Chapter 13: No Walk in the Park
The Warp Star landed in Cloudy Park, a vast landscape of clouds, high in the air. Kirby was thankful for the cloud cushion for his fall from the Warp Star.
"Alright," said Gooey. "The second Star Rod shard gave you the ability to inhale even when you have an ability. Not much of a power boost, I know, especially since if you copy a new ability, the one you already have will be discarded. But, still..." Gooey trailed off.
Then he started up again. "You are here in Cloudy Park to locate the third Star Rod shard. It is unfortunately probable that Kracko guards it, as Kracko will not disobey a command from King Dedede."
"Kracko?" said Kirby worriedly. "You shouted at me to run from it when I first saw it. It doesn't sound like you think I'll stand a chance fighting it."
"Well, now I think it's time that you learned how to-"
"Wait a moment," interrupted Kirby as a couple of Bronto Burts flew in his direction.
Kirby jumped and hit the first one with his hammer. (He still had Hammer ability from his fight with Bonkers.) When that one had burst into stars, he slammed down on the other, with the same result. But as his hammer made contact with the clouds below him, a sudden bolt of electricity flashed in front of him. Out of the bolt appeared a Sparky, a green, cone-shaped creature with two yellow nodes floating around its top and two small black eyes on its front. It jumped toward Kirby and then shot sparks in every direction. But, the sparks' range was pitiful; none of them made it across the two feet between the Kirby and the Sparky. Kirby inhaled the Sparky and swallowed.
A flash of stars erupted across Kirby's vision. A golden tiled circlet, with dark blue tiles at wide intervals, appeared on his head. This circlet also featured a large blue orb at its front. Then light green electricity sparked from the top of his head, accumulating quickly. Within moments, the short lightning was so thick, it look vaguely like fire.
"Spark ability!" declared Gooey.
Kirby tried out his power. Activating it caused an aura of sparks to surround him, but he had to stay still to sustain it.
When Kirby finished, Gooey said, "As I was saying, I think that now is the time for you to begin learning how to fly a Warp Star yourself."
Kirby paused. "...Are you serious? I can't even get off one without falling down. How am I supposed to pilot them?"
"That's what I'm going to try to teach you, Kirby. This skill will be crucial to your survival in the future."
A new Warp Star arrived at Kirby's side. Kirby ate the Maxim Tomato on top of it as Gooey continued, "Mount this Warp Star, Kirby."
"Do I have to right now?"
"Yes. This is very important."
Kirby climbed onto the Warp Star.
"Okay," said Gooey. "Now, flying a Warp Star is actually pretty intuitive. To steer it, you will be using your weight and feet. If you lean forward, the Warp Star will move forward. If you lean backward, the Warp Star will move backward. Lean left or right and the Warp Star will turn in those directions. The harder you lean, the more the Warp Star will move or turn. If you notice, your feet can slide around the surface of the Warp Star, but will not come off of it, unless you jump, which you can do to dismount at any time. Though there's more to flying than just speed and steering, of course. If you move one of your feet to the back of the Warp Star and push as though to move it off, the Warp Star will tilt to face upward at the front. Since your foot cannot leave the Warp Star's surface, you will not be in danger of actually pushing your foot over the edge if you do this. If you do the same thing with your front foot, pushing it as though to push it off the front end, the Warp Star will tilt forward and go into a dive. No matter which way you are facing in any of the three dimensions, the Warp Star will act the same, meaning you can turn 'left' and 'right' even when in a dive, or even when on your side, as you can flip sideways by attempting to push one foot off to the left or right. For example, if you are on your side, tilted to the right, and you lean to your right, the Warp Star will turn to move toward the ground. These are the basics at least; there is more functionality I'll tell you about as time goes on."
It took a moment for Kirby to realize Gooey had stopped talking. The Dream Lander could barely concentrate on all these speeches anymore.
