Chapter 22 – Unidentified Fighting Object

It took us quite a while to make this trip, as this place was on a completely different planet. I think it took us about 5-6 hours or so. I couldn't really tell if it was day or night outside because we were in space.

Come to think of it, was it EVER nighttime here?

A-Anyway…we soon gained a view of a really big volcanic planet. As we got closer to land, we saw that there were many mechanical facilities and very few plants. But what caught our eyes was a giant active volcano at the dead center of it all.

"Welcome to Halcandra, my home planet! We should be landing in a few minutes now." Magolor said.

"Wait…home planet? Magolor, you LIVED here at one point?" Misuki asked.

"Well, he says that…but we're not actually sure if that's true or not." Adeleine said.

"It is true." Magolor said.

"Really? Then how come you got shot down twice while trying to get the Master Crown from Landia?"

"H-How do you know all these things?"

"Kirby told me."

"Poyo."

"R-Right. Of course."

"Who's Landia?" I asked.

"Landia is a four-headed dragon that lives here. It's said that he's the guardian of these legendary treasures that these people called "The Ancients" made a long time ago." Adeleine explained.

"Wh-What?! A-A four-headed dragon?!" Lidelle stuttered in fear.

"That's SO cool!" Arle shouted.

"What?! How is that cool?!"

"This is coming from the girl who thought that Water Galbo thing was cute."

"Well, it was."

"Anyway, there's no doubt in my mind that we'll run into him again. Which is why I'm dropping you guys off halfway." Magolor said.

"What?! How come?!" Us otherworlders complained.

"W-Well…me and Landia…don't really get along that well."

"And by that, he means Landia completely hates him." Adeleine added.

"Huh? Hates him? What did you do, Magolor?" Misuki asked her longtime friend.

"Um…well…"

"What he did was he got Kirby to fight Landia, making him believe that he was on a rampage. But in truth, he tricked him into doing it so that he could steal the Master Crown and use it to take over the universe." Adeleine explained.

"R-Really?" Was all Misuki was able to say.

"I've gotten a bit…power-hungry since we last saw each other."

A bit?!

"And, uh…there's more to it."

"There's more?" Adeleine asked.

"I, uh…well, kind of…stole the Lor Starcutter."

"YOU STOLE THE LOR STARCUTTER?!" We all shouted.

"Seriously, just what is wrong with you?!" Adeleine asked.

"I'm sorry, okay? I wasn't…thinking straight when I did those things. But now you know why I can't go near Landia."

"Yeah okay, Magolor. We get it." Misuki said.


Not too long after finding out about Magolor's past, we landed near the entrance of a cave that had a source of light coming from somewhere inside. We got off and looked around the cave to see where we supposed to go.

"To the end of this cave is the entrance to Dangerous Dinner. Just keep following the light and you'll get there." Magolor said.

"Thanks, Magolor." I said. "Is everyone ready?"

"Wait, aren't we missing a few people?" Ringo asked.

"Taranza went back to see if the others needed help with clearing puyos. We'll meet back with him soon." Adeleine said.

"I see."

We then saw that Gooey was also gone. He eventually came to the entrance of the ship. But didn't come off for some reason.

"Hey, Gooey. Aren't you coming?" Raffina asked. To which Gooey replied by shaking his head(?).

"About that. You see, Dangerous Dinner is said to be the hottest place in the universe. It'll be too hot for Gooey to handle, so he's staying behind." Adeleine said.

"Wow. That hot, huh?" Maguro asked.

"It makes me think if I should change out this sweater." Lidelle said.

"I've got extra t-shirts with me if want to change." Misuki said.

"Sure, okay."

"Hey, Witch. Got anything for me?" Raffina asked.

"Sure. I've got plenty."

"Thanks a lot."

"Okay, so that's two. What happened to Marx?" I asked.

"Marx is…wait." Adeleine looked around the area to make sure what I had asked was true. And when it was, she didn't look happy.

