Really sorry that I took so long; I was having very busy weeks and thus not giving me time to write, but I finally managed to finish it today. Besides, what better way to begin the month of November with a new chapter of this story?

Enjoy! ;)


Chapter 11: Welcome to Halcandra

[BGM: Green Greens/Kirby Wii ver. – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

Now having the final part back, the group made it back to the Lor on the countryside. After sharing nods with everyone else, Kirby tossed the part directly at the Lor, and then everyone stood back to watch the following event about to unfold.

[BGM: The Lor Starcutter Reborn – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

The mast glowed brightly and took a massive dive towards the Lor, where it attached itself to its rightful spot. Then, the Lor began slowly rotating around, highlighting every single one of its parts one by one in the same order they were found: oars, right wing, left wing, emblem, and finally the mast. After that, the entire Lor gave out a glorious shine, and floated back down to the ground.

[BGM End]

"We did it… We actually did it!" Bandana Waddle Dee cheered, hopping in place happily. "The ship is complete!"

"Indeed!" Kirby nodded. "Come on, let's go tell Magolor the good news!"

The others immediately nodded in response and took off to the ship's interior.

[BGM: Magolor, the Distant Traveler – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

"Oh, yeah! Yeah! YEAH! You did it, everybody! The Lor is back in business!" Magolor gleamed. "The oars, both wings, the emblem, and the mast… Yep, it's all there! The moment I've been waiting for. It's here! You're my heroes!"

The group smiled. "Aw, it was nothing!" Eight replied sheepishly.

Magolor chuckled. "You know… perhaps having me crashing here and meeting you guys couldn't all be just a mere coincidence. When you think about it, it almost feels like fate. Yes! Our meeting must be the work of divine destiny!"

Eleven pondered with a finger under his chin. "Well… considering how destiny works, then maybe so." he nodded with a smile.

"Anyway, a promise is a promise. As thanks for helping me out, I owe you all a trip to my home. A trip to…Halcandra!"

"Hooray!" Kirby and Bandana Waddle Dee cheered.

"As I said to you before, Halcandra exists in Another Dimension. It's SUPER far away, but the Lor can fly us there in the blink of an eye! Pack some snacks, everybody. We're off to Halcandra!"


[BGM: Halcandra: A New Enemy – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

Magolor turned around and began typing on his console while the group watched, and then he showed them through the monitor that he had already set a direct course from Popstar to Halcandra. With that, Magolor slammed his hand on a key from the console as it emitted out a glow, and suddenly the whole ship instantly rumbled to life before taking off from its spot on the ground, where an interdimensional rift would open up in the sky and the Lor zoomed directly into it.

The Lor then emerged out from the rift, now flying through the eerie Another Dimension and already reaching the far-flung planet Halcandra in the distance. The slow descent to it was going smoothly… that is, until a mysterious four-headed dragon opened its eyes and, spotting the incoming Lor in the sky, it proceeded to bombard it with several fireballs. Some of them managed to hit the Lor, causing it to fall down and crash to the ground… in the exact same way as how it crash-landed back in Dream Land, although thankfully, its parts remained intact this time.

Inside the ship, everyone was shown sprawled out on the floor by the crash, then Magolor woke up first and saw his monitor displaying a 'danger' sign. In a mixture of panic and worry, he rushed to his console to check out the damage, as it showed the Lor getting shot down by the dragon's fireballs before displaying a full image of said dragon and what appears to be information data about it. As Magolor began to sulk, the group was right behind him, having woken up moments before, and looking up at the monitor.

After taking in the information of what happened, Kirby tapped Magolor's back while the others watched, and when Magolor turned around, Kirby gave him a nod before smiling and doing an assuring gesture that he was willing to help him out on another problem. Seeing this, the rest of the group decided to comply and agreed to help too, all while doing ready expressions and poses. Feeling even more thankful than ever before, Magolor proceeded to happily shake everyone's hands, all while the camera was slowly panning up to the monitor, once again showing the dragon and all the data centered around it.


[BGM: Lor on Halcandra – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

"Everybody…" Magolor sighed. "Just when my ship was finally fixed… I never imagined something like this could happen even once. But twice?!"

