CHAPTER 4-5
-Mysteries of the Whoa Zone-
"Wow… Take a look at this place. It's so…strange and…green." Chopper gawked as he looked at the white walls with a couple of small green squares and the green, glassy ground that had a couple of tiny stripes on them. Sonic tried to break through the ground with his foot, but that barely did a thing. It looks like this glass is pretty strong for their feet and attacks.
"We're here, squeeegle! This is the Whoa Zone! Squirps has finally arrived, squooody!" Squirps seemed so delighted, that he ended up shouting. "SQUIRPS IS HERE!"
His loud voice nearly made everyone cover their ears.
"Whoa, Squirps! You MIGHT want to lower your voice around here!" Sonic winced as he put his hands off his ears, listening to the echoes through the place. "Wow. You can even hear the echoes through here!"
"Poyo… (Yeah, I guess so… It almost feels like it makes you want to go 'Whoa!', which could be the reason why it's called the Whoa Zone…)" Kirby trailed.
"…Squirps can't wait!" squealed Squirps as he jumped up and down. "Squirps is going to scurry ahead. Follow Squirps when you can. But remember, space grunts, this place is a super-complicated maze… You'll get lost before you know it, so pay attention to where you're going, squeerp! Well, Squirps will see you guys later…at the spot where the Pure Heart waits!"
Squirps moved on ahead, leaving the heroes to gawk. He's just leaving them behind? How could he do something like that?"
"Well that's just great… I can't believe he left us at a time like this…" Tippi groaned, but she suddenly felt some strange power coming from this place. "Hmmmmmm… I CAN feel the presence of a Pure Heart around here… Wherever it is, it's somewhere in this place. Be careful, Chopper…"
Chopper looked down at the glassy floor to see his own reflection. "Weird floor… I can almost see my own reflection here." He squinted, but got startled when he saw a reflection of Tipral on there.
"WAAAAH!" he stepped back, almost falling over on Kirby. "I thought I just saw Tipral on there!"
"Well, you know what they say… When a place is called the Whoa Zone, you know you're gonna be in for a surprise." Chopper and Kirby looked at Sonic with confused looks. "What? I think it makes perfect sense!"
"Oh, never mind…" Chopper looked up at the solid squares. To him, it looked like you could jump on those. But, they weren't going to worry about that right now. All they had to do was go over to the door where a Save Block was near.
After saving, the three walked into a room with a skinny green platform above them with a Tileoid Y and Tileoid R. Chopper immediately used Tippi's powers to gather information on both of them.
"That's a Tileoid R. It is a mysterious creature that's made of many small parts... Max HP is 15 and Attack is 3. It can also crawl along walls and ceilings... Tileoids vary in color and ability. This red Tileoid is known for its high HP..."
"That's a Tileoid Y. It is a mysterious creature that's made of many small parts... Max HP is 10 and Attack is 3. It can also crawl along walls and ceilings... Tileoids vary in color and ability. This yellow Tileoid is known for its great speed..."
"All right, then let's take 'em out!" Chopper smirked as he attacked the Tileoid R that was making its way to them to the left. With a couple of sweeping kicks, he was able to defeat the Tileoid.
Kirby floated up onto the green platform where the Tileoid Y was moving around on. Using Carrie's ability, he got on her and jumped on top of the Tileoid Y once before inhaling it and spitting it out at the Tileoid R on the wall to the left.
"Thanks, Kirby! I'll take it from here!" Sonic jumped and delivered a Homing Attack upon the Tileoid R one time to defeat it. "I'm glad that we're finally getting to some fighting! Some GOOD fighting, that is."
"What do you mean 'good fighting'? We've been fighting a lot." Chopper gave Sonic a blank look.
"I mean that we haven't really done much in Outer Space. We've been doing mostly space swimming and walking on some sort of small planet. That space station was a bit dull, too! I think this place has all the action. We can even move at our own pace as well! I like that a lot."
"Poyo… (Tippi sure seems quiet…)" Kirby looked over at the rainbow Pixl. "Poyo. (I mean, she was speaking to us a lot when we were exploring Merlee's Mansion, but now she doesn't. Is everything all right with her?)"
