Chapter 25: Destroy the Core! Release Dream Land from Nightmares!
BGM: Poison of Snake
A bright flash appeared in the sky as a blue portal came into existence. A large cylinder-shaped spaceship came out of it—Death.
"Here it is!" said Mewtwo, getting into offensive position.
"So that thing is there leader or something?" said Falco. "Good! He finally showed himself! Bring it on!"
The front portion of Death opened and a barrage of missiles came flying out. "Watch out!" gasped Samus. Everyone quickly hopped out of the way as the missile impacted against the castle and exploded, tearing holes on it.
"My castle!!!!!" shrieked Dedede. "How dare he?!?! Get him! Fire!!!"
The Waddle Dees aimed their cannons and fired at Death. The cannonballs all struck the front part of the spaceship and exploded.
BOOOOOOM!!!
And the front part of Death is blown off just like that. "Yes!" exclaimed Dedede.
"That thing sure is dunce to stay there and get hit…" said G&W.
Then blue light shined out of the destroyed part of the spaceship, and then a huge laser beam shot out and blasted down the towers containing the cannons.
BAAAAAAANG!!!!!
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" shrieked Dedede as he saw another part of his castle blown off.
"Whoa! That was unexpected!" said Kirby.
"We must take it out fast!" said Samus. She fired her super missile, Falco fired several shots of lasers, Mewtwo fired a shadow ball, and Bowser breathed out fire.
All the projectiles struck Death and engulfed it in an explosion.
"Yes!" said Falco. But everyone was surprised to see Death unharmed when the explosion died out. "Not…"
"That thing may be dunce, but it actually looks like it can stand more than a hit!" said Bowser.
"Unless…" Mewtwo flew into the air above and glanced down at it and saw what he was expecting. "Just as I thought! A core!" He fired a shadow ball at the core of the ship, but Death seems to have noticed this and moved to the side at a fast speed and avoided the blow. The shadow ball stuck the castle floor instead.
"Hey! Are you trying to destroy my castle or what?!" shouted Dedede.
"My apologies, king! I found the weak spot of the enemy and tried to attack it, but it avoided the attack and I misfired instead." Mewtwo fired another shadow ball at Death, but it once again missed and the same result happened.
"YOU'RE TRYING TO BETRAY ME, AREN'T YOU?!?!?!"
"I'll handle this!" Meta-Knight flew into the sky at a fast speed and landed on top of Death before it could move away. Latching onto where the core is, he stabbed his sword right into the core. Immediately, the core shattered into pieces, and Death began to release smoke and fire from its body. "It's working!"
MK quickly flew away from Death as it burned up and collapsed to the lower ground and exploded.
KAAAAAAAAAAAAAABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!
"You did well, Meta-Knight!" said Dedede, looking down the castle roof to see the remains of the spaceship.
"It is my honor, king."
Falco looked down the castle roof and said, "That's all? Isn't that a bit too easy and short for the final battle of the arc?"
"No, it's not over yet," Mewtwo told him.
As soon as he said this, a blue portal appeared in the sky again, and out came a square-shaped spaceship with a core. "Not again!" said Kirby. Then four long tentacles stretched out from the underside of the spaceship and spun around it in a clockwise manner—Tetran.
"Good! I haven't had enough fun yet!" said Falco. "I'll enjoy it more if I'm in the air!" And he ran for his warp starship and took off.
"Fire! Don't let it get anywhere near me and my castle!" shouted Dedede.
Samus fired plasma shots at Tetran, but when the shot approached, the spaceship used its tentacles to block the shots with ease. Then one of the tentacles stretched forward and wrapped itself around Samus. "What the?!" she gasped. "Let go of me!" The tentacle lifted her up into the air and then hurled her back again, and she crash landed on top of Dedede.
CRASH!!!!
"Ow!!! Watch where you're landing!" cried Dedede, and that's when he noticed that Samus's helmet fell off and got a good look at her face. "Hey, aren't you…?"
"You just found out, did you? No time for that! We got bigger problems to deal with!" said Samus, quickly putting back on her helmet.
"Eeks! It's coming!!!"
Tetran flew near the surface of the castle floor and its tentacles began to spin around very fast, to the point where it became like a buzz saw. "Whoa! Don't go near it!" said Dr. Mario. The Tetran moved around the place, trying to hit people with its now spinning really fast tentacles. To demonstrate the power of the spin, it went into a steel flag pole and cut it down with ease.
