to assault a battleship to stop me, you are determined enough to stop yourself!" shouts Meta Knight.

"Please, Sweetie Belle! Think of your family! Of your friends! Apple Bloom and Scootaloo who are still on Pop Star!" shouts Twilight.

The collapse finally stops its progression, and Sweetie Belle's powers seem to start to calm down, making it easier for the heroes to attack her.

Discord smiles. "Time for the final blow."

He snaps his fingers.

The next instant, thousands of voices begin to be heard.

"You can do it!" "You saved Ripple Star!" "You're my hero!" "Please! Stop!" "Come on, Your Majesty!" "Sweetie Belle!" "Don't give up!" "COME OOOON!!!" "I 100% believe you will not destroy the universe today." "I believe in you!" "A hero doesn't destroy universes! Stop it!" "Please!" "Sweetie Belle! Sweetie Belle!" "You won! No need to continue!" "You must stop!" "You won't destroy us! I know it!" "You are incredible!" "Stop!" "End this fight!"

And this continues...

Void is finally able to overpower Sweetie Belle, healing the universe from the damage it has taken.

Everything around Sweetie Belle stabilizes.

And, suddenly, Sweetie Belle fires dozens of powerful beams... at herself, engulfing her in a huge supernova-like explosion that causes the universe to shake again for a few seconds, forcing Discord and Void to teleport everyone away.

When the explosion clears, everyone is brought back to continue the fight if they have to. But they didn't need to worry, because the first thing they see upon coming back is the 'Nothing' forming Sweetie Belle's body disappearing, faster and faster, until all that remains are two small blotches of 'Nothing' on her flanks.

"I... I'm sorry..." says Sweetie Belle, filled with guilt, tears in her eyes as she looks at Kirby, before she loses consciousness.

It's over.

Author's Notes:

And done. The final fight is over. I loved writing it, but gosh it was hard.

Note that I edited the Bosses Pause Descriptions blog to add all this.

One chapter left.

Epilogue: Toward New Adventures

Sweetie Belle wakes up to a familiar sight: her chamber in Dedede's castle. Well, she isn't surprised to wake up there, since it is where she has woken up each time she has lost consciousness previously.

Physically, she feels great. Not a single wound from her fight against Kirby can be seen on her body. She has healed all of them during the fight, and any wound she has taken in her Soul form has immediately disappeared either by auto self-healing again or simply by returning to her normal self.

But mentally... She feels horrible.

That's an understatement... she thinks.

She remembers everything that has happened in her Soul form.

She remembers ascending, becoming an alicorn, and in her Soul form, a God, or nearly one.

She remembers almost killing... actually killing some of her friends.

She remembers almost destroying the universe.

"Ooh! None of that!" someone suddenly shouts, revealing to Sweetie Belle that she isn't alone in the room. Discord was sitting further away from the bed, and as she has been looking at the ceiling since she has woken up, she hasn't seen him until now.

"Discord..."

"Nobody blames you. Nobody could have seen this coming. Your Soul took everyone by surprise by suddenly ascending and becoming more powerful than even Void. And I suppose that this includes even you. You hadn't planned for this, right?"

"No! I thought that Void would stop me if I was going too far, but then..."

"So, you see, you have nothing to reproach yourself. You had NO control of what your Soul was doing, and you didn't know that it could, and would, do THAT. And if it can reassure you, know that everything that has been destroyed has been repaired, including the Fountain of Dreams, thanks to Void. There's not a crack or crater left on Popstar. And nobody has been killed. Everybody is now waiting for you." Seeing Sweetie Belle still looking guilty, he sighs and says, "How about you do your best to make sure this never happens again? No Soul form anymore?"

Sweetie Belle remains silent for a few seconds, still looking down, and then nods before she gets out of bed. "How long was I out?"

"About two days. You just needed a big nap to recover all your energy." Discord then sees Sweetie's new wings and has an idea. "Hey! Look at that! You have wings! You're now an alicorn! Isn't it fantastic?"

Sweetie looks at her wings, spreading them. "Yeah. I guess."

Discord loses his assurance at Sweetie's lack of reaction at being an alicorn, then says, "And look at your flanks! You finally have a Cutie Mark. About time, uh?"

Sweetie Belle looks at her flanks, a little more excited, but when she sees that it's a blotch of void, she loses this excitement. "Oh, uh... My special talent is the void... That's... great."

"Hey! As long as you don't unleash your Soul, that's a very great special talent! You have bigger control over the Void Energy! You're the equal of Gods! Come on, isn't it exciting?" Discord then materializes a sock puppet of Pinkie Pie that says "Give me a smile!" Discord himself then says, "And you know the best? Your Cutie Mark is even more unique!"