Chopper turned to Tippi and translated what the pink puffball said. "Oh… Well, I don't have much to say, unfortunately…" she trailed, looking at the whole room. "You three seem like you don't need much of my help now…"
"What? Oh, come on!" Chopper nearly gaped. "If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be here! …And that would be a bad thing! I wouldn't know what to do if I got up and saw no one in that castle. You're the sole reason why we're in this place…along with Tipral."
Tippi blushed. "Well… I suppose that's true… Thanks for telling me that, Chopper… It means a lot…"
Chopper smiled and nodded to the Pixl. "We better get going. We can't waste our time staying here." He hit the ? Block that was nearby, making a Happy Flower pop out. "…We have enough coins for now. I think 489 is enough."
"Poyo! (Oh, come on! I think we should just grab that Happy Flower just in case we need it!)" Kirby whined.
"OK, fine. Go ahead." Chopper allowed Kirby to grab the Happy Flower, causing a bunch of coins to rain from the room. He and Sonic managed to grab about 36 coins thanks to the giant ones.
"All right! We got 36 coins! I think that should be a bit helpful!" Sonic jumped over to the door up ahead, which had a green shading to it because of the atmosphere. A green Trialien was over by a ? Block.
"I got this," Chopper stomped on the Trialien three times while performing some stylish moves before taking it out. After hitting the ? Block, they found a nice Mushroom that they all split up to recover their HP.
"Hold on… I think you should take that platform above you…" suggested Tippi as she eyed the green platform above the door.
"Hmmmmm… I say we have a look up there." Chopper flipped into 3-D while being close to his friends so that they could flip as well. They found a door up on the platform that brought them into another room.
They found a ? Block to their left in the room and a large gap that had some Buzz Bombers flying around. Only a Homing Attack could get someone across like that…or you could simply float across.
"Heh heh! Leave this to me!" Sonic performed a Homing Attack on the Buzz Bombers, allowing himself to make it across. Chopper, on the other hand, hit the ? Block and got a Slow Flower from it.
"Whooooaa… Everything feeeeeeels soooooo slooooow agaaaaaaain…" Chopper shouted as the speed slowed down.
"Pooooooooyoooooo! (Whyyyy doooooes iiiiiiit haaaaaaave to beeeeee like thissssssssss?!) exclaimed Kirby as he slowly began to float over to the gap and use his inhaling ability to help Chopper across.
Luckily, when he got him over to the door, everything went back to normal, to their relief.
When they walked into the next room, they saw a blue, circular enemy and a chest in the room. But when they stepped closer to the enemy, a square-shaped blue light surrounded the creature.
"What's that supposed to be? I'm going to check it out." Chopper used Tippi's powers to gather some information on this enemy.
"That's a Barribad. It can shield itself with a strong barrier...Max HP is 4 and Attack is 2. It also shoots rings of energy from its mouth...You can't break its barrier, but you can flip to get places it might not want you to..." Tippi informed.
"Hmmmmmm… I have an idea!" Chopper pulled Flippay out and he used his powers to make the Barribad dizzy, breaking its barrier. "All right! Now we can take care of this monster!"
With one simple stomp, Chopper managed to take out the enemy and walk over to the chest. He found a Dimension Key. The name of it reminded him of that clown who ruined his gloves and sneakers…
"Well… Looks like we're gonna need to go back to that room we were in before going into 3-D. Boy, this is going to be FUN." Sonic groaned as the three of them made their way back to the room.
Back at the room-
Making their way through the door, they noticed these pig-like enemies sliding along the ground. They ended up bumping into it after taking two steps, which forced Chopper to find out what this enemy was with Tippi's powers.
"This bizarre beast is called a Pigarithm. Everything about it is just...odd... Max HP is ?. Attack is 4. It takes three stomps to finish off this piggy... But each stomp makes it smaller and faster... It's very hard to stomp the last one... Pigarithms often drop many coins, so you may want to hunt them if you're broke..."