"Dang it! Where did that troublemaker run off to?!"

"Frankly, I don't care where Marx went. I'm just glad he's out of our hair." Raffina said.

"Amen to that." Adeleine agreed.

So that's two people who don't like Marx.

"But no matter. At the end of Dangerous Dinner is the entrance to Another Dimension. Once we get there, we'll figure something out okay, Amitie?"

"Sure. Whatever you say, Adeleine." I said.

With our party down by three, the 11 of us started walking through the cave. Raffina and Lidelle did change out of their clothes and into something more comfortable. They both had t-shirts that were similar to each other, each bearing a big star on the bottom left corner and a little star underneath that. Raffina kept her mini-skirt on, while Lidelle changed into a pair of black shorts.

I honestly couldn't stop staring at Raffina. Her outfit was just so cute. It was definitely a sight to behold.

"What?" Raffina asked me.

"Nothing. It's just I really like your new outfit."

"Y-You do?"

"Yeah. It really makes you look cute."

"C-Cute?!" Raffina started blushing.

"Yep. Really cute. Way better than what you wore before. To be honest, it was kinda ugly."

"I'll hit you." Raffina sounded insulted.

"Sorry, sorry. But I really do mean it when I said you looked cute."

"Th-Thanks, Ami. A-And I really do think your new outfit is cute, too. Despite it being linked to a cool power and all…" Raffina started sounded sad due to being reminded again of how she has no magic powers.

I really did feel bad for her. Being the only person in town to be powerless, and forced to watch us practice ours. If there was a way for her to get powers of her own, I would do it in a heartbeat. But until then…

…All I could do was just hug her out of compassion.


After a few more minutes of walking, we reached this strange door that three stars on top of it. The doorway itself was just nothing but a bright white light, so we couldn't see what was on the other side. But we all had a pretty good idea where it would take us.

"So Dangerous Dinner is through this door, huh?" Ringo asked.

"Yep. Right through here." Ribbon said.

"We sure went through a lot to get here." Arle said.

"Some may call it a bit too much." Adeleine said.

"But yet, here we are." Misuki said.

I then felt my hand being grabbed and I turned to see that it was Raffina that was doing it.

"You ready, Ami?" She said to me with a confident grin on her face.

"Ready, Raffina." I said with the exact same look.

"Poyo poyo."

"I'm with you all the way, little buddy." I said to Kirby.

We all then stepped foot into the door, eager to see what was awaiting us on the other side.


Dark Volcano World - Dangerous Dinner

The door led us to what I thought was a deeper part of the cave. I had no idea what Dangerous Dinner would look like, so I had the assumption that it was just yet another lava area with volcanos and lava-like the other three.

When I was able to get a good view of this place, I could only describe it as one word…

Hell.

The sky was non-existent. Instead, there was this dark ominous coloring surrounding us. There was light, but it was coming from this giant blistering core in the center of this place.

There was small yellow-ish smoke-like fog around the sky. When it passed through us, it felt really warm. Sometimes burning hot. It would touch my skin and I would twitch a little due to the burns it would cause.

The ground was a mixture of rocks and molten lava all over. And the temperature here was unbearable. Adeleine wasn't kidding when she said that this was the hottest place in this universe. No wonder Gooey stayed behind.

But the one thing we all noticed, and it was a big one, was the fact that there were giant suns all over the place. Some stayed in place, others shifted back and forth, and then there were some that were falling from the dark ominous colored sky. They broke some weak parts of the ground and then kept falling.

To where…I honestly had no idea.

"N-No way…" Arle said.

"Th-This is…i-insane" Lidelle said.

"S-So this is…"

"…Dangerous Dinner?" Me and Raffina asked.

"Yep. This is it. The one and only." Adeleine replied.

"Woah. I can see how this place got its name." Misuki said.

"Yeah, no kidding. You sure you'll be okay, Ringo?" Maguro asked.

"Uh…y-yeah. I-I'll be fine. Th-Thanks…Maguro." Ringo stuttered a bit.