"Hey! Not the flag too!!!" said Dedede.
"Let's see if you can cut through this! Whirling Fortress!" Bowser withdrew into his shell and spun rapidly while hurling himself at Tetran.
Both the spinning objects came in contact and spark and loud noises flew everywhere. After grinding against each for a while, the forces repelled each other. Bowser flew back and landed on his shell while Tetran flew back into the sky. "Ow… That burns a bit…" said Bowser.
Tetran pointed its tentacles at the castle and laser beams shot out from the tip of the tentacles. Mewtwo quickly pulled up an energy shield to block the shots.
"Hey! It's about time you stop your tentacle raping!" said Falco. He flew towards the Tetran and fired at the core. When the Tetran was struck in its core, it flinched and quickly moved out of the way.
He flew next to Falco and the tentacles jab forward and tried to hit him, but Falco was fast enough to avoid them. "Ha! You're a million years to slow to catch me!" he taunted. He u-turned into the sky and got behind Tetran again and proceeded to shoot the core.
Tetran quickly moved away to avoid getting its core destroy, and when it positions itself far away, it stretched out all four tentacles and they began to spin around his body while shooting out laser beams. This caused the beams to come out in a spread formation similar to that of a firework.
"Watch out!" cried Kirby. The Smashers on the castle quickly ran indoors to avoid the 'rain of death'.
"Stop it at once!" shouted Falco. He sped towards the Tetran in hope of stopping it. The Tetran quickly pointed all its tentacles at Falco and began firing lasers. Falco tried to do a barrel roll, but unfortunately, the warp starship wasn't built to deflect any kind of projectiles even when one did a barrel roll, and so the ship got grazed by the lasers and began to fall. "Dammit!" He quickly pressed the eject button and shot himself out of the warp starship.
The burning warp starship, however, continued flying and unexpectedly crashed right into the Tetran, destroying its core! "Whoa! That was unexpected!" said Falco as he was launched into the air.
"He did it!" said MK.
"I think it was more by fluke that it happened," said Bowser.
With the core destroyed, the tentacles broke off from the body and Tetran burned in smoke before exploding in midair.
KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!
"Good job!" said Dedede with delight. "You Smashers sure did…"
ZOOM!!!
"Huh?"
A large oddly-shaped spaceship sped pass the side of the castle and stopped in front of them—Big Core MK-II.
BGM: Farewell
"Not another one…" groaned Kirby.
The armor of the spaceship opened and fired a volley of lasers at a fast rate. Everyone quickly ran behind debris or indoors to avoid the rain of lasers as it pelted the floor and burned through them. Dedede stepped out from his hiding place and jumped up and down angrily while shouting, "Stop that at once!" But the floor underneath him was too weak and it collapsed under his weight. "YAI!!!!!!"
The spaceship showed no remorse; it continued to rain down lasers of death nonstop, tearing down the castle piece by piece and the heroes had no chance of fighting back. "At this rate, the whole place is gonna be destroyed!" cried G&W.
Samus poked her head out from behind a rock and fired her arm cannon, but her shots would just bounce off the surface of Big Core MK-II harmlessly. "Where's its weak spot?!" she asked.
The spaceship finally stopped firing and closed its armor, but then it started to spin and charged forward like a drill. Dedede came running up to this place and said, "What's happening now? YIKES!!!" The spaceship crashed through the floor in front of him.
CRASH!
"Now you're tearing holes in my…"
Before he could finish saying, the floor underneath him burst open and Big Core MK-II came flying up, knocking Dedede aside.
"YOU'RE TRYING TO PISS ME, AREN'T YOU?!?!?!"
Big Core MK-II floated back into the sky and opened its armor again, and continued to fire a volley of quick lasers. Once again, the heroes found themselves hiding behind whatever they can find to avoid the beams. "This thing is annoying!" said Falco. "I'm not gonna hide from it forever!" He got out his reflector and turned it on, and then jumped out from his hiding place while holding the reflector in front of him. "Try and shoot me!" The reflector was able to reflect the lasers back to the spaceship, though it didn't do any good. However, the barrage of lasers was too much, and the reflector couldn't handle it much longer and it finally malfunctioned and zapped its own user. "YEOW!!!" Falco quickly dropped the broken reflector and ran back to his hiding place.
After it is done firing again, Big Core MK-II closed up its armor and began to spin, signaling that it's going to use the same drilling attack from before.