"How so?"

"As time will pass, it will spread and cover more and more of your body! The more it will spread, the more you will mature, and the more powerful you will become. Until it covers your entire body, and then, you will really become a God!"

This doesn't have the expected effect on the filly, who gets a worried expression. "But... Won't I become...?"

Seeing this, Discord quickly puts a finger on Sweetie's mouth. "Sshhh. No, you will not turn into your Soul. You will turn into a whole new divine Sweetie Belle that will totally have control of her actions. You have nothing to fear. You're like Kirby now. And Kirby won't turn crazy when he will become like his father. So you won't."

"It's not the same! But... I guess you're right," says Sweetie Belle with a sigh. "Where's everyone?"

"They all remained in the castle, excepted Sunbutt and Moonbutt who had to return in Equestria because it can't last two days without its rulers without falling into sweet chaos. Your parents are also there, they insisted on coming to be at your side. If you want, I can teleport you directly to them. Unless you prefer walking to clear your mind?"

"I will walk, yes."

Discord nods. "I think it's preferable. I will lead you to the room where they are. They're probably having lunch at this hour."

At this, Discord opens the door, letting the filly exit the room first. Being lunch hour like Discord has said, the hallway is totally empty of staff, which Sweetie Belle has always found stupid. What would happen if someone infiltrates the castle while everybody is busy eating? She certainly won't make the same mistake as queen of Floralia. Security before everything.

With the hallways empty, she doesn't encounter anyone until entering the mess room, leaving her to think about Discord's words.

"You know, if it hadn't been for you trying to stop yourself, we wouldn't have won," then says Discord. "This is another thing you should consider. You helped as much as everyone else in this fight, maybe even more. Even if you continue to think that you did something wrong, at least, you helped righting it."

Sweetie nods to show that she has listened, and that she agrees with him. At least, she did that. But she can't help but still feel guilty. After all, if she hadn't turned into her Soul form, this would have never happened. Yes, she hadn't expected it to do... THIS, but she should have seen that it was a bad idea to let herself lose control to become that thing, even if she had taken precautions with Void. Yes, she would have lost the fight, but she could have always tried again later.

It really had been scary to see how powerful she had become while having absolutely no control over it. She could have destroyed the entire universe in just a few seconds if she had wanted. She could have ripped space and time and destroyed every single bits of matter, past, present, and future. If it hadn't been for her trying to stop herself from the instant she became like that, she could have simply erased Kirby and the others with just a thought, without even needing to touch them. Or she could have rewound time to simply stop Kirby from being born. She had had SO MANY possibilities to end the fight right there and now!

And there was the fact that she knew. She knew! EVERYTHING! She knew what every single inhabitants of the universe had been doing, had been thinking, will be doing, will be thinking, did, and thought, at ALL times! EVERY movement of EVERY objects, from the smallest ones to the biggest! The answers to everything! How everything started! How everything will end! The only things she couldn't see were things relating to outside the universe, and to her actions.

Trying to recall all this hurts her. Her actual mortal mind is just not made for all this knowledge. She only remembers the more direct, simplest stuff, and some other primordial info about herself and the universe.

Like...

"Discord. Did you know that our life is... written? Uh... Like... Someone out there writes about us and... we happen?"

Discord raises an eyebrow, but he isn't really surprised that Sweetie Belle has gotten THAT knowledge. "Yes. I knew. It's one of the fundamentality of the multiverse. Some universes-not all-are the subjects of stories written by random people out there. Because, you know, since there's an infinity of universes out there, then it's probable that what you write is happening somewhere out there. That little series you made with your friends, for example, is certainly a reality in an infinity of universes. Some think that, actually, the writers dictate what happens in these universes, and it may or may not be the case, I don't know. But if that's the case, then, now, you know who to blame when things go crazy. Actually, you should consider this too. Blame the writer for what you did, it should make you feel better."

"Blame him? I should rather thank him! I could have killed everyone! But despite everything, nobody died! It would have really been easy to make me kill someone... definitively, but he didn't. I... just hope that he won't make me turn into this form again."

"That’s if our life is dictated by someone else's writing. Like I said, this is just a 'we say'."

"I don't know, this feels like it. And I know that you know that's it. After all, I was able to manipulate it when I was in this form. I was able to come out of this... writing, and to act and make things act like I wanted." A chill creeps up Sweetie Belle's back. "I could have escaped even his control and killed everybody. And even now, I can 'see' what he writes, and even reacted to it when I woke up."