*BANG*

"What was that?!" Ribbon asked.

The dark sky suddenly got darker as clouds started forming. Then it started raining puyos from the sky. Most of them ended up in the bottomless pits the giant suns created, but the fact that they were there was still a problem.

"Unbelievable! The puyos reached Halcandra too?!" Adeleine asked in shock.

"Could a Puyo Soul be all the way out here, too?" Raffina asked.

"And if so, how and/or who brought it here?" I asked.

"Well, we're not going to find out by just standing here." Arle said.

"Arle's right. Our only option is to head for the top. We can get a better view of the situation, and the entrance to Another Dimension is there." Adeleine said.

"Alrighty then. Let's get going." I said.


As we made our way to the top of this hell-like area, we cleared up the puyos that survived the storm by missing the giant suns or avoiding the bottomless pits. The extreme heat from this place made it harder than usual, and some of the giant suns were a pain to get through. but we managed to do it. And soon we all made it to the top of Dangerous Dinner. The view was…okay. In its own right. I mean, we were able to see the entire blistering core in the center. And the giant suns everywhere made it really amazing to look at.

"You know, despite the name, this place looks pretty cool." I said.

"I know, right? I'm shocked myself." Raffina said.

"Guys! Look!" Misuki yelled as she pointed at something with her broom. It was on a single platform surrounded by a bunch of mini-suns. These mini-suns were glowing a red aura…and I recognized that red aura.

"It's a Puyo Soul!" Ringo shouted.

"Not only that, but it's the Red Puyo Soul from before!" Adeleine added.

"I think your clone must've brought it here, Amitie." Lidelle said.

"Well, I don't see her around…I'm gonna go get it." I said as I ran towards the Puyo Soul.

"Poyo! Poyo poyo!" Kirby shouted.

"Huh?! What did you sa…"

*BANG*

"WAH!" I shouted as a bolt of electricity shot down and nearly hit me from what seemed like out of nowhere.

"Wh-What was that?!"

"Ami, look out!" Raffina shouted.

"WAH!"

*BANG*

*BANG*

*BANG*

With the help of Kirby, I was able to dodge three more bolts of electricity that were aimed at me.

"Thanks, little buddy."

"Poyo."

"But now…WHO KEEPS DOING THAT?!"

Right after I shouted that, a ball of electricity came down and started floating in front of us. It soon depleted and it revealed a weird gray spaceship with eyes and a broken antenna. And it looked rather mad too.

"Oh, great. It's Dubior." Adeleine said sarcastically.

"Dubior? You mean this thing has a name?" Misuki asked.

"Yeah. Dubior is another one of those Demon Beasts we told you about. Much like Gigant Edge."

"Another Demon Beast? That's fine. We'll just have to hit it a few times and he's done, right?" Arle asked.

"Well…you would think, but no."

"Huh?" Us visitors asked.

"Well, unlike the other ones, Dubior's really strong and fast. He uses electricity for his attacks." Ribbon explained.

"Plus, he's not from Popstar. He lives here on Halcandra and often comes to our planet to cause trouble." Bandana-Dee wrote on his board.

"Wow. So this thing's a real jerk, isn't it?" I asked.

"Cho emri dolpc folo ulo iea, vremjyuo!"

"What?"

This thing…it just talked, right? I can't really tell.

"Oh, yeah. Dubior has his own language that no one can understand. It's rather confusing and it just annoys us." Adeleine said.

"His own language?" I thought about this new information I got, and I quickly got an idea.

"Hey, Lidelle. Do you think you can translate what he's saying?"

"Uh…I guess I could try." Lidelle said.

"Wait, what?" Adeleine, Ribbon, and even Bandana-Dee were confused.

"Well, you see…Lidelle has this weird yet cool talent. She can understand every language that's known to exist. And she can translate it to English too." I explained.

"Wow. Really? How'd she learned to do that?" Adeleine asked.