"Tell that to the one whose battleship had been shot down once before…" Meta Knight thought with a sweatdrop.

"On the bright side, though… all of the parts are still in place. But that was way too close for comfort!"

"You're telling us!" Dedede threw in.

The Loyal Bodyguards then looked back at the dragon on the monitor again. "I know we've encountered many dragons in our life, but I don't think we have ever seen a four-headed one…" Solo said.

"True, although I did encounter two monsters that are part of the dragon family, and those sported five heads instead of four." Arusu spoke up. "Do you remember? I'm talking about Orochi and King Hydra."

"Oh yeah, right…"

"Anyways…" Arusu glanced back at the monitor. "Who is this dragon, Magolor?"

"That dragon… Its name is Landia." Magolor replied. "It's lived on this planet for ages, but it's always been fast asleep. Recently, however, it awoke and went on a rampage!"

"We can see that." Eight said.

"I wonder what caused Landia to attack… Out of nowhere, it came after me and my ship! You don't suppose it has some weird grudge against me, do you? I managed to make an emergency landing, but still…it freaked me out! Please, everybody. You must defeat that crazy dragon! I know I've asked a lot of you, but this is it. I swear!"

Kirby smiled. "No worries! We'll do it!" he said while the others behind him nodded.

"Thank you! Oh, by the way…I lost some of my Energy Spheres on Halcandra too. So if you see any around here, be sure to grab them, yeah?"

"Got it!" Bandana Waddle Dee said.

"In fact, a lot of them might have fallen into Egg Engines, which is not too far from here. To find it, just look for some tall metal structures once you step out and head to that direction."

"Understood." Eleven nodded. "We'll head there right away."

"Great! I'll stay here to gather more information about Landia while you're out there. Good luck and be careful, friends!"

The group waved back to him and left the Lor's interior.

[BGM: Faraway Halcandra – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

Once they stepped out of the Lor, they were greeted with Halcandra's scenery for the first time. Except…it wasn't really a pleasant sight, especially when compared to that of Popstar's: this planet can better be described as in poor condition, with barren wasteland that looked like it just went through a devastating volcano activity covering it entirely aside from an industrial site on a small portion, that being the aforementioned Egg Engines.

"Oh…" Eleven breathed as they were taking in the sights. "This isn't what I was expecting at all…"

"Goodness… This place is just like Shiver Star if it went through a volcanic apocalypse instead of a winter one…" Kirby thought solemnly.

"Suddenly…I'm not feeling so excited about this place anymore…" Bandana Waddle Dee frowned sadly.

"I can see that." Arusu threw in. "It looks so…desolate."

"No kidding…" Eight lamented. "It makes me wonder if Halcandra was always like this, or if this was the result of Landia's rampage…"

"We don't know for sure, but just seeing all this… I think I now understand why Magolor was a little sad about having to leave Popstar back then." Solo said gloomily.

"That actually makes sense." Meta Knight agreed. "Not even I imagined that he would live in a forlorn place like this one…"

It was then that Dedede spotted the tall metal structures that Magolor had indicated them, and so the portly king proceeded to call everyone else's attention, "Oi there! I found the structures!" they turned over to Dedede, who was directing them to the structures. "We better get a move on or that crazy dragon might attack again!" he ushered.

"Oh, right!" Kirby nodded. "We're coming!" with that, everyone took off to Egg Engines.


[BGM: Egg Engines – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

Egg Engines is a mostly abandoned industrial park that showed signs of decay, but there are still some active factories and functioning machinery that are mostly being operated by the Halcandrans, the main residents of Halcandra who have a very high technological level of development. The group was now standing on an entirely metallic floor upon arriving, and looked around the place in awe.

"Whoa…" Eight awed. "This place is huge!"

"Yeah…" Arusu chimed in.

"By the looks of it, it seems that this place relies on heavy use of machinery here." Solo mused.

"Wait, you guys know about machines?" Kirby asked. "Because from what Jewelie told me, you all came from a universe taking place in medieval times where technology is completely absent."

"Medieval, you say?" Dedede spoke up, and looked over at the Loyal Bodyguards. "Well… judging by their clothing, they most certainly do match up with said period."

"That's true, but we have fought against several types of machine monsters, and there's also all the machines we see in the casinos." Eleven replied. "Aside from those, however… that's all we know about machines. There could be far more things than just those."