"Well, I think that's everything," said Gooey finally. "We'll take this one step at a time. I have sensors in both you and the Warp Star, so I'll be with you every step of the way. Oh! Wait. One more thing: The Warp Star is very sensitive, and its speeds can exceed 125 miles per hour. (That's over 200 kilometers per hour.) Its handling is the same at all velocities, but, needless to say, flying a Warp Star can require exceptional reflexes at greater speeds. We'll just practice getting you used to flying first. Be careful not to accelerate excessively."
Kirby didn't need telling twice when it came to being careful. Speeds over 125 miles per hour? Gooey had to be kidding!
"Right, well," said Gooey, "start by leaning forward very slightly. This should get the Warp Star moving forward."
Kirby did so. With the very smallest movement on his part, the Warp Star began moving forward. But the acceleration was so instantaneous that Kirby, startled, leaned backward, causing the Warp Star to go into a quick reverse.
He shrieked and leaned forward again, but too much, making the Warp Star speed forward.
"Kirby!" shouted Gooey over the yells of panic. "Stop leaning and the Warp Star will stop moving!"
Kirby stood straight and still as a statue, eyes squeezed shut. The Warp Star stopped.
"Okay," said Gooey. "Rule number one: Don't let the Warp Star's movement startle you into changing its movement."
"I don't wanna do that again..." whimpered Kirby, still standing motionless with his eyes closed.
Despite Kirby's reluctance to continue flying, the tutorial went on for quite a while longer. Leaning on the Warp Star really did turn out to determine how fast it moves, rather than how quickly it accelerates.
They didn't stop until Kirby could consistently follow 'rule number one' of flying a Warp Star, and also steer adequately.
"Very good," said Gooey, finally satisfied. "You may dismount."
Kirby jumped off the Warp Star gratefully and it sped away.
"Conveniently," continued Gooey, "you have landed near the place where Kracko should be keeping the shard."
As Gooey said this, Kirby spotted a conspicuously gigantic cloud ahead of him in some open airspace. But then his thoughts were interrupted by a couple fluffy white balls with faces, which burst out of the clouds at him. These were Mopoo.
Kirby used Spark ability to fry them instantly.
"Is the shard in that big cloud over there?" he asked once the Mopoo were gone.
"I would assume so. I'll send a preset Warp Star to take you into it."
The Warp Star arrived shortly. Kirby got on and it flew toward the cloud. He watched as it got bigger and bigger. It was a colossal, dome-shaped mass.
The Warp Star tilted upward at its front and whooshed into the cloud.
He was astonished to see that the cloud was actually completely hollow, creating a giant arena type space inside of it. Floating high up in the center of the dome was a small ball of much darker clouds that had electricity sparking over its surface.
The Warp Star stopped, and Kirby amazingly managed to not fall off!
"Gooey!" he exclaimed excitedly. "I did it! I didn't fall off!"
He waited for a few moments, but received no reply.
"Gooey?" he repeated, perplexed.
He jumped off the Warp Star and looked around. With no discernible landmarks in sight, he looked back up at that ball of darker clouds. Surely that must be where the shard is. Kracko didn't seem to be around. Kirby thought he might as well just nab the shard and leave before anyone showed up.
He inflated and flew upward, but as he neared the ball of electrified dark clouds, lightning lashed out from it, zapping him!
He landed on the clouds below and lost his Spark ability. Then he heard Kracko's voice.
"Trap: sprung."
The clouds underneath Kirby began to wiggle. He leapt out of the way as Kracko's eye rose from beneath him, pulling up with it a portion of the cloud itself. The eye stayed low, with cloud draped around it, leaving only the front of its eye exposed.
Kirby readied himself.
"Delete..." said Kracko, and it sped at Kirby, who dodged just in time.
The eye sunk back into the clouds, then emerged elsewhere and sped at Kirby again. He dodged again.
Kracko repeated itself once more, but this time it shot a strange beam of short-range yellow sparks at Kirby while moving.