Bowser quickly stretched forward his hands and, using all his strength, grabbed the spaceship as it charged forward and amazingly stopped it in its place and wrestled against it. "I wont' let you go any further!" He slowly pried open the armor of the ship, and he saw something glowing inside it. "Just as a thought!" He opened his mouth and let loose a stream of fire into the armor, aiming for the glowing thing.
BANG!!!
An explosion rocked the spaceship and caused it to shoot back into the sky while Bowser flew backwards. "Bowser! What did you do just now?!" Samus asked him.
"I saw the core…" he explained. "It was inside the armor. I noticed something glowing in there when it opened, and I was right…"
With one core destroyed, one side of its armor is malfunctioned and couldn't close up properly, but the other half of the armor is still capable of opening and closing to fire lasers and protect the remaining core.
"We destroyed its core already, but it's still active," said Mewtwo. "That means there must be more than one core and it is inside the other armor."
"So we just have to shoot inside when the armor opens to fire laser?" asked Falco. "That should make things easier!"
"But how?" asked Kirby. "We don't have a good opportunity to attack it because of all the lasers it is pouring out!"
Big Core MK-II opened the other half of its armor and fired more lasers, and the Smashers had to avoid them. "Someone will have to block the lasers while another person uses this opportunity to attack!" suggested MK.
"My reflector is down, so I can't," said Falco.
"I'll do it!" said Mewtwo. He turned to Big Core MK-II just as it is about to fire another volley of lasers. When the lasers came in his direction, he quickly put up a force shield to block the beams.
"I'll handle this part!" said Samsu. He quickly jumped up behind Mewtwo and fired a fully charged beam. However, the spaceship acted fast and quickly closed its armor before the beam hit the core. "Dang! Not fast enough!"
Big Core MK-II moved to another area and opened its armor for another attempt. Mewtwo quickly flew there and used a shield to block the beams again. This time, MK tossed his sword forward just as the armor was about to close. Whether it was by skill or it was by luck, the sword got in the way of the closing armor and held it open like putting a stick in a crocodile's mouth to stop him from closing.
MK then flew after his sword and quickly grabbed it, and the moment he did, he flew 'inside' the armor and plunged his sword right into the core and destroyed it, and then quickly pulled out and flew away to safety.
With both cores destroyed, Big Core MK-II malfunctioned and both its armors broke apart and exploded, and the body fell to the ground and blew up.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!!!!!!!!!
"Yes! We did it!" said Kirby.
CRASH!!!
Everyone quickly looked up just in time to see a large square body bashing through the highest tower of the castle. "NOT AGAIN!!!!!" cried Dedede.
The square body came to the front part of the castle and it has two cores. "Not another one?!" complained G&W. "When will this end?"
Immediately afterwards, two arm-like structures came flying in from both sides of the castle and to the front, and then both the arms connected themselves onto the side of the square body that showed up earlier—Big Core MK-IV.
BGM: Gradius V boss theme
"Geez… When is this going to end…?" complained Falco. "I'm starting to get tired of fighting all these!"
The tip of the arms shot out like a harpoon and left behind a trail of electricity, and they impaled into the castle floor.
CRASH! CRASH!
"Why is everybody tearing up my home?!?!" cried Dedede.
The tip of the arms, which I'm gonna call harpoons because it sounds cooler, returned to the arms. "I see four cores!" said Mewtwo. "Two on the body and one on each arm!"
"I got it! I'll for the arms first!" said MK as he flew towards the left arm. When near, he swung his sword forward to cut it, but the arm quickly detached itself from the body and MK missed the blow. "What?!" The right arm also did the same thing, and both the arms flew towards the castle by itself. "I'll take the body then!" MK was going to hit the body, but the body turned towards him and shot him with a barrage of lasers. MK quickly flew out of the way to avoid it.
One of the arms charged at the castle and smashed a hole right through it.
"STOP IT!!!!!" screamed Dedede. He looked to the side and saw the other arm spearing towards him, and he quickly ducked down to avoid the hit.
"Where's the other one?" asked Bowser. Then the floor underneath him burst open and he was pushed to the side as the harpoon of the arm that went underneath shot up. "Whoa! There it is!" He jumped forward in an attempt to slash off the electric trail, but he got electrocuted instead. "YEOW!!!!" He fell back and cried in pain as the harpoon returned into the hole that it made.