"Well, welcome in the Fourth Wall Breaking Club. I'm sure that Pinkie will be happy to have someone else. There." Discord snaps his fingers, and some books appear on Sweetie's back. "Read these. I will also make you watch some movies later. They love references. I will make you a great fourth wall breaking character, young padawan. That's also a good way to know other universes that you may enter in the future."

"Uh... Thanks... I think..." Sweetie Belle says as she teleports the books to her chamber. "And, apparently, I'm absolutely unique in the Omniverse-yes, it's not actually called the multiverse, but the Omniverse-. Uh... When Twilight accidentally teleported me, I should have ended up in that version of Equestria where everypony is human, but in just that instant, our universe connected with the Dream Universe, and I was sent there instead."

"Yes, I knew about that too, I felt the connection, and it's how I knew immediately where you were. And the thing is... this may not even be an accident. I wouldn't be surprised if some... superior being out there did this on purpose because they were bored and wanted to have a good show."

"Isn't it simply the work of the writer too?"

Discord shrugs. "It could very well. Buuuut... for the heck of a good story, he may pull out the card of the outside influence. Or just the accident. Or not talk about it. I don't know."

"Well, he just made us talk about it, so maybe this will have its importance."

"Only time will say," Discord says as the two approach the mess room. "Feeling better?"

"....A little. Thank you."

She isn't sure she will be able to get herself rid of this guilt, but, at least, she knows that this will never happen again. She will never unleash her Soul form again. Never!

And with this thought, she enters the mess room with Discord.

Almost immediately, as her presence is remarked, conversations die little by little until only silence remains. Which is quickly broken by Sweetie Belle's family as well as Spiky, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Bandana Dee, and a few other friends that have remained in the castle and are present in the room running toward her and burying her under a pile of hugs, quickly joined by others while many simply approach her without the hugging part, but no less happy to see her awake.

Not surprisingly, Dedede is not among them because he must be eating in his personal room. Other absents are friends who haven't remained in the castle during these two days, like the Meta Knights, Marx and Dark Meta Knight, the Squeak Squad, and also Kirby, Galacta Knight, and Void. Everyone else has remained, even Magolor and the others living outside of Popstar. They have all been waiting for her to wake up, and some Waddle Dees exit the castle to spread the news to the ones who aren't present, which won't take long because Kirby, Galacta Knight, Void, and the Meta Knights don't live far, and the others have remained close. The Squeak Squad's airship could actually be seen through some of the windows of the castle.

Sweetie Belle finds herself overflowed with shouts asking her if she is okay or saying how glad they are that she's awake or that it's okay they don't blame her for what happened or congratulating her for defeating Kirby/becoming an alicorn/gaining her Cutie Mark... Despite the hubbub that she is barely able to understand, Sweetie Belle can't help but smile at this even if she still feels very guilty.

Dedede eventually joins them with a shout of "Sweetie Belle!" before taking her in his arms. "Took your time to wake up, like always!"

The filly answers by sticking her tongue out at him before giggling. "I think that after regularly having fights of cosmic proportions, I can be forgiven for sleeping in sometimes. Beside, I'm queen, so that's alright. You do it all the time."

This makes Dedede laugh.

"Now, please, can you let me go? I'm famished!"

"Eh. Not a big surprise. Thankfully, we already prepared something for you," says Dedede just before a Cook Waddle Dee comes and places a Maxim Tomato pie on a nearby table. "For my Champion who finally got Kirby out of his pedestal!"

Sweetie Belle sighs. "Yeah... And almost destroyed the universe while doing it..." Dedede gives a small slap on the back of her head at this. "Hey!"

"None of that! It wasn't you! It was... Well... It was you, but not you. Rah! Just... At least, you didn't kill anybody, and this is what matters."

Rarity nods. "He is right, Sweetie Belle. Stop thinking about it."

Sweetie Belle remembers when she actually killed Dedede and a few others before rewinding time, and says, "Yeah..."

She then goes to eat while discussing with everyone, or rather, answering their questions. "No, I don't feel different. Yes, I think it's great, but it doesn't change much. After all, I already could fly, and I'm already a royal. I don't know how powerful I am now without entering my Soul form, I will have to test my limits one day. Well, now, I'm going to return to Equestria for several months before I plan to go explore new universes to have new adventures and make new friends. Don't worry Rarity, I will go explore new universes on weekends. Yes Scoot, I will bring you with me if your family agrees and if the universe I'm going to is safe. The same goes for everyone else."