Kirby was hit, but not badly. Dream Landers are very resistant to electricity, as they have highly insulating skin and no circulatory system. And then he was ready for the attack when Kracko tried it again... and again.
"Method of deletion: inadequate," said Kracko.
It then burst from the surface of the cloud and conjured four white spikes around it.
Kracko flew over Kirby and fired small cannonballs at him. He opened his mouth quickly, inhaled the cannonballs, and swallowed, but unfortunately didn't copy an ability.
Then Kracko dropped a number of bombs in his direction. Just like everything new that Kracko had done so far, this startled Kirby. But he inhaled the bombs like the cannonballs and swallowed, copying Bomb ability!
He took aim and threw a bomb, which exploded right on target. Kracko was blasted backward slightly, its eye rolling.
"Method of deletion: inadequate," said Kracko.
Kirby watched as Kracko's spikes turned gold, and then split into three smaller spikes each. These twelve smaller, golden spikes began to circle Kracko's eye, rapidly increasing in speed. Clouds materialized around the eye, forming an oval-shaped mass around it. Then the spikes stopped and stuck their blunt ends into the sides of the cloud.
The cloud dome Kirby and Kracko were in began to get darker. As it did, electricity sparked around Kracko, and then the clouds around its eye were suddenly engulfed in dancing lightning.
"Power level: maximum," droned Kracko.
Uh-oh, thought Kirby.
Amazingly bright white lightning bolts shot straight out of all twelve of Kracko's spikes at once. The bolts struck the surfaces of the giant hollow cloud, which looked nearly black in comparison. The clouds around Kracko's eye, though glowing white, still looked dim when compared to lightning.
When the lightning disappeared, the clouds of the dome began to slowly change shape, forming undulating bumps.
Kracko turned in the air so that one of its many spikes was pointing at Kirby. Sensing the coming attack, he leapt aside. Instantly, bright white lightning sped again from the spikes, narrowly missing him.
Kracko turned again and flew over towards Kirby, though staying above him. He lobbed a bomb at Kracko, who fired its short-range beam attack at it, blowing it up before it got too close.
Kracko resumed its chase. Kirby fled as fast he could, barely managing to outrun a rain of small blue balls of lightning that poured from Kracko's underside as it pursued.
Suddenly, Kracko boosted bodily at Kirby, who, still running with his back to the malicious eye, was not able to react nearly quickly enough. He was blasted halfway across the cloud dome, electricity sparking over his body.
He landed on the soft cloud and stood up shakily. That had hurt. ...a lot.
Kracko rose back into the air.
"Creating: Waddle Doo," it said.
Then, what Kirby assumed was a Waddle Doo fell out of the clouds surrounding Kracko's eye. It looked like a Waddle Dee, except with one big eye instead of a face.
Kirby ran towards it. Its big eye focused on him.
As he neared, it used Kracko's short-range beam attack, firing the sparks from its eye.
Kirby stopped quickly, avoiding the beam.
When the Waddle Doo finished, Kirby inhaled it and swallowed.
Stars flashed in front of his eyes! He had copied a new ability! A jester's hat appeared on his head. This had a white frill at its base and white tufts at its two pointed ends. Also its left half was red, while its right half was orange with a pattern of white stars. In addition to this, a yellow wand, with a sky blue orb at one end, appeared in his right hand.
Kirby jumped and fired from his wand the same sparking ray that Kracko and the Waddle Doo had used.
It had no effect at all. Kracko retaliated with its own sparking ray, electrocuting Kirby and causing him to lose his newly acquired ability. Kracko had been baiting him with the Waddle Doo.
He fell to the ground, and then leapt aside, out of the way of Kracko flying at him again.
Once it had returned to its preferred altitude, green lightning crackled from underneath Kracko, striking the cloud floor. Its eye began spinning... and then began firing little zigzag-shaped green lightning projectiles in every direction!