"We honestly have no idea." We all said.

"I see…"

"I got it now." Lidelle said. "So what he said earlier was: The only jerks here are you, blondie!"

"Huh?! How are we jerks?! And don't call me blondie!" I shouted.

"Jem'g tyubo no chug! YU coo lyutfg chleatf iea seankc! Iea umja kyumpi ebol cholo ulo gliot geh gupo ni usyumi lesp uquui hlen no!"

"Don't give me that! I see right through you chumps! You and pinky over there are trying to take my shiny rock away from me!" Lidelle translated.

"That's not a shiny rock, you idiot! That's a Puyo Soul!" Adeleine yelled.

"Kaieh Cear? Quoug cho fosp yuc chug? Quora, quougobol. YU jem'g sulo quoug chyuc chot yuc, iea'lo meg fubot yug! YU heamja yug, ceh yug'c nyumo! Vusp ehh, kyumpi! Umja gupo vremjyuo umja ieal ummeiot hlyuomjc quyuch iea! Urcheatf chyuc tuloom tyulr yuc myuso. Yug'c teeja geh fubo cenoemo glumcrugo ni rumtauto hel emso."

"Puyo Soul? What the heck is that? Well, whatever. I don't care what this thing is, you're not having it! I found it, so it's mine! Back off, pinky! And take blondie and your annoying friends with you! Although this green girl is nice. It's good to have someone translate my language for once."

"Grrr! I never would've thought that Dubior was such a stubborn piece of scrap!" Adeleine started getting irritated.

"Same here! I'm ready to turn this thing into a pile of junk!" Raffina yelled.

"Poyo. Poyo poyo poyo. Poyo." Kirby said to me.

"Yeah. I'm getting the same feeling too, little buddy." I said to him. "Raffina! Adeleine! Me and Kirby will help you out."

"Thanks, Ami." Raffina said.

"I could always count on you, Kirby." Adeleine said.

These two have a lot more in common than we thought…

"Iea'lo colyueacri teot geh hyutfg no hel NI usyumi lesp? Umja iog, iea sura no cgavvelm. Hyumo! Ceh vo yug! Emso YU voug iea yumbujolc, Yu'ra comja iea ura vusp geh quoolo obol iea suno hlen!"

"You're seriously going to fight me for MY shiny rock? And yet, you call me stubborn. Fine! So be it! Once I beat you invaders, I'll send you all back to where ever you came from!"

"Let's…"

"KAIEH VUGGRO!"

"PUYO BATTLE!"


BOSS: Vs. Dubior


As a bunch of puyos started falling down, I kept thinking to myself…

How is a UFO supposed to play Puyo?

Then before I knew it, Dubior had a bunch of puyo flying around him. They had electric charges on them, and they all stacked on their own.

I guess that's how.

"Hold on, guys! We're almost done!" Arle yelled as she and the others were building up a chain.

Meanwhile, Dubior was nearly finished with his. And for a UFO, he was pretty good. From the looks of it, he already had the max 15-chain ready to go. If the others don't hurry, I'm not sure we'll make it out uninjured this time.

"AND FINISH! SET OFF!" Arle said as she set off the chain. I soon felt the power from the popped puyos rushing through my body. And with my new Copy Ability, I felt stronger than ever before.

"Ready, guys?" Adeleine asked.

"I'm more than ready!" Raffina shouted.

"Poyo! Poyo poyo!"

"Huh? Change to Water? Are you sure Kirby?" I asked him.

"Poyo poyo! Poyo p-poyo poyo! Poyo!"

"The Elemental Circle?"

"Oh, yeah! I've heard of it!" Ringo said as she ran up to us. "It's a diagram of how the four elements work against each out. It usually goes like this:

Water beats Fire, but Fire beats Water

Fire beats Ice, but Ice beats Fire

Water beats Electric, but Electric beats Water

Kinda like that."

"You lost me." I said.

I swear, Ringo's too smart for her own good.