And this continues until Kirby suddenly appears in the mess room along with Galacta Knight and Void. Sweetie Belle immediately stops eating, staring at the pink puffball, not sure what to do. So Kirby is the first to act. With a "Poyo!" he runs toward the filly and hugs her. After a slight moment of hesitation, she returns the hug.

Despite what she almost did, there're no hard feelings.

And one by one, the remaining friends enter the room to greet her (Marx having to drag Dark Meta Knight). And she passes the following hours having a good time with all of them as the lunch slowly turns into a celebration for her victory over Kirby with the help of Pinkie Pie.

Unbeknownst to Sweetie Belle, everyone has prepared a big surprise for her.

---

Late that evening, everybody exits the castle and moves down the mountain, Sweetie Belle discovering that several stands have been built, forming a long, large road. The stands are all full of inhabitants of Pop Star and of other planets such as Ripple Star, and Sweetie Belle and the other ponies are led to some good places left at the front, not far of a big building at the start of the road, the part of the building facing the road covered in giant red curtains.

"Hopefully, this will cheer you up," says Dedede. "Everybody worked hard for this. It's our gift to celebrate you finally achieving your goal." He gives a few pats to the filly before he adds, "It's also a way to say sorry. It's me who gave you this burden. So, I guess that I'm the main responsible for what almost happened, for what you went through. So, please, don't beat yourself over this, and enjoy your life now that you are free of this stupid... obligation to defeat Kirby."

"But, Dedede-"

"Epepep! I don't want to hear anything! I started this. You only followed me. Yes, I didn't force you to make that promise and to continue when I stopped, but I'm still to blame for even putting this in your head in the first place and for not stopping you. Please, just accept this."

With a sigh, Sweetie Belle replies with an "Alright..."

Dedede gives her a nod with a smile at this before he moves away, followed by everybody else excepted the ponies and Spiky, and they all enter the building, leaving Sweetie Belle and the others to wait.

A couple of minutes later, Kirby comes out of the curtains, now wearing a black and red hat with a pink star and wings on it, and giant multicolored feathers behind him, each feather ending with a white spot with a star.

And suddenly, music begins to play as Kirby raises an arm, and the curtains open, revealing a float shaped like a giant Sweetie Belle in her uniform that begins to slowly advance, Kirby walking in front of it.

The crowd begins to cheer, and Sweetie Belle's jaw drops. And it drops even more when she sees that more floats follow before it slowly morphs into a huge smile.

One by one, the floats roll in front of her, first the giant Sweetie Belle, then a smaller representation of the mountain with Dedede's castle on it, Dedede himself sitting on the small castle and waving at Sweetie Belle who waves back. Various members of Dedede's army are on the mountain, including her closest friends like Bandana Dee, Broom Sunglasses, Cape Knight, and Knuckle Joe. Funny enough, there's a hole in each walls of the bottom of the castle through which they could see a small robotic Kirby and a small robotic Dedede fighting in a ring.

Then comes a float built to look like the Halberd, but smaller. Classic, but with a lot of members of the Meta Knights waving at the crowd, with Meta Knight himself on the bow, and Captain Vul and Sailor Waddle Dee on the bridge. The Waddle Dee looks like he's having the time of his life.

It's followed by a float built to look like the Fountain of Dreams, with a fake Nightmare slowly coming out of it only for the Star Rod to glow, forcing him back in the water before he tries again, repeating the cycle. After that comes, not a real float, but a giant Zero-like ball with Rick walking on it, making it roll, which makes many laugh. It's followed by some fairies holding balloons shaped like Dark Matters and Coo manipulating a puppet of the Dark Matter Swordman with strings linking it to his claws. Gooey himself is flying among them in his Dark Matter form, a rope around him letting him transport a fish tank full of water with Kine in it. More balloon Dark Matters follow before a big mass of darkness comes. A sudden glow disperses the darkness, revealing a smaller version of Ripple Star's castle, with the Crystal on it at the origin of the glow. Beside the Crystal are Queen Ripple and Ribbon, along with many other fairies flying around and waving at the crowd before the glow of the Crystal disappears and the darkness returns.

Next is Adeleine's school, the human girl standing in front of it waving at the crown with the Magical Paintbrush. Elline, Claycia, Yin-Yarn, and Prince Fluff are on the roof of the building-like float, surrounded by various beings of clay, paint, and yarn doing random stuff, and behind them, at the back of the building, is a giant portrait of Drawcia and Paintra together, with Vividria floating beside it, and Paint Roller at its other side. Just behind the school is a smaller float with the upper half of Dark Crafter being repeatedly bonked on the head by a paintbrush.