"And there are indeed." Meta Knight nodded.

"But don't worry, we'll fill in everything you don't know for you!" Bandana Waddle Dee assured.

Eleven smiled. "That would be nice. We could learn lots of new things as we walk around!"

"Good call!" Kirby exclaimed. "Now let's go!"

[BGM End]


Stage 6-1: Metallic Madness

[BGM: Steel Hometown – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

They started walking around the mechanical wastes through a rusted metallic walkway, where they were immediately greeted by a small group of Halcandle Dees. Kirby sucked one of them in and spat it out to take down the rest, then the group had to avoid several hammer-like obstacles that tried to flatten them, as well as Volttzos' shots. Further ahead, there were two Flamers and an Elec on patrol that were immediately defeated and left out their respective hats, as Kirby and Eleven went for Fire while Solo went for Spark, and then the powered-up trio would destroy some Bowbies ahead.

From there, the group continued along the rusted path past a number of bridges made out of Crumbling Blocks while many Sleep Copy Essences stood in their way, forcing Kirby and the Loyal Bodyguards to avoid them. "Remember what I said before about the Sleep Ability purposefully existing in order to hinder me?" Kirby reminded them. "This portion right here is a perfect example of that."

"We can see that." Eight said as they rushed through the rest of the bridges, now having to avoid several obstacles such as Gordos and more Volttzo shots and hammers until they managed to reach the door at the end. The following area was yet another Auto and Directional Cannon-filled area and so the group got launched all over the place by those Cannons, barely avoiding being crushed by lethal clamping machines and even finding an Energy Sphere inside one of them.

"Phew, that was scary!" Bandana Waddle Dee sighed in relief once they made it to the end.

"This place sure loves using crushing machines, eh?" Dedede deadpanned as they pressed onward, now finding themselves standing over a thin rusty girder with Volttzos firing from below.

Seeing this, an idea sparked in Kirby's mind. "Hey, Lo-Lo! Try creating a Spark Barrier and lead the way to protect all of us from the shots!"

"Ah, sure." Solo replied and charged up energy around him to create a Spark Barrier, then he led the way as the Volttzos' shots got immediately canceled by the Spark Barrier on contact, thus making the group's path slightly less dangerous. At the end of the path was a row of Ticks, in which Solo released the Spark Barrier into a Spark Wave that destroyed them all, and one of them left the Needle cap behind.

"Dibs!" Arusu reached out to it and put it on, as his tunic turned yellow while his cape turned dark yellow, his shirt and pants turned pink like the Needle cap, and his gloves and boots turned dark amber. He then looks down at his sword to see that its blade changed into a large and long golden needle like the one from the Mega Needle attack, making his weapon resemble a lance (much like Galacta Knight's weapon, to be precise). "Uh, what has my sword changed into?" he wondered.

"I dunno… a sword-lance, maybe?" Eleven shrugged as they resumed walking until they came upon a door, which led them to the interior of a factory.

"Hmm… this must be some kind of factory, but what exactly do they make in here?" Meta Knight wondered.

"Who knows?" Dedede shrugged.

"Uh, what's a…factory?" Eight raised an eyebrow.

"It's a place where several workers operate machines to manufacture all sorts of items." Kirby explained. "Factories in general are a critical part of modern economic production, since they can create or process majority of the world's goods."

"Huh…" Solo mused in fascination. "So items aren't produced by manual labor anymore?"

"Actually, there are some factories where workers do some steps manually when producing certain items. But for the most part, they mainly rely on machines because these can produce items much faster than done by hand."

"I see…"

"And do you want to know something even more interesting?" Bandana Waddle Dee interjected. "Apparently, factories began to arise with the introduction of machinery!"

"Really?!" Eleven's eyes widened, as his comrades had the same reaction. "Then… could it be that it might be possible for factories to one day exist in our universe?"

"Maybe, but we probably won't be alive by the time this happens." Arusu stated.

"…Yeah, you're right." Eleven said as they walked around the factory where they would come across a bunch of Bomb Machines roaming about… and just like that, a Super Hot Head popped up nearby.