"It's under there!" said Samus. She ran to the hole and looked down it, only to be struck in the face hard when the arm came flying back up. "Ugh!" And her visor was cracked in the process. "Dammit!" She looked up and fired plasma shots at the core of the arm, but because of the cracked visor messing with her vision, she couldn't get a clear aim. "Argh! I'm better off without this at the moment!" And she took off her helmet.
The arm spun around in air and pointed at Samus and shot the harpoon again. She quickly hopped to the side as the harpoon bored through the floor. "These things are wrecking up the whole place!" said Dr. Mario.
"And we're here doing nothing!" said G&W, poking his head out from behind a rock.
"We're quite helpless when it comes to fighting large machines like these…"
"Go away!" shouted Dedede as he kept on jumping and ducking to avoid the other arm that was trying to spear him over and over. "That does it! You made the king angry! I'll show you why not to mess with the king!" He got out his hammer and the base of the hammer opened to reveal a jet engine inside! "Jet Hammer!" The arm came flying back to him, and Dedede swung the jet-powered hammer at the arm.
BONK!!!!!
The arm is sent flying into the sky and its harpoon stabbed right through the core of the other arm! "Ha! I did it!" he said.
The arm pulled itself out of the other one, but surprisingly enough, the arm with the destroyed core was not destroyed! "But glowing thing destroyed!" said Jigglypuff.
"The whole thing must be powered by the cores," said Samus. "As long as one core is still active, the whole thing will remain active. So the only way to destroy this thing is to take out all the cores. That's one core down now!"
Both the arms fired the harpoons at the castle again. "I'm not letting you do whatever you want to my castle any longer!" shouted Dedede. "Jet Hammer!" He swung his jet-powered hammer at the harpoons, knocking the both of them off course. Next, he jumped up high into the sky and aimed for the arm that still has the core. "TAKE THIS!!!!!!" And came falling towards the arm and smashed the hammer onto the core.
SMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!!!!!!!
And shattered it… Dedede fell to the floor in a heroic manner and posed. "Ha! Now you see why I am the best!"
"Yeah, yeah… I can do better…" said Falco.
"What's that you say?!"
"The arms are still active!" said Samus. Sure enough, the arms are still capable of moving around even after the cores are destroyed.
"The only ones left are the two cores on the body," said Mewtwo. "With those two destroyed, this thing should collapse."
"Looks like I have no choice but to use this!" said Falco. "I never thought I'd have to use this thing instead of my super fighting skills!" He reached into his coat and got out a round thing with a letter B on it. "The Smart Bomb!"
"You should've just used it in the beginning!" Bowser said to him.
"There's no fun if the boss dies so fast, is there? Take this!" Falco ran towards the body and was about to throw the smart bomb when suddenly one of the arms shot its harpoon passed him, and Falco touched the electric trail and got zapped. "YAAAAAAAA!!!!!!" And he fell forward and dropped the bomb, which luckily didn't explode.
"I'll get the bomb!" Samus quickly ran to the bomb to pick it up, but the body of Big Core MK-IV stopped her by firing a sweep of lasers that Samus had to jump back to avoid. "Dang!"
One of the arms went after the bomb in hope of destroying it, but Dedede quickly used his inhaling powers to suck the bomb into his mouth. "Hey! You ate the bomb!" said Bowser.
"And you're copying Kirby too!" said G&W.
"Actually, he knew how to do that since I knew him," explained Kirby.
Dedede turned to the body of Big Core MK-IV and spitted out the smart bomb. The bomb flew forward at a really fast speed and collided with the body, resulting in a large explosion.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!
"Yes! We did it!" said G&W.
"I did it!" said Dedede happily.
But to everyone's surprise, the body quickly flew out from the explosion. While its body is charred and scratched heavily, only one core was destroyed. "There's still one more core!" said Mewtwo.
"Dang! This thing sure can take more than one hit!" said Bowser.
One of the arms shot its harpoon at the Smashers again. Instead of running, Bowser used his strength to grab the harpoon, but the velocity is too great and he got pushed and crushed through the floor instead. "Ugh!"
Mewtwo flew at the body and his arm glowed in dark energy as he readied to deliver a psychic punch. The other arm quickly turned towards Mewtwo and fired its harpoon at him and struck him from behind. "Ya!"
The other arm that shot Bowser pulled back its harpoon, but Bowser grabbed hold of the harpoon and got carried back too. "I'm not letting go of you!" he shouted. When the harpoon is back in its place, Bowser hopped off from it and towards the body. "Now for the final blow! Breaking Point!" He thrust his finger right into the remaining core and…
CRACK!!!!