Rather than try to dodge the flurry, Kirby inhaled, but this didn't effect those little bolts, and he was painfully zapped by the first one to enter his mouth.
So then, dodge he did, as best he could, but they were everywhere, an unstoppable barrage of fast and sharp shocking shards that he couldn't keep evading over and over and hit him a couple more times before... he collided with something else.
It was the Warp Star! It was a way to get cover! He jumped behind it and pulled that end down to make a little wall that he could hide behind.
He heard a few bolts hit the Warp Star ineffectually after that, and then the bombardment finally stopped.
He wasted no time in peeking out from behind his cover to see what Kracko was doing, and this was lucky, because it had just shot a bomb in a high arc to hit him behind the Warp Star.
Kirby inhaled the bomb, swallowed to copy Bomb ability, and ran back toward Kracko, throwing bomb after bomb at the eye. But Kracko's beam sparks blocked each and every one.
It shot another bomb, which nearly collided with Kirby before he inhaled. He immediately shot the star back, but Kracko blocked it just as it had blocked all of Kirby's bombs.
Thick orange lightning sped out of one of Kracko's top spikes. This lightning curved in the air, aiming for Kirby, who jumped out of the way.
The lightning curved again. The electric trail it was leaving behind in the air remained unbroken, all the way back to the spike where it began, as the front end hunted Kirby, who dodged once more.
Then a second string of orange electricity fired off from another spike, but Kirby made a daring jump, managed to dance around the two seekers, and threw a bomb at Kracko at close range.
The orange trails dissipated at once. Kracko flew high into the air, electricity sparking all over it. It began shaking. It turned so that its eye faced Kirby, and he could see a curved, black, metallic eyelid had slid onto the upper middle part of the eye, making it look angry.
"Power surge..." said Kracko.
Cyan lightning arced in every direction from Kracko's spikes, crackling into the clouds of the dome, causing the whole arena to become much more unstable. Undulating hills formed and reformed on the floor. The ceiling caved and vexed. The clouds seemed to be alive.
Though no rain fell, lightning now flashed from the ceiling to the floor, with accompanying crashes of thunder. The noise was incredible.
Kracko descended towards Kirby, who began to run, but was zapped in the back by the lightning arcing from his opponent.
He lost his ability, but kept running as fast as he could. Lightning was flashing everywhere in addition to the cyan electricity from Kracko, while the terrific noise of it all numbed the senses. He was running through chaos, and he was frantic.
He was suddenly thrown off balance when the clouds shifted beneath him. He fell, and tumbled down the side of a small hill that had risen in the cloud. A moment later, the slope turned into a peak, lifting him up too close to Kracko, so close that electricity instantly flew over his body as the terrible eye fried him with its surging lightning bolts.
Then the noise died, and the lightning dissipated. The clouds resumed their less dramatic undulation.
Kirby pushed himself to his feet. He could see trails of smoke in the air around him, and wondered vaguely if it was coming from his own burnt flesh. Everything hurt.
Kracko was hovering above him, its eye lidless once more.
"Delete..." it droned again.
Kirby ran, whimpering desperately. He had to escape or he would die in this giant hollow cloud. There had to be a way out; he had gotten in, after all.
He glanced backward and saw Kracko turn to aim with its spikes. He sped up, trying to position himself so that the attack missed.
It did. Bright white bolts of lightning streaked over his head and into the ground behind him.
He made it to the edge of the hollow cloud, but could not walk through it. He tried to push his way through. He tried to fly through. Nothing worked.
Suddenly Kracko was above him. He ran out of the way, barely evading a second rain of little blue balls of lightning. Then he turned and jumped to avoid the subsequent attack of Kracko flying at him.
It tried shooting small cannonballs again after that. Kirby inhaled them and shot back a large star. Kracko attempted to block the shot as usual, but this larger star went straight through its sparking ray and struck its eye.
