Chapter 78: The Greatest Marxman - Part 1
"So you had no clue of Kracko's intentions?" exclaimed Kirby.
"Right," answered Gooey. "None at all. Although, now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense. Kracko has always been pretty much of a nuisance to everyone."
"Kirby," interrupted Chuchu, "I don't think this is, like, the most important thing we could be talking about. I saw you and Meta Knight stop fighting after you turned all rainbow-colored and shot him down with lightning. Was he, like, talking to you? I couldn't tell. His mask, like, wouldn't let me see if his mouth was moving."
"Yeah," answered Kirby, "he was talking, alright. He told me practically his whole life story... up until the point where he met Meta Sword and Meta Blade."
Silence.
"Spill," said Chuchu. "Tell us everything."
That was a close call. The whole Meta Clan plus Kirby and Chuchu chasing me? How could this happen? Now the Meta Clan has retreated. No idea where they went. Kirby and Chuchu are flying around in Nebula Belt, above the reach of my Dark Cloud. Chuchu is still vulnerable to my possessive powers, but I cannot go after her myself. If Kirby finds me... I would not like a star rod shoved into my eye.
But I could send someone else to do the job. If Kirby doesn't think to use the star rod... Marx could attack without fear. Yes, that's it. This time I'll be more careful. That annoying octopus shall not best me again.
"Whoa," said Chuchu when Kirby was finished.
"This explains everything," commented Gooey.
Silence.
"That's all I had to say," finished Gooey.
"Wait," said Kirby. "I'm wondering something. How did he find so many other people named 'Meta' to join him?"
"'Meta' isn't a name, Kirby," explained Gooey. "It's more of a title, like 'Sir', 'Mr.' or 'King'. I assume the other followers changed their names to match."
"But Meta Knight's full name is 'Sir Meta Knight'," noted Kirby.
"Uh, well, the others still changed their names. Look, this detail is of no importance. What we should be discussing right now is how we can get Kirby to the eye of Dark Matter so that he can destroy it."
"So..." said Chuchu shakily. "What's my job in this? I hope you're not gonna have to, like... leave me, Kirby." Her voice cracked slightly on the word "leave".
"Maybe I can come up with something that you could do to aid us," said Gooey, "but... I can't promise anything."
Suddenly, there was a whooshing sound and Marx flew over to Kirby and Chuchu. He had risen from the Dark Cloud.
"There!" cheered Chuchu. "I knew something would turn up!"
"Oh, no," groaned Kirby. "Not you again."
"I have come for you, Chuchu," screeched Marx. "You shall join me in the Dark Cloud!"
"I'll never go back down there, you creep!" retorted Chuchu.
"Then I will have to take you by force!" yelled Marx, firing four blades at Chuchu.
Thinking fast, Kirby summoned two Parasol abilities to become Giant Parasol Kirby!
Kirby flew in front of Chuchu and blocked the blades with a parasol at least five times the size of a normal one.
"Thanks, Kirby," she said, "but I think I could have handled it."
"He just wants you," said Kirby. "Let me deal with him."
"No," insisted Chuchu. "I have an idea."
She whispered something to Kirby.
Kirby trashed his ability, and then summoned Fighter ability to become Fighter Kirby!
The giant parasol was removed and the pair had to swerve out of the way as Marx shot an ice bomb at them. (Marx had been gathering breath for it during Kirby and Chuchu's short conversation.)
Kirby grabbed one of Chuchu's tentacles and made a horizontal sweeping motion near Marx's face. Chuchu used this momentum to fly in front and pummel into Marx's cheek with seven full-strength punches.
Marx spun on the spot, yowling in pain.
"Use the star rod, Kirby!" shouted Gooey.
Kirby held up his hand. Shooting up from it came a ray of light, which shortened and turned into a glowing white baton. Then a pink ribbon appeared and entwined the baton in ascending spirals. The end of it now emitted a blinding flash if yellow light and a five-pointed golden star appeared at its tip. Kirby had summoned the Great Star Rod of Light!
Now that he was wielding the star rod, Kirby knew exactly how to use it.
Kirby swung the star rod in Marx's direction, causing a light yellow, star-shaped projectile to fly toward the monster.
Marx stopped spinning and the star hit him right between the eyes. He became instantly still. Then his whole body shone bright white. While it was shining, black smoke fell from it to settle back down in the Dark Cloud. After that, the glowing stopped.
