World 4-4: The Mysterious Mademoiselle I

Ray sipped the last of his Slurpee as Squirps described the setting of the green maze that caught most of the team's full attention.

"We're here, squeeegle! This is the Whoa Zone!"

Sluuuuuuuurpppp… slurp SLUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRPP… SSSSS—

"Cut it out, Ray!" Rachel yelled.

"Squirps can't wait! Squirps is going to scurry ahead. Follow Squirps when you can."

"What?! You can't leave us to get lost in here!" Phred argued.

Slurrrp…

"Don't worry! Just pay attention to where you're going and you won't get lost, squeerp! Well, Squirps will see you later…at the spot where the Pure Heart waits!" The little child of green then left the four to comprehend that he had actually left them.

"I can't believe that creature left us at a time like this…" Tippi told the others. "But… I must say that the presence of the Pure Heart is slightly overwhelming in this realm… It's somewhere in this zone…"

"Yeah… at the end." Ray said, tossing his now empty cup to the ground for lack of a trashcan. As the cup fell, the spoon straw slipped out of the hole and touched the floor. The instant it did, the calm green color that painted the walls and platforms completely turned into an alarming red.

"Ray, what did you do?!" Phred asked.

"You litter-bug!" Rachel scolded.

"Who knows? That could actually be an advantage to us… Maybe there's a policeman who will take us to the end by means of shortcut…" Tippi suggested.

That prediction came true as two Hammer Bros. came out and read the charges against the accused (Ray). Littering was prohibited in the Whoa Zone and now they had to report to their squad leader at the back of the maze. The two out-of-place enemies led them.

~*-SPP-*~

"Wait here." One of them said as they both entered the door. Phred took the initiative to save, just in case.

"This is all your fault, Ray! If you hadn't littered, we wouldn't be in this mess!" Rachel accused.

"So? We bypassed the entire maze didn't we? So stop whining and accept the fact that I actually helped!"

"Ray does have a point, Rachel…" Tippi was easily on Ray's side in this situation. Before Rachel could talk back, the two brothers reentered the room and escorted them in. What they saw inside was utter shock.

~*-SPP-*~

"IEDA?!" The three humans shouted to the masked female—garbed in a black and grey outfit with two gold buttons, an orange belt with a dark yellow belt-buckle, and a blue neckerchief and a blue headband—in the middle of the room.

"Who?" Tippi asked.

"Ray's girlfriend." Phred told her. Tippi "ahhed" in understanding and returned to the problem at hand.

"What're you doing here, Ieda? What happened to good?"

"Heh heh heh… Good? I spit on your goodness! Besides, I'm one of Count Bleck's more promising minions. The Blue Typhoon…" She then performed a sequence of spectacular moves such as a 1,440-degree spin and emanating rays of blue in a circular path. She then proclaimed, "MADEMOISELLE I!"

"Mademoiselle… I?" Tippi questioned. Ray shushed her as the rouge ally walked closer.

"Yes, yes. I don't need you to tell me it's a cool name. I know it. Don't even bother trying to memorize it."

"Why?" Rachel asked, slightly knowing the predictable answer.

"Because I'm about to give you a burial at sea… er, space. Now, have at you!!"

Thus beginning the battle. Ray opted out quickly; he didn't want to injure his girlfriend, no matter how out of whack she was. So this left Rachel and Phred to battle alone… again.

"Well, as much as I hate to do this, let's get this over with Rach."

"Trust me, I hate it as much as Ray does."

"Cut the chit-chat and get battlin'!" Mademoiselle I interrupted. Phred made an attempt to jump on her, but she dodged the attack and jumped higher than Phred thought.

"Man can you jump." He whispered.

Rachel went in for an attempt and dented I's health.

"Argh! Thank goodness I've got those shake things the count loaded me up on." She said, opening said drink up.

"This could take a while..." Tippi said as she flapped her wings next to Ray.

The couple soon got into a rhythm of whittling down the boss' health; each hit took six away and with every hit, Ray cringed. It never occurred for him to just look away, so the entire battle hurt him.

I's most difficult move to avoid was her spring jump. She would fold down (seeing as they were made of paper) and would spring high into the sky.

"Geez, how many moves do you have, Ieda?"

"That's not my name, girl! It's Mademoiselle I!"

The battle resumed and Phred and Rachel soon learned to step away from her when she prepared herself to the move.

Eventually, with enough hits, Ied- er, Mademoiselle I soon fell.

"Oof!" She mustered to shout, "Impressive. Well… there's only one thing left to do, so…
COME TO ME…
METAL SISTER!"

As if on cue, a blue, female-looking robot blasted from the wall and landed in front of the villainous girl.

"Ha HA! Do you like her?" the villain asked.

"No!" Tippi interjected. Everyone shushed her.

"This is my dear metal sister. She and I share a spiritual bond that's forever. You know what I mean? Of course you wouldn't. No matter… I call her… SISTRON!"

"Sistron? You- oh, never mind." Tippi said before she was shushed again. She jumped into the control panel and threatened pain. With one flick of a switch, all of them found themselves in the deep reaches of space.

~*-SPP-*~

Phred found himself wearing his helmet and Squirps randomly floating about space. He grabbed onto the captain for dear life so he could destroy the machine and not the creator. The antagonistic protagonist spoke again before the battle started.