"Oh…! Time for me to burst some bombs!" Eight smirked and went to defeat the Super Hot Head, then he touched the Ability Star to obtain the Monster Flame Super Ability once again.

[BGM: Bring on the Super Ability! – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

Immediately after transforming, Eight aimed the fiery dragon on the Bomb Machines' fuses to light them and blow them up. Then, directly in front of the group were a series of Drill Machines that automatically shot out their piston mechanism to thrust out their spiky side, but were easily destroyed by Monster Flame and the group climbed up a ladder that these machines were previously blocking.

From that point on, Eight would destroy more of these two different machines around the factory until he destroyed a bigger Bomb Machine, and that resulted in an Another Dimension rift opening up in its place.

Everyone blinked in confusion by this. "Wait a second, aren't we already in Another Dimension? Why would a rift open up here?" Dedede wondered.

"I guess it's because these rifts take us to different portions of the dimension?" Meta Knight guessed with a shrug, then the group jumped in.


[BGM: Another Dimension – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

In this stretch, the group had to run to the left past a large number of conveyor belts (the Heroes didn't know what these were, so the Kirby cast immediately explained to them). Along the way, there were several Bomb Block barriers being blocked by either Wapods, Mopoos or Gordos, forcing the group to defeat the former two or avoid the latter before destroying the barriers. As they approached the end, they had to break through some Star Block barriers while avoiding more Gordos and knocking away more Wapods, then they finally made it to the next area.

From there, they walked ahead to get ready to face off against the Sphere Doomer, and once it did show up, it revealed to be silver-colored with indigo eyes.

[BGM: Sphere Doomer – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

"Now this is an extremely different Sphere Doomer…" Dedede commented. "Wonder what this one's element is going to be."

The Sphere Doomer began by creating three silver orbs spinning around it before siccing them at the group, but Kirby jumped up and did his Burning attack at the orbs, watching them melt away like ice. "Oh! I think this one's element is ice!" he noted.

"Ah, good to know!" Eleven exclaimed, having a plan in mind as Sphere Doomer swooped by while dropping more silver orbs at the group, only for Arusu to launch needles at the orbs to impale them and destroy them as Eight attacked the beast with a Flame Slash, then the Kirby cast would strike it repeatedly before Solo blasted it away with a Zapple.

The Sphere Doomer recovered and once again created three spinning silver orbs while flying to the background and charging at them, but they dodged out of the way as the Sphere Doomer proceeded to send the orbs at them… but then Eleven got in the way and aimed his hands at the Sphere Doomer.

"Magma Blast!" he yelled, summoning an onslaught of volcanic rock that struck the orbs and the Sphere Doomer, immediately destroying all of them.

[BGM: Silence of Another Sky – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

"…Wow, I'm surprised that it was possible to do magma skills too with this Ability." Arusu blinked.

"Honestly, neither I was expecting this to work." Eleven admitted as he took the Energy Spheres.

"Well, technically, magma skills are part of the fire skill category, so…" Solo stated.

"I guess we could put it this way." Eight said with a shrug, then everyone followed the conveyor belts ahead to find the dimension's exit.

[BGM End]

Upon making it back, the group would then proceed further into the next area of this eerie factory to see what else lies beyond.


Stage 6-2: Studying the Factory

[BGM: Techno Factory – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

"You know, the more I think about it… this place is giving me strong vibes of that factory from Shiver Star." Dedede spoke up as they were walking through a hallway, seeing a few Halcandle Dees minding their own business inside moving spiked hollow boxes.

"I was just about to say that, Great King." Bandana Waddle Dee threw in. "Everything in here looks quite…dark just like that factory."

"Well, Halcandra's situation itself reminded me a lot of Shiver Star's." Kirby added. "Either way, it sure was nice of you to give me a little piggyback ride through half of that factory. Can I get another one here, too?" he asked innocently.

"And leave me with a sore back again? Nuh-uh!" Dedede refused. "Ugh, why would Adeleine suggest this to me out of all things…?" he grumbled.

Kirby giggled. "Don't worry, I was only joking. I can now handle most things myself just fine."

"You smug little puffball…" Dedede sweatdropped.

"Something tells me that a lot must've happened to you three while in this Shiver Star." Eleven said. "And what is that place, anyways?"