Silence. Marx blinked a couple times. His eyes were back to normal.
"Where am I?" were his first words. He didn't sound any different, but his shriek of a voice seemed to take him by surprise.
Marx looked at his hands. Then he felt his wings.
"WOW!" he exclaimed. "It worked. All my plans worked!"
"What's going on here?" asked Chuchu.
"Hey, Kirby," said Marx. "Who's she? An associate?"
"Yeah, I guess you could call her that," answered Kirby awkwardly. "Wait. Marx? It's really you?"
"Who else could it be?" replied Marx, grinning. "Thanks for freeing me, by the way. 'Course, it was all according to plan."
"What plan?" interrupted Chuchu.
"Well, Kirby," explained Marx, "I guess I can finally tell you. I HAVE CONNED YOU ALL!!!"
"Huh?" said both Kirby and Chuchu.
"Now that my plans have succeeded," continued Marx, "I can tell you everything. The truth is, I really do work for the Nova Corporation and my whole job there has been the elimination of the Meta Base. Now, in order to successfully destroy it, someone would need to go in, plant a bomb, and then detonate it while inside. It must be put in a specific spot, or it won't work. But who would be willing to blow themselves up to get their job done? Me, that's who, but not until I had been mutated into the powerful being I am now. Now that I can survive the blast, I can plant the bomb myself. You see, if the bomb weren't detonated immediately after placement, the auto-security system in the Meta Base would disarm it. Anyway, I tricked Dark Matter into mutating me, knowing you'd just save me later. I am proudly the best actor in the Starred System, and this proves it!"
Silence.
"Well, I must be going now," finished Marx. "Now that this stage of my mission has been completed, I shall report back to the Nova Comet, grab the bomb, and be on my way."
"Hold on a minute, Marx," interjected Gooey. "You wouldn't mind if Kirby and Chuchu here went with you, would you? I still don't trust you, or the Nova Corporation. Supervision is necessary."
"Suit yourself," answered Marx, removing his jester's cap. He then turned the cap inside out.
The inside of the cap had a strange metallic substance lining it. Marx held it up to the sun.
"By exposing this material to light from the now-rising sun," explained Marx. "The chemicals in it will be picked up on the scanners back at the Nova Comet. It's my signal for a ride."
A chrome-colored, spherical ship flew in down in front of Marx.
"Let's go," he said.
En route...
"Yes, Kirby," explained Gooey. "I told you the star rod banishes darkness. That's why it saved Marx. Good job of it, by the way. Oh, and you'd better eat it again now that you've used it. Don't want to be vulnerable, do you?"
Kirby tossed the star rod into his mouth.
"Okay, gang," said Marx. "One thing I should warn you about. The big boss around here... She's got kind of a funny name. Very important that you never comment on it in front of her."
"What is it?" asked Chuchu.
"It's..." began Marx. But then he stopped and said, "Wait a minute. I still don't know your name, or your connection to Kirby here."
Chuchu hesitated, not sure whether she wanted to expose much information about herself to such a dodgy character, but continued nonetheless.
"I'm Chuchu," she explained, "the most recent addition to the League of Animals for Protection. I was separated from my colleagues and stuck with Kirby. I aided him in acquiring the final star rod shard... from you I might add."
"Really?" blurted out Marx. "Did we fight each other? Who won?"
"You seriously don't remember anything?" interrupted Kirby suspiciously.
"No!" answered Marx. "Why?"
"When we fought each other for the first time," recounted Kirby, "I ended up slicing you in half down the middle. But then your two halves split and a black hole sucked both Chuchu and me into your mind. You then released Chuchu into Dark Matter's waiting clutches. You're mind-self created millions of copies of itself to kill me, but I managed to fight them off for a while. Then I inhaled one, got Crash ability, and blew your mind to smithereens. After that, well, you must have been flying over Grass Land at the time, because that was where I reappeared."
"Wait," interrupted Marx. "You were in my mind? On second thought, don't spare me the details. My mind must have been terribly warped under Dark Matter's grasp."
"Yeah, it was. But there's one thing I still don't get. How did I get Crash ability by inhaling one of your mind-selves?"
"Dunno. Maybe it was from the hugeness of power I have."
"I guess that would make sense..."