"A Pigarithm? That's a weird name for this piggy…" Chopper started off by stomping on the Pigarithm, making it turn a bit smaller. With another stomp, it turned into a small, pink version, but it was a bit fast for him to catch.
"Poyo! (Oof! This thing is so hard to catch!)" Kirby attempted to inhale it, but it was a bit too far for him to get. In the end, the Pigarithm was defeated by Chopper's sweeping kick attack.
"We still have another one to take," Sonic fought the other Pigarithm on his own, but he did it a lot more easily then Chopper. Three Spin Jumps managed to take this enemy out and bring him over to the wall.
"I think we need to flip for this part…" Tippi trailed as she followed Chopper up the stairs after flipping into 3-D. He flipped back when he made it to the top, only to find two Pigarithms on the ground AND the ceiling.
"Whoa, wait a minute… Why is there enemies on the CEILING?! This is just…weird." Sonic gaped.
"And we also have a locked door," Chopper mentioned after taking a Pigarithm out. Since Kirby didn't have a chance, he finished off the Pigarithm over by the locked door with Carrie.
"Poyo… (Now I feel better…but now I see a locked door right beside me…)" Kirby trailed.
"Then I'll take care of that!" Chopper pulled the Dimension Key out and he opened the door with it. When they walked into the door, they came out of a door up on the ceiling, to their surprise.
"Weird… I feel like I've seen something like this before…" he trailed.
"Remember in Starlite Galaxy? We had to go through an intense gravity part. It was a bit of a pain…" Sonic remarked.
"That's not what I'm thinking about, Sonic…" Chopper started to think about Star Haven when he was in that whole gravity world. "I'm thinking more about Gravity Way than Starlite Galaxy, Sonic… There wasn't A LOT of gravity around there, except for that Gravity Gadget place, but yeah… That's really it, I think."
Before Chopper could think of anything else, he got hit by a Pigarithm. This ended up making him attack the enemy with three kicks. Sonic finished the other Pigarithm over by the door with a Spin Dash, Homing Attack and a Spin Jump. They then proceeded through the door.
They found themselves in another strange-looking room. They were standing on a wall, but the pathway they had to move was going up the wall. Looking up (from their view), they saw a door above them.
Moving up sideways, they found a door down some big steps, but if they went up a bit more by moving higher, they could find another door. This is where Kirby used his floating ability to get to the door. He immediately helped the other two by using his inhaling.
"Whoa… What a strange room." Chopper gaped as they walked into a room with small steps leading down and a couple of Tileoid R and Y's roaming around. But after flipping, they found a little pathway that leads down below these platforms.
"Looks like we have a door that's on the ceiling… That's just great…" groaned Sonic.
"Maybe this block will do something," Chopper looked at the black arrowed block going up and down. After punching it, the gravity began to change. "Holy… We just defied gravity with a block!"
Going up the stairs on the ceiling, they walked into the door to a room they were previously in before – but upside down. It was the room with the Slow Flower that they founded.
"Looks like I can reach that gap with a Homing Attack," Sonic immediately crossed the gap with a Homing Attack, but he didn't find anything when he reached the wall. "Great… There's nothing here!"
"That's because I need to be over there, Sonic," Chopper grumbled as he managed to get across by using Carrie. He then threw his arms up in the air to flip so they could see the door on the wall.
"Squirps said that this place would make you feel confused…" Tippi trailed. "I, for one, am not feeling confused…"
Entering the next room, they found themselves on the ceiling on a room with a door on the floor, a hidden pipe behind a platform and a locked door to the right on the floor. Luckily, they saw a chest up ahead, so they quickly opened it to find a Dimension Key.
"Uh oh… Do we seriously have to go all the way back AGAIN?!" Chopper gaped after holding the key in his hands.
"It appears so… But I don't think it will be as bad as getting to this part…" Tippi commented.
Back over by the room where they were on the walls-
"Seriously, this place is so WEIRD! We've gone through MANY things around this area that I don't really understand!" Chopper shouted as they jumped down the gap that the previously crossed to find a door.