"The gravitational laws of space allow Sistron's potential to be fully realized! Now it's time to see if the machine is truly better than man!" Phred yelled for Tippi and the others to float away to avoid damage. But Rachel noticed something on the horizon.

"Chocolate bars!"

"Where? Oh! That's a lot of cocoa… Hey, Phred, we'll stay back and grab the bars for you… I have a feeling these will be helpful for us…" Tippi shouted. Phred nodded and started firing at the metal beast.

The firing commenced from both good and bad, but good had an advantage. Those chocolate bars came in five flavors: barrier, speed, power, missile, and multiple. Blue, yellow, red, green and purple (or grey in Ray's case) respectively.

Phred shot at least a hundred fires before he started to feel faint from lack of health and sick from all the chocolate. It was then that Sistron took the opportunity to suck Phred in and steal away some more precious HP. Luckily, Phred floated as far left as possible, avoiding what would have been his imminent doom.

Many, many shots later and the group was down to its last three HP. Everyone took the toll on their stamina, but stayed strong. However, Sistron managed to hit Phred two more times. Game over could be seen in their heads.

"Well, it was nice while we were winning… now what do we do? Die?" Rachel asked Tippi.

"Well, normally yes, but you have a Life Shroom… Phred and I saved if from Chapter 1… It should take affect… now." As if by magic, the heartful mushroom gave life to all. Just what Phred needed to finish off the monster mechanical figure. Upon the first shot he fired with the new life, it started blowing up.

"Wow. One more hit was all we needed? And we almost died." Ray found himself saying.

"Hey, this makes no sense!" She screamed from behind the glass.

"It's simple, the good always triumphs." With that, they all returned to the green room; Squirps disappeared.

~*-SPP-*~

The girlfriend of Ray fell from above in front of the group standing perfectly without a quiver. She questioned the audacity of their actions.

"Because we're that good." Rachel coolly said. It hurt Rachel to say this to her best friend, but it was the plain truth. This only tempered Mademoiselle I, but she left before she took it a step too far. As she left, Squirps entered.

"Ugh… That was awful, squirp!" They all cheered for his health and ableness. He stopped all that though.

"We have to pull ourselves together, space grunts… The Pure Heart is ahead! Come on, squinkles!" He dashed off again.

"He's right, we must find the Pure Heart." They agreed and entered the last door of space.

~*-SPP-*~

Inside, the team found a large golden statue of what looked like a queen. Her face looked almost too similar to the one of Squirps. She held a scepter in one of her tentacles; it looked regal and important. As they finished admiring the craftsmanship of the statue, Squirps gave them the story behind it.

"Say hi so Squirps' mommy, squirp!"

"Your… mother?" Phred asked in interest.

"Yeah, this is Squirps' mommy! The queen of Squirpia! Her name is Squirpina XIV!"

"XIV… I've heard that somewhere before…" Ray mused to himself. He quickly forgot, for Tippi pieced Squirps' family tree out loud.

"The queen is…your mother? So you are…"

"That's right! Squirps is the prince of Squirpia, a once-great kingdom… And my real name is—"

"NO! That's fine, we don't need your full name." Blurted out an already confused Rachel.

"Oh… Well, sorry for not telling you about all this—"

"You should be." Tippi remarked.

"But Squirps promised not to tell! It makes Squirps a target!"

"Target? I'm sure there's a story for this." Ray said.

"There is. Long ago, Squirps' mother was told that destruction would come to the world." Whispers of 'Void' could be heard on and off screen. "And in order to protect us from this destruction, we need the Pure Heart. So mommy hid the Pure Heart in the Whoa Zone, where no one could get at it."

"Smart woman." Admired Rachel.

"And so, fifteen hundred years ago, Squirps was put to sleep in a hibernation capsule, squeep!"

"That must be the space craft we found a while back…" Tippi thought.

"Squirps was meant to bring the Hero here… to protect the world, squirple! By the way, the prince of Squirpia, Squirps, has a message from the queen to deliver: I bestow upon you the Pure Heart in the hope that you will save the world."

"Wow… can't get more official than that."

Squirps then pulled out the fifth Pure Heart; it was a shade of light blue, almost the same as the streaks in Rachel's hair. The Pixls performed the funny dance again and the Pure Heart was officially theirs for saving the worlds.

~*-SPP-*~

YOU GOT A PURE HEART!!!

~*-SPP-*~

"Phew… Now that Squirps is
all relaxed, Squirps feels
kinda… tired…" said Squirps.

And with that, Squirps lay
down before the statue of
his beloved mother.

"Mother…" he said, his voice
soft. "I did my best, right?
Are you…proud…of me?"

The…slowly…young Squirps
closed his eyes…

"He's not dead, is he?"
Rachel asked Phred, who
moved in closer to see if he was.

"No. He's just asleep." Said
the first of the Heroes.

The mission had weighed
heavy on his tiny back, and
he was proud to fulfill it.

"You did good, kid. Now
enjoy your well earned
nap. Sleep well..."

First off, that's not where I got "XIV" from. Just throwing that out to make things clear.

Second, now that the Heroes are well over halfway done, what new surprises wait in store for them? Only the new door will tell... but first, let's see how the minions of Count Bleck handle Mademoiselle I.

And an unnecessary third thing, I have plans to make up for the lack of Whoa Zone adventures if this chapter wasn't liked.