"But how do you know how much power you have?" asked Chuchu skeptically. "You've only just seen your new self for the first time."
"I already have an intuitive feel for my abilities," answered Marx. "Somehow I already know how to use them. It's second-nature, like moving my feet."
"Hold it, Marx!" interrupted Gooey. "You three have gone off on a major tangent! You're nearly to the Nova Comet and Marx still hasn't revealed the supposedly-ludicrous name of his boss!"
"Oh!" exclaimed Marx. "Right! The boss' name is Grill."
"Grill?!" repeated Kirby and Chuchu incredulously.
"Yes, that's right," continued Marx. "Weird name, but she's never got around to changing it. 'Course only a moron would say something about it. Let me put it this way... She has a short fuse."
Kirby and Chuchu exchanged glances.
The Nova Comet was the strangest contraption Kirby had ever seen. Its main body was flat like a coin. While its back featured four rocket thrusters, its front had two eyes and a painted-on mouth. The entire structure was painted golden yellow. But coming off of its round sides were all sorts of random gizmos and gadgets, like a weathervane, a compass, a clock, light bulbs, and a telescope. Around the face there were painted flames going out and a shooting star above the right eye.
The entrance to a docking bay opened in the upper-right portion of the face and the ship flew in.
Unlike its yellow-gold exterior, the dominant color inside was chrome. The docking bay was nothing more than a rectangular room. The ship was almost invisible inside of it.
A door opened in the back of the bay and everyone went through. (Marx had to go in sideways because of his wings.)
Cubicles. Lots of cubicles. Kirby and Chuchu walked down a narrow path among them while Marx flew overhead. Glancing into one, Kirby saw a small, strange creature. It looked sort of like a brown onion with a face and a green tuft on top. It feet were red and of the standard Dreamland variety. Lastly, its sides had little white hands attached to them. Kirby peeked into every cubicle he passed, seeing that each one had an identical creature inside!
The hallway was long, but eventually the trio reached a door.
"The boss is just in there," whispered Marx.
Kirby opened the door.
This was clearly the right eye of the Nova Comet. The room looked like an observatory, featuring a long, semi-circular panel in front of the eye-window. The panel was covered with hundreds of buttons, levers, etc.
But the thing that caught Kirby's eye was not the controls, but the thing that turned away from them to face Marx. This was clearly "the boss" that Marx had been talking about.
Her main body was peachy-colored and marginally spherical. She had a prominent mouth and huge, bulging eyes, the irises of which changed colors second-by-second. Her short, thin arms and legs ended in large, white-gloved hands and red, toe-curled shoes respectively. She carried a tan-colored broom in her left hand and wore a witch's cap on her head, which didn't completely cover up her bright-green hair. The hat was purple, with yellow rings around the cone-shaped part, which ended in a toy block that had stars etched into it.
------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE TO THE READER: Grill is NOT an original character! Her only appearance was in a Kirby game that was released solely in Japan, never in the US! Not only that, but she was the final boss! I would like to have put URLs of pictures of her below, but since this #%$ing site won't let me put in a URL, I had to cut them up with spaces, which must be deleted after you copy the URL to your address bar. These pics were in the actual game and they also feature her onion-like henchmen!
www. classicgaming. com/kirby/multimedia/pictures/nokirra/nokirraoniongirl.png
www. classicgaming. com/kirby/multimedia/pictures/nokirra/nokirrapg32.png
The game's title was Kirby No Kirakira Kizzu. And yes, her name really is "Grill" (despite the fact that is says "onion girl" in one of the above URLs).
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Marx," she crooned. She had a slightly low, very girly voice, with a slight clacking tone mixed in.
"Grill," responded Marx. "So good to see you again."
"My, my!" continued Grill. "You sure have changed. What absolutely stunning wings! Do you feel prepared to finally do your job?"
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Good." Grill's eye drifted over to Kirby and Chuchu. "Marx..." she said. Then her voice suddenly became harsh, angry and cold. "WHAT ARE THESE RUFFIANS DOING IN MY OFFICE?!"
"So sorry, boss," squealed Marx, shrinking away from Grill. "I forgot to introduce you to my friends here."
Grill calmed down.
"Their names are Kirby and Chuchu," said Marx, pointing to each of them in turn. "Kirby here is the Star Warrior that saved me from Dark Matter! And Chuchu... uh... She's his partner in their mission to destroy Dark Matter."