A fake pile of gold and other treasures comes after, with the Squeak Squad on it. Daroach himself is at the top, beside a familiar chest that he opens, making a fake Dark Nebula on a spring come out before he closes the chest a few seconds later. Beside the pile of gold is another pile, this one of skulls, Sweetie Belle recognizing Necrodeus' skull, Skullseer's skull, and many Skullys and Skullions skulls.

Then is, at first sight, a simpler float decorated like the place where Kirby and Sweetie Belle fought Dark Meta Knight who is sitting in the middle of it, arms crossed, not seeming happy to be there. Behind him is a giant Amazing Mirror, with Dark Mind's image in it. The Mirror is actually a wall separating the float in two, and the second half of the float eventually reveals to be decorated with vines and some flowers. The Mirror is there two, still with Dark Mind's image in it, but now, the image has its hands like a puppeteer. And just in front of the mirror, sitting on a throne of flowers, is Sectonia in her original spider form, so it looks as if Dark Mind is manipulating her from behind. But then, the float is immediately followed by a second float with a smaller Dreamstalk on it. The flower of the Dreamstalk blooms, revealing animatronics of Taranza and Sectonia dancing in it before it closes a few seconds later. The real Taranza is at the base of the Dreamstalk, waving.

After that is a float built like the Lor Starcutter, and both Magolor and Marx are on it. The Lor float is pulling with some ropes a second, smaller float built to look like a stone coming out of fake lava, with an animatronic of Four-headed Landia on it, one of the heads wearing the Master Crown. More ropes follow, pulling a second float looking like the upper half of NOVA with the Sun and the Moon circling it.

A similar float follows, but this one is of the upper half of the Access Ark, so without all the objects surrounding NOVA, and without the Sun and the Moon circling it, and there's Star Dream at the top while Susie is in front of the cat-face, waving. Then, Star Dream disappears into the Access Ark, and Haltmann sitting on his chair comes out of it taking the computer's place, playing Haltmann's anthem for a few seconds before the Haltmann return inside the ship to let his place to Star Dream again.

The next float represents the Divine Terminus where the heroes fought Hyness to stop him from freeing Void Termina. It's an exact replica, with the Jamba Heart being the only thing absent, Hyness standing in its place in his cultist clothes, with the Three Mage-Sister on the stairs in front of him. Behind them is a statue of Void Termina's colossal form with its mask regularly moving down, revealing Void behind, and Galacta Knight is sitting on the colossus' left shoulder.

Finally, the last float comes. Where it has started with a statue of Sweetie Belle, it ends with a float with smaller, golden statues of everyone else, all the friends who helped fight Void and save the universe, excepted Kirby and Sweetie Belle herself. A podium in the center, however, is empty.

Only for Kirby to appear on it before waving at Sweetie Belle and signing her to come. Understanding, and excited, Sweetie Belle flies to the podium and lands beside him before she hugs him and starts waving at the crowd.

Later, at the end of the parade, the two of them join their friends who have gathered on a platform of wood. Bandana Dee whispers something in Sweetie Belle's ear, and with a giggle, she nods before she places herself beside Kirby, facing the large cheering crowd.

And they dance.

Author's Notes:

https://youtu.be/6ufDPHri_AQ

The End.
Let's say a farewell to Kirby and his friends...
And let's go make new friends and live new adventures in other universes! Soon, in the sequel!

What an adventure it has been to write this story. One year and a half.
I thank you, you who read this story to the end. You who commented and helped me become better. You who helped make this story better.
Thank you, everyone, for everything. See you in my other stories, and I hope, in the future sequel to A Sweetie Dreamland which should come out soon.

I will also probably do some rewriting. Some chapters, especially at the start, need it.

?????

During the fight against Sweetie Belle, Void was briefly sent to a dimension entirely plunged in darkness.

A dimension... that was actually a prison to a being of light.

But because of what happened, the chains of darkness were weakened, giving the being of light the opportunity to slowly start to free himself of them.

---

The prison of darkness had a twin, this one of light, keeping prisoner a being of darkness. However, the prison of darkness had been using the being of darkness to sustain itself. With it weakening, the being of darkness was beginning to regain his strength, also weakening the prison of light which also helped the being of light.

One day, the two beings will be free.

---

In a space between spaces, a mottled, purple-black void laced by lightning with some rare purple ground, a supernatural entity of god-like powers felt the weakening of the prisons.

"The prisons are weakening... What happened? No matter... I will have to act!"

To be continued...