"Did he do it?" asked Kirby.
"Dunno…" replied G&W.
The camera zoomed above the body of Big Core MK-IV, where we see that Bowser had successfully stabbed his fingernail into the last core and shattered it. Bowser pulled out his finger and quickly jumped off and back onto the castle.
The arms of spaceship began to smoke and burn, and then they exploded all of a sudden in midair.
KABOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!! BANG!!!!!!!!!
"It's working!" said MK.
Then the body began to release lots of smoke as it slowly descended from the sky. Then little by little, pieces of its body burst into flames as the outer covering turned redder and redder until it finally superheats and…
KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And there was nothing more of Big Core MK-IV…
The Smashers got into defensive position to get ready for the next opponent. "There's got to be another one," said MK. "Be on your guard."
"You can rest now," said Mewtwo. "It's over. I don't sense anymore opponents."
"You sure?" asked Bowser.
"Yes, there is no more. The threat is gone for now."
"Phew… I can finally stop hiding…" said G&W, coming out from his hiding place.
"Finally… It's all over…" said Dedede. He looked back at the ruins of his castle. "It's all messed up… It doesn't even look like the castle that it's used to be anymore… Boohoo…"
"Cheer up, king," a Waddle Dee said to him. "We can fix it again!"
"We have to go to the Fountain of Dreams now!" said Kirby.
To make a long story short, they quickly rushed to the fountain.
-
The fountain looks strange… The water is pink!
"Now that's strange," said MK. "The water has never been in this color before!"
"It's the effect of Gamfax!" said Mewtwo. "Kirby was right when he said it was here!"
"I'll handle this myself!" Kirby got out his Holy Weapon from his mouth and turned it to its normal size, and then he hopped onto the highest part of the fountain and stabbed the Boomerang Dagger into the where the star rod is.
When he did, the flow of the water became disrupted as if an earthquake struck. Then pinkish gas is released in the form of evaporation, which then disappeared into nothing. The water has returned to normal color. Kirby pulled out his weapon and tossed it into his mouth and then jumped onto the ground again. "There! Finished!" he said.
"Guess it's all over for this place," said Dr. Mario.
"So now the inhabitants will no longer be corrupted?" asked MK.
"Thanks goodness! I don't have to be scared of my men turning against me!" said Dedede.
"Okay, I think it's time we go now," said Mewtwo. "We've spent a day here already."
"Yeah, we shouldn't keep the others waiting," said Samus.
"Well, if I had known! You are that demon child Samus!" said Dedede.
"Yeah? So what's about it?"
"You catch her now?" asked Jigglypuff.
"If I still feel like it, that is. But right now, I'm pissed off at the Negativities for ruining my castle!" said Dedede angrily as he looked back at the remains of his castle. "As the king of Dream Land, I cannot let those bad guys do whatever they want to me and my country! So after some ponderings, I have come to this decision: I will teach the Negativities a lesson myself!"
"Are you saying you want to join us and fight this evil force?" asked Kirby.
"It's more like you joined me to fight the bad guys!"
"Nah, joining my group is a better term," said Falco.
"Are you sure about this, king?" MK asked Dedede.
"My castle is ruined. Where else can I live while it is being rebuilt? I am not the kind of person to leave things as it is! I will teach the villains a lesson for messing with me!"
"Then I am coming with you, king. I will serve you until the end!"
"So the both of you are coming with us?" asked Samus.
"I don't care if I'm working for criminals!" said Dedede. "All I care is getting my revenge! The Negativities are now on my blacklist! I will charge them for vandalism against my country!"
"I will follow wherever the king goes," said MK. "This is a good chance to put to use my skills too."
"I don't see how having more companions is a bad thing," said Bowser. "Having more is always good!"
"But how do we return?" asked Kirby. "The warp star can only carry up to nine people!"
"You guys ride it, I'll just tag along by flying," said Mewtwo.
And so, King Dedede and Meta-Knight left behind all that they have and followed the Smashers to help them fight the Negativities. We learned a valuable lesson on never to make a royal penguin with a large hammer angry.
WORLD COMPLETE
TO BE CONTINUED
Somehow, I don't see this chapter very good compared to the previous ones. To make up for it, this will be a double update! Don't stop now, because the next arc is updated along with this!
Trivia:
1. This is the same boss rush as the one in stage 2 of Gradius V.