"Basically, you have a 50/50 chance of beating Dubior if you use your Water powers."

"50/50? Is that even worth it?"

"If Kirby says it's fine, then shouldn't you trust him?"

I then looked at Kirby, who gave me a tilted head look as I thought about this Elemental Circle thing.

50/50 does seem fair…but what if it goes against me? Pretty sure being electrocuted will hurt…but…then again…if it works…

"Alright. I'll do it, Kirby! I'll use Water!"

"Poyo!"

I raised my left arm in the air and made a fist with my left hand.

"WATER!"

My wristband began to glow as it started changing to its blue watery form. Even though I couldn't see it, I knew that spot on my hair was blue as well. Signaling that I was currently using the Water Ability.

"Poyo! Poyo poyo!"

"Hi-five? Alrighty, little buddy."

I gave Kirby a hi-five and then he started glowing on his own. He soon had his Water tiara on his head and stopped glowing as he stood next to me.

"Woah! How'd that happened?!"

"Poyo poyo!"

"Right. Bad time. Okay, I'm ready now!"

We each shot our first attacks…

"NEIGE!"

"BRUSH SLASH!"

"WAVE ATTACK!"

…But they all missed. When Ribbon said that Dubior was fast, she wasn't kidding. The guy was zipping all over the place dodging our attacks.

"Fu! Iea nyuaisoja!"

"Ha! You missed!" Lidelle translated.

Dubior then used his broken antenna to spawn 4 of these tiny spaceships that kinda looked like him and shot them at us. Each one aiming for one of us.

We dodged all four of them. But didn't notice how he had gained an electric barrier around himself and was speeding towards us.

"GAH! He just combo'd us!" Raffina shouted.

"I know! And he does this all the time! Such a cheater!" Adeleine shouted.

Ah, geez! What do I do, what do I do, what do I do?!

As Dubior was getting closer to us, I started panicking in my head. I was still new to this Copy Ability thing, so I didn't know how to abuse this power like I did with my old spells. All I could think of really was to try to use Water again.

"WAVE ATTACK!" I tried again, this time while closing my eyes because of the whole Elemental Circle thing in my mind.

Once I did, I started hearing some kind of static near me. I opened my eyes to see that Dubior was short-circuiting due to being splashed by water.

In my mind, I was happy…but mostly relieved. I couldn't believe that the odds were in my favor. I mean, it was 50/50, so there was an equal chance of me getting electrocuted. But I was shocked to not have that happen.

That pun wasn't intentional, by the way.

"F-Foi! Quoug jyuja iea jeh ieh no?! YU sum'g nebo!"

"He said he can't move!" Lidelle said.

"Whoa! It actually worked!" Raffina shouted.

"Guys! Do you think you could hit Dubior again?" Adeleine asked us.

"H-Huh?! Y-You want me to do that AGAIN?!" I asked.

"It's only until we get enough power. Please, Amitie?"

I wasn't too sure about this. Sure it worked the first time, but what if this time it doesn't? Thanks to Ringo and her Elemental Circle thing, I have all these worries in my head. I'm not sure what to do about it.

But in this case…I don't really have a choice.

"sigh. Alright." I gave in to this plan.

"Thanks, Amitie."

"Alright, Kirby. You ready?"

"Poyo!"

"Okay. And… WAVE ATTACK!"

We both shot another blob of water at the paralyzed UFO and it made him short-circuit even more. He kept zipping around all over the place as now he couldn't control his movement patterns.

While I was once again shocked that I didn't get electrocuted again.

Again. Not intentional.

"W-Woah." Was all I could say.

"Thanks, Ami! We got it from here!" Raffina cheered. She and Adeleine were all charged up and were rushing towards Dubior to deal the final blow.

"CEIL ARK!"

"PAINTBRUSH!" With Adeleine, her paintbrush grew to three times its normal size. Then, along with Raffina's signature kick, slashed her brush three times at Dubior. Getting tons of paint on him, and pretty much everywhere else.