"Poyo! (Hey! Maybe this door will take us over to that wall that's over there!)" Kirby immediately walked through the door and, to his surprise, he was over on the wall that he said he'd be on.
"Well I'm not surprised on that. I just hope that we make it there in time…" Sonic mumbled.
"In time for what?" Tippi questioned.
"I don't know… In time to get the Pure Heart before one of Tipral's minions come and attack? I mean, we haven't run into ANY of Tipral's minions yet! I think they're waiting for us…"
Chopper pondered. "Hmmmmm… You DO have a point there, Sonic… But, we'll see when the time comes." He walked through the door, along with Sonic to go onto the wall Kirby's on.
When they crossed the end of the room, they walked into the door to find the same area that they found the key. Only this time, they were on the floor instead of the ceiling. Now they could unlock that door they previously couldn't unlock themselves.
"First, let me see what's down that pipe," Chopper flipped into 3-D so he could make his way down the pipe. The only thing he saw was a row of coins and a coin block.
After collecting the coins and hitting the coin block a couple of times, he returned to his friends and they immediately unlocked the door with the Dimension Key, taking them to a new room.
"Oh, it's just another one of those blocks," Chopper hit the block to allow themselves to go upside down. Across the end of this floor was another block that he hit to bring them back to the floor.
"Poyo? (Hey, wasn't there a door here or something?)" Kirby questioned as he pointed to a white, empty space shaped like a door.
"Yeah, you're right, Kirby… I'm gonna find a way to discover this door…" Chopper used Tippi's powers to find the hidden door.
"There's a hidden door here… I'll make it visible for you…" Tippi made the door visible so they could walk into a large room shaped like a square. They found more of those Hooligons on the ground.
"Poyo! (I got these guys!)" Kirby jumped on Carrie and attacked the Hooligons' heads, defeating them. "Poyo… (Uhhhh… Now I see another one of those blocks…)"
When Kirby hit the block, all three of them landed on the wall instead of the ceiling. "Poyo. (That block was a bit strange. There was a curved white arrow on it instead of the up and down arrow.)"
They found a couple of more Hooligons on the wall as they moved up, but they were soon defeated by Chopper's own feet. They noticed a locked door up on the ceiling after hitting the black block that was nearby.
"Oh, boy… I guess we're gonna have to find another key if we're going to get through here…" Sonic groaned.
"There there, my blue friend… Everything's going to be OK." Chopper assured. "I know that there will be a mountain of food to cheer us up. …And by us, I mean me and my tummy."
Sonic face palmed as he followed him and Kirby to the next black arrow block on the ceiling to the right. They then went down on the wall to a door that led them into a room with a chest on the ceiling and ? Blocks on the ground.
Taking the door on the wall, they founded themselves on the ground by the three ? Blocks.
"All right, let's see what we got in these things!" Chopper smirked as he hit the first one. A Super Shroom came out. "YES! We have some food! I KNEW that I would find food here!"
After splitting it up, they all ate their piece to recover 20 HP. Chopper then hit the next ? Block, only to have a Zombie Shroom pop out and scurry all over the place.
"What in the world is that?" questioned Sonic, pointing to the Zombie Shroom.
"Oh, that? That's a Zombie Shroom. It just moves all over the place and can be defeated like this." Chopper defeated the Zombie Shroom with a mere kick. "I thought this thing would jump on me and eat my brains."
The other ? Block contained another Super Shroom. Knowing that they were fully healed, they didn't need to have it, but they took it anyway just to get some more points. They then walked into the door and appeared on the ceiling.
"All right, let's get that key!" Chopper jumped down the steps and claimed the Dimension Key. "OK, I'm PRETTY sure that we're gonna be done with this place soon…"
Locked door-
"OK… Here it goes…" Chopper pulled the Dimension Key out and unlocked the door, leading all three of them into a small room with a door on the ground to the left, a Save Block and a black arrow block.
Once he hit the black block, they all landed on the ground. This allowed him to hit the Save Block next, saving his game.
"All right… Here we go!" Chopper smiled, kicking the door open. "Let's go!"
The three instantly ran into the room in hopes of finally reaching the end of the Whoa Zone.