Electricity sparked and flashed over Kracko again. It rose higher into the air.
"Power surge..." it repeated, its eyelid resuming its angry position.
"No..." whimpered Kirby.
The cyan lighting arced. The clouds of the dome trembled. Lightning flashed. Thunder blared.
Kirby ran.
Kracko pursued.
A warping cloud moved out from under Kirby, and he fell down another slope. He quickly tried to alter his roll so as to move in a different direction, out of Kracko's path.
Something sped past him.
He got up.
Kracko was a ways away, but Kirby saw something else. There was a flying cutlass made of red lightning spinning through the air.
It flew at Kirby. He managed to dodge it. Kracko was nearing. Kirby ran from Kracko again.
The flying electric cutlass suddenly slashed into him from behind.
He flew through the air and landed a ways away. His body was beginning to spasm painfully. The electricity was really affecting him now.
He moved his head so that, while still not upright, he could see Kracko some distance away, moving steadily towards him. The lightning cutlass was gone; it had apparently dissipated after successfully striking him.
But, something else was shining nearby. He looked, and once again saw the Warp Star, which was still completely unharmed.
He mounted it desperately.
Leaning forward and then left, he sped forward and turned. He sped away from Kracko. Lightning flashed around him, but he kept going.
Now the power surge was ending. The clouds were reverting back.
"Delete..." said Kracko again, though it was barely loud enough for the Dream Lander to hear after all the noise.
Kirby spun his Warp Star around to face Kracko, who flew quickly towards him.
Kirby used his Warp Star to fly out of the way.
Kracko turned again, and shuddering purple lightning blossomed from a number of its spikes. The lightning twisted and crisscrossed, forming a spherical web of electricity around Kracko.
Then the web expanded rapidly.
Kirby leaned back quickly, throwing the Warp Star into a sharp reverse. As soon as the holes in the web got big enough for him to pass through, he jumped through one of them.
The purple lightning struck the Warp Star, but this apparently wasn't enough to damage it, only causing it to fly about a foot backwards, electricity arcing over its surface for a moment.
He leapt back onto it.
Kracko then executed its orange electricity string attack again. Knowing he was not yet skilled enough to fly out of the way of the seekers on a Warp Star, Kirby sped away.
Once he was on the opposite side of the cloud dome, he turned back to face Kracko.
The string was still coming his way, and a second was starting.
Kirby saw something above the battle.
Looking up, he recognized the ball of electrified dark clouds that he had seen at the beginning of the fight and no doubt housed the third Star Rod shard.
A thought struck him.
Kirby carefully angled his Warp Star diagonally upward and then sped straight at the dark ball of electrified clouds. The seekers turned to chase him, but he was going too fast. As he neared the ball, he began to inhale. The clouds were all sucked into his mouth, and he swallowed, acquiring Spark ability.
Without stopping his Warp Star, he activated his ability and shot straight through the surface of the giant hollow cloud into the open air.
"Kirby!" exclaimed Gooey immediately. "What a relief to see you on my sensors again! The cloud you went into was blocking the transmissions to and from the cell phone. And you got the third Star Rod shard? And you're horribly injured?"
Kirby was far too tired and sore to respond. And then Kracko burst from the giant cloud behind him.
"Glitch: escaping," it droned. "Pursue..."
"Augh!" sputtered Gooey. "Kirby, fly! Get out over the ocean as fast as you can!"
Kirby leaned forward and rocketed away from Cloudy Park.
Kracko followed, through it wasn't nearly as fast as the Warp Star.
"Kirby, jump off the Warp Star once you get out over the open ocean," said Gooey. "Kracko won't be able to follow you underwater."
"But... can't stay under," said Kirby exhaustedly. "Dream Lander don't breathe w-water..."
"You do now. The power granted by the third Star Rod shard is to breathe and use your abilities underwater."
Kirby leapt from his Warp Star and plunged into Orange Ocean.