"Ah!" acknowledged Grill with a slight giggle. "What an honor to have such extraordinary guests! My name is Grill. I am the ruler of all you see before you, and the manager of the Nova Corporation."
"Pleased to meet you," replied Chuchu politely, extending a tentacle. Grill did not take it.
"I'll prepare the bomb, then," said Grill, turning back to Marx.
"Yes," answered Marx. "I'm ready. Soon my contract will be fulfilled and the Nova Corporation will once again rise as the dominant Protector of Dreamland!"
"I have long awaited this day," muttered Grill softly.
"One question," asked Gooey. "Just how many tons of TNT power is this bomb infused with?"
Grill clearly thought Kirby had spoken, for she turned to him and answered, "Approximately . Why do you ask?"
"Uh, no reason," replied Kirby.
Later...
Grill had led them out of the observatory/office and to a staircase among the cubicles, which took them down to a warehouse/stronghold area.
This huge, dark metal room was filled with crates and giant machines. Each machine was cylindrical with a dome on top. They also had round eyes and sharp-toothed mouths. Red mechanical arms extended from their sides. They had no legs and clearly led a sessile "life".
------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't know what sessile means? Look it up!
dictionary. reference. com/search?q=sessile
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Get the Meta Destroyer," said Grill to one of the machines. "Password: final shiver."
There were a series of clanking noises far off. Then a crate came into view. The machines were handing it to one another progressively to get it to Grill. The one in front of her set it down. Then it used one of its arms like a crowbar to open it.
Marx reached inside... and pulled out...
"A beach ball?" exclaimed Chuchu.
"Yes," replied Marx. "Ingenious, isn't it? This little sucker will only explode if punctured. And what better tools to do that with then my blades?"
"Marx," interrupted Gooey, "I have some bad news."
"WHAT BAD NEWS, DREAMLANDER?!" interjected Grill.
Kirby laid the phone on the ground to let Gooey speak.
"Excuse me!" continued Gooey. "I am NOT a Dreamlander. As I was saying, this bomb is too powerful. According to my calculations, if this thing is set off, it will cause a chain reaction that will completely destroy Mecheye! Not even Marx will be able to withstand such a blast!"
"I am afraid, whoever you are," said Grill, "THAT YOUR CALCULATIONS ARE COMPLETELY WRONG! THERE IS NOTHING ON MECHEYE THAT THIS BOMB WOULD AFFECT THAT COULD TRIGGER SUCH A CALAMITY!!!"
"I beg to differ," retorted Gooey, "for I know something you don't. I know a secret that the Meta Clan has long held. They have hidden, somewhere on their base, a terrible weapon. Its destructive power is so great, that if it were dropped on Dreamland, nothing would ever live there again."
"Yeah right!" guffawed Marx. "For one, no one has better weapons than the Nova Corporation. And for two, I can withstand anything."
"I'm serious, Marx!" persisted Gooey. "If you take that bomb to the Meta Base, it will be the last trip of your life!"
"Gooey, I've had enough! This is preposterous. What am I supposed to do? Drop everything and quit my job just because you said there was too much of a risk involved? I have been working for years just to get here! This moment is the culmination of my acting classes, combat training, stealth exercises, everything! If you think I'm not going to go down to the Meta Base and plant that bomb, then you are sorely mistaken."
"Open air lock!" shouted Grill.
The door to a cubic room off to the left opened, revealing another spherical, chrome spaceship. Marx climbed in.
"Fine!" yelled Gooey. "Don't listen to me! I was just trying to save your life!"
"Look, buddy," replied Marx. "Think of what I'm doing. I'm the one doing the saving! Soon you will no longer be at the mercy of the Meta Clan! This must be done! If there was another way, we here at the Nova Corporation would have found it by now!"
"Well, then," said Gooey with exaggerated sarcasm, "any last words, Mr. Hero?"
"Last words are for fools who haven't said enough!" retorted Marx. "Besides, you'd better believe I'm coming back in one piece!"
"Good luck, Marx," interrupted Grill. "NOW GET GOING!"
The air lock doors snapped shut.
Grill, Kirby and Chuchu all rushed back upstairs to the observatory. They watched as Marx's ship flew away towards Mecheye.
"There he goes," said Gooey softly, "to his doom."