"Oh, it's a planet that I, Dedede, Bandee and Adeleine visited during the Crystal Shards incident." Kirby replied. "Not much is known about that planet's history other that it's under an endless winter and devoid of any of its inhabitants, complete with an abandoned city and a still-operating underground factory."

"Oh… that's sad." Eight said, frowning a little.

"And now that you mention about an operating factory…yeah, it is pretty comparable to this place." Solo pointed out.

"Exactly." Kirby nodded. "Sometimes… it makes me wonder if one day I'll end up discovering another abandoned city, but this one is covered with plants and mold and it's in a land that's apparently long forgotten."

The rest of the Kirby cast blinked. "Okay… But I doubt that will ever happen." Dedede dismissed as the group carefully walked past the moving boxes, and soon got to the next area where they had to deal with some Degouts and avoid rotating spike bars.

From there, the group made their way through a series of rooms with drills falling from the ceiling. Along the way, Kirby sucked up a Pluid dropping from a ceiling to gain the Water Ability, then they would next arrive in a hall filled with moving pistons and Fire Blocks.

"That's a lot of Fire Blocks…" Bandana Waddle Dee trailed off.

"Coming through!" Kirby said as he surfed his way ahead, cooling off the Fire Blocks by doing so and even finding an Energy Sphere behind some Fire Blocks on the ceiling, and then they moved ahead and got to the next room, where they had to bypass several shots from Gigatzos and Volttzos.

[BGM: Underworld – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

The following area featured a body of water in front of the group as they dove in and started swimming around a long underwater tunnel passage, evading some spinning saws along the way. In one underwater chamber, they would find some Metal Blocks in the middle as Dedede smashed them with his hammer and uncovered an Energy Sphere. He took it and the group soon got out of the water, then they went through a door.

[Resume "Techno Factory" BGM]

In the following room, they had to rush through a switchback hallway that was filled with Searches, disc-shaped enemies that would detonate in a large explosion if one gets too close to them, and near the end was a certain sentient old stage microphone enemy wandering about: Walky.

"Oooh!" Kirby's eyes sparkled and immediately discarded the Water Ability before sucking up the Walky, gaining the Mike Ability.

"…OH. NO." Dedede paled up in horror, as Bandana Waddle Dee and Meta Knight had the same reaction.

The Loyal Bodyguards looked at them with raised eyebrows. "Uh, what's up with that?" Arusu asked.

"That's the Mike Ability." Meta Knight replied. "And…maybe we'll just let Kirby demonstrate it for you…"

"Oh, and make sure you cover your ears as hard as you can…" Bandana Waddle Dee advised, already covering his.

"Well…alright." Solo shrugged as the Heroes did it so, and then a trio of Degouts came over as Kirby got ready to unleash the power of Mike by first donning a baseball cap and screaming loudly into a megaphone:

"AAAAAAAH!"

This loud scream was enough to make the entire room shake and produce a powerful blast of sound waves, sending the Degouts flying.

The Heroes were left shocked by what just happened. "…Holy CRAP, did he really just scream that loud?!" Arusu questioned.

"Yep…" Dedede groaned. "But oh, there's more…"

"Oh, boy…" Solo trailed off as a group of Scarfies came next, and so Kirby went into his second stage of Mike where he would keep the headphones on while pulling out a radio mike, and then screaming:

"HEYAAAA!"

Like last time, the Scarfies were sent flying by the sound waves. Unlike last time, however… Kirby's scream was even louder that it made the Heroes' ears hurt, and they were now grimacing in agony.

"…My ears…" Eight winced.

"Please tell us that's it…" Eleven groaned.

"Nope, there's one more…" Dedede replied unenthusiastically, as a large group of Scarfies was now surrounding Kirby. "And the last one is the worst."

Hearing this, the Heroes immediately pressed their hands against their ears as hard as they could as Kirby suddenly grew a mohawk on top of his head, grabbed a microphone stand… and did a metal scream:

"CHESTO!"

This time, the sound waves traveled in all directions, thus wiping out all the Scarfies surrounding Kirby in an instant. Unfortunately for our Heroes, though… that last scream was so ear-piercingly loud that it made them scream in agony during it, and now their ears were ringing as a result. Despite that, it was a miracle that their eardrums didn't burst by that.