The impact did so much damage. It sent Dubior flying a bit, hitting a few mini-suns before coming back to our level with lights coming out of him.

He was about to explode. But before he did, he did say one last thing…

"MEEEEH! YU RECG! Umja mequ YU reco ni usyumi lesp! Utf! Yu'ra tog iea hel chyuc, kyumpi! Umja iea geeh, vremjyuo!"

…But before Lidelle could translate, Dubior had exploded into tiny bits. With his part scattered all over the place.

Geez. All this over a shiny rock…I-I mean Puyo Soul.


"Alright! We won!" Raffina and Adeleine cheered.

"Poyo!"

"Nice work, you guys!" Arle cheered.

"Sorry if I confused you with that explanation, Amitie." Ringo said to me.

"Amitie?"

But I wasn't listening. Instead, I was staring at this thing that popped out when Dubior exploded. It was a light-green star with electric bolts on it. It was floating on its own in mid-air and had a light-green glow around it.

"What…is that thing?" Ringo asked once she figured out what I was staring at.

"Hey! That's the Plasma Ability!" Adeleine said.

"Plasma? There's a Plasma Ability?"

"Yeah. With that, you can charge up electricity and use it to fire a projectile based on how much power you had. It's a really useful power."

"Woah! That is cool! You think you can use it, Amitie?" Arle asked me.

"Well…I could try. But how do I get it?"

"I think Magolor said you had to absorb it with your left hand." Misuki said.

"That's it? Okay, I'll try."

I went over to the floating star and placed my left hand on it. Both it and my hand started glowing. And soon after, the star was gone…but now my wristband was light-green and had electric sparks around it. Just to make sure, I plucked a piece of my hair from the middle part and saw that it was light-green as well.

I now had the Plasma Ability.

"Woah…i-it worked!" I said.

"Try using it, Ami." Raffina said.

"Okay."

As I was told, I charged up some power and felt the electric bolts rushing through me. It actually tickled a lot. So much that I had a giant electrical barrier around me.

"Woah! Now, what do I do?!" I asked.

"Just shoot it somewhere." Adeleine said.

I looked around for a place to shoot at and decided to aim it at the mini-suns that were blocking the Puyo Soul. I placed both hands in front of me and…

"PLASMA WAVE!"

…Shot a huge electric sphere at them. Blowing the mini-suns out of the way and revealing the Puyo Soul to us.

"WOAH!" Everyone shouted.

"See? Didn't I tell you it's a useful power?" Adeleine asked.

"Yeah, you were right, Adeleine! This Plasma Ability is awesome!" I cheered.

"So now not only did Ami get a new power, but we also got the second Puyo Soul!" Misuki cheered.

"YEAH!"

"POYO!"

Me and Raffina went and grabbed the Red Puyo Soul and carried it as we now made our way to the entrance to Another Dimension.

Geez. I forgot how heavy these things are.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry it took so long to write this. Midway of writing a chapter for Fever, I lost any motivation to write anything Puyo related. But after a few days, said motivation came back. So nothing to worry about now.

So yeah, I made Dubior a boss. Here's a funny thing I found out about him. So I was on the Kirby Wiki yesterday (I use it a lot to write this story) and it said that the Mid-boss theme for Halcandra was a remix of Kirby 64's boss theme. I didn't hear it when I played Return to Dream Land back then and I don't hear it now. But then I looked at the comments and most of them were people complaining about how Dubior was a hard (and therefore the worst) mini-boss…

I typed up a comment saying that it was sad and pathetic that people think this.

If there was a mini-boss that's deserving the title of worst mini-boss, it's easily Box Boxer from Amazing Mirror. God, I hate that damn thing!

Fun Fact: I wanted to use the Shroobs language from Partners in Time, but I couldn't find a way to copy it. So I googled an English to Alien translator and used that.

That's all from me. Feel free to review, favorite, and/or follow the story. Thanks for reading. Later.