"Ahhh, that felt good to let out!" Kirby said as the Mike Ability disappeared on him. "That should keep those enemy waves down for good."

"Hopefully…" Arusu groaned. "I don't EVER want to hear you screaming again…"

"Heh heh, sorry about that…" Kirby rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "It's just that I love to sing, even though I'm already aware that my singing comes poorly with the Mike Ability…"

"You don't say…" Dedede muttered.

"Nngh… now I know how my dark clone felt back when Shulk tortured his ears…" Solo groaned as they walked off to the next area and came across a Whippy and a Leafan. Kirby took the Leaf Ability for himself while Eight took the Whip Ability, and then everyone walked ahead… but a Dubior suddenly ambushed them.

[BGM: Mid-Boss (Halcandra) – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

"Wait, what?!" Arusu exclaimed. "There's ambushes in Halcandra too?!"

"Honestly, I was kind of expecting that." Kirby said. "In fact, this isn't the first time where ambushes also happen outside of Popstar."

Dubior began by surrounding itself in electricity and charging at them, but they dodged out of the way as Dubior would slam into a wall where everyone proceeded to wail at it. After recovering, Dubior flew back up and next sent out a few Dubior Jr.s to attack the group, but were wiped out easily by Eleven breathing fire at them as Eight used Whip Tornado to whip Dubior repeatedly in the air, followed up by Bandana Waddle Dee's Spear Copter and Kirby's Leaf Dance attacks.

Dubior moved away from them and started firing lightning bolts as Solo quickly created a Spark Barrier to block them, and then Arusu damaged it with needles before Dedede came in and delivered a mighty Jet Hammer swing, and the sheer force of it was enough for Dubior to break apart.

[Resume "Techno Factory" BGM]

"That takes care of that!" Dedede said as they moved forward, riding a horizontal elevator while Solo would fire Thunderbolts at the ceiling to hit a series of Bomb Blocks on it, as one of their barriers after the elevator ride uncovered an Energy Sphere. After taking the Sphere, the group made it to the last area where a Key was placed directly in front of them, and so Bandana Waddle Dee opted to take it and carry it to the Key Gate on the other side while the others dealt with the Hunter Degouts on the way. With that, Bandana Waddle Dee managed to unlock the gate and net the last Energy Sphere of this stage, then they would leave the factory.

[BGM End]


Stage 6-3: Conveyor Belt Craziness

[BGM: Funky Area – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

Outside, an elevator would carry them all up to a series of conveyor belts… with strong breezes blowing. "Oh, how nice of them. I could easily take a nap on this." Dedede said with obvious sarcasm in his tone as they were swept away.

"Yeah, until you hit a wall or an enemy." Meta Knight replied.

Dedede sweatdropped. "I was being sarcastic…" he muttered as they moved along the conveyor belts while dodging all sorts of enemies and hazards along the way, as Arusu would spot a Pull Switch on the ceiling on the corner of his eye where he had the idea to jump up and thrust his needle sword in the ceiling to stop himself and go for the Pull Switch to pull it down, which destroyed a barrier holding an Energy Sphere. He took it and then the group continued traveling along the conveyor belts until they made it to the end.

They found themselves in the interior of another factory that was filled with more conveyor belts as they walked along, avoiding several teetering hammers in the way and made it to normal ground where they would get to the next area of the factory.

In said area, there was a huge abyss in front of them, but pressing a Red Switch made a walkway rise up. Unfortunately, it immediately started to slowly sink, thus forcing the group to rush forward and eventually get an Energy Sphere near the end before the entire walkway sunk back down. Going through the door at the end, they were taken back out in the wastes in a column leading upward, where they came across a number of Drill Machines. After making past them and climbing a ladder, they next found a Super Waddle Doo at the top.

"Aha!" Eleven exclaimed and took it down, then he claimed the Flare Beam Super Ability once again.

[BGM: Bring on the Super Ability! – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

After that, everyone climbed up another ladder where they saw the same Beam Lamps they found back at Nutty Noon, and so Eleven proceeded to light them all up, deactivating a barrier above and allowing them to move on higher. Next they encountered more Drill Machines as Eleven destroyed these as well, and then they kept going up.

From that point, it was all Eleven lighting up the Beam Lamps to open the way until the last set of Lamps activated an elevator down below as everyone rode it, leading them to the bottom where a wall slid out of the way to reveal an Another Dimension rift.

"Huh… for once, it didn't involve destroying something to reveal that." Dedede remarked before they all jumped into the rift.


[BGM: Another Dimension – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

The purple wall is once again pursuing from the left as the group had to make their way through more suspended bodies of water over a bottomless pit, while making sure to maneuver around spikes and Shotzos' shots, as well as a few Blippers and Gordos swimming in the currents.

Once they made it to the end, the group walked to the arena ahead in order to face off against another Ice Sphere Doomer over a small pool of water.

[BGM: Sphere Doomer – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

The Sphere Doomer cackled and immediately teleported to the other side to create silver orbs rotating around it, then it flew over to the middle where it charged an icy aura while it would drop the silver orbs at the group. Meta Knight and Dedede quickly repelled the orbs away with their weapons before everyone ran away to avoid the Sphere Doomer's Ice Storm attack and got ready to strike back, but then Kirby and Bandana Waddle Dee would get sucked into a black hole the Sphere Doomer suddenly created as it next spat out a barrage of silver orbs at the rest.

"Whip Whack!" Eight called out and did a wicked lash that struck all of the orbs at once and send them back at the Sphere Doomer, only for it to teleport away and reappear right behind Eight and Meta Knight where it would unleash a new attack to make both of them disoriented, thus giving it the chance to ram into them and knock them into the pool, taking out Eight's Copy Ability.

A Zapple from Eleven would then hit the Sphere Doomer as it turned around and growled, before creating more silver orbs around the rest of the group and making them burst into an icy blast, but Solo had created a Spark Barrier to shield everyone from them, much to the Sphere Doomer's disbelief, then Kirby and Bandana Waddle Dee would escape from the black hole and strike it in the face in unison, and then Arusu finished it off with a Multislice, damaging it with a flurry of stabs.

[BGM: Silence of Another Sky – Kirby's Return to Dream Land]

The moment the group took the Energy Spheres, Meta Knight and Eight emerged out of the pool in the middle, coughing out a bit of water. "Man, that was harsh…" Eight groaned.

"You two okay?" Eleven asked.

"Yeah, just got the wind knocked out of us." Meta Knight replied. "That Sphere Doomer was a bit tougher to beat compared to the previous ones…"

"Hmm… Makes me wonder if the more rifts we go into, the more the Sphere Doomers are rising up to power." Solo said as they walked off to the exit, and hopped on in.

To be continued…


Considering that the main setting of the Dragon Quest franchise is based around medieval times, it makes sense that the Heroes would be unfamiliar with stuff from the modern days (aside from a few machinery mentioned by Eleven, of course). Good thing the Kirby cast is there to provide information for them!

Okay, now I think it's time I cover up another clear thing like I did back at chapter 4. When it comes to characters not from Kirby's universe using Copy Abilities, they will only change in appearance if said Copy Ability previously used to change Kirby's colors in the past games (examples: Beam, Fire, Ice, Stone, etc). Spark, however, is a different case because while there's an artwork of Spark Kirby from Nightmare in Dream Land that depicts Kirby being green in color, his in-game sprite doesn't. And no, the anime (where Spark Kirby is also depicted in green) does not count for me since it isn't canon in my timeline. Because of this, I am only considering the appearance changes if Kirby's Copy Ability appearances does not contradict his sprite and game artwork.

And finally, regarding the Ice Sphere Doomer's new attack in the Extra Game where it occasionally flips the screen upside-down to confuse the player, obviously that wouldn't work in a fanfic so I changed its effect of making people disoriented instead, which could work in a similar manner of making the player confused.

Next time, more of Egg Engines! Until then!

Trivia for this chapter:

1. The titles given to stages 6-1 and 6-2 are named after, respectively, the last zone of Sonic CD and the theme that plays in Shiver Star's factory from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards.

2. The part where Kirby mentions about discovering an abandoned city covered with plants and mold in a land long forgotten is an obvious reference to Kirby and the Forgotten Land, the newest Kirby game set to release in spring next year.