When they walked inside, they found the interior to be massive, even if there was only one room inside. Looking down below, they noticed the floor was made of ice, and there were a couple of statues on the walls that were frozen. There was one statue up ahead that resembled a tornado with tornadoish arms and eyes. On its arms were pots with blue flames.
"This place is huge!" Berry gaped, her voice echoing through the room.
Taking out the Magical Map, Chopper noticed it was glowing. "Whoa... I think we're right where we want to be!"
"Who are you people?!"
Everyone paused for a moment and noticed a cold, swirling wind appear in the room. It ended up becoming faster until it formed into a large, icy tornado figure that was dark purple and had orange eyes. Just going near this figure, it would be twenty degrees colder!
"That's...Wintrino?" Scrub gawked. "But he's some tornado figure! He doesn't look like anything cold..."
"Who are you people, and why are you intruding upon my temple?" the figure roared. "You are not wanted here, so I suggest you all leave immediately, or suffer my icy wrath!"
"So..." Chopper trailed, stepping a little closer to the icy tornado figure. "Are you, by any chance, Wintrino?"
"That is my given name," Wintrino nodded. "I am the Winter God that rules these snowy lands! If you've come here to end my blizzard, I'm afraid you are most unwise!"
"We came here looking for a gem called the Crystal Star."
"Crystal Star? You mean this?" Wintrino held up a snow white Crystal Star.
"Yeah... That's it." Chopper nodded.
Wintrino looked at the star for a moment and then back at Chopper. Holding his hand in front of the boy, he fired an icy orb toward him. Chopper gasped and got out of the way just in time.
"Foolish mortal! Why would I give up something so beautiful and powerful for me to conjure up blizzards?!"
"But... You're supposed to be a good guy, right? Why would you-" Chopper paused for a moment, remembering what one of the spirits told him. "Oh, right! Wintrino's being possessed! This really isn't him!"
Chopper turned to his seven friends. "Guys, this isn't actually Wintrino. He's being possessed by some dark power."
"Poyo? (Really?)" Kirby gawked.
"Yeah! We need to take him on and try to at least eliminate this dark power from him! I'm guessing giving him some good whacks might actually work..."
"Wait, you want us to take him on?! Are you out of your mind?!" Berry gaped. "How can we take on someone like him?"
"I fought against the God of the Stars before and won..." Chopper trailed, slowly turning back to Wintrino in a fighting stance. "Gods aren't necessarily invincible... It's possible to beat them."
"I agree with Chopper. I think we can do this." Vivian stated. "I mean, if we at least deal some damage to him, he might finally come back to his senses..."
Everyone eventually agreed and got in a fighting stance as well. Wintrino just stared at them and began to laugh.
"Brrrrah ha ha ha ha! You mortals obviously think you can take on an immortal? How laughable!" Wintrino mocked. "Everyone knows that you cannot win against a god!"
"Well if I can take one of, then we can surely take YOU on!" Chopper declared, conjuring up a fireball.
"You people are shrimps compared to my size! There's no way you'll win! However, I will not back down. If it's a fight you want, then I will give you a fight! Perhaps you will all regret your decision of leaving when I turn you into frozen popsicles."
Mario: Not a chance!
"I see... You are all very brave...yet very foolish."
Tattle: That's Wintrino, the God of Winter season. Wow… He looks so dark and evil at this point! It's actually a bit creepy... Max HP is 110, Attack is 10, and Defense is 1. He'll try to freeze you with his ice attacks, and he might even summon icicles to fall down on you. Use anyone that can hit multiple enemies and also hit things on the ceiling. Your Quake Hammer might work pretty well. Though, I have to wonder how someone like Wintrino was so easily possessed. I mean, gods don't get possessed so easily, y'know?
"All right... He's an ice god, right? Well, I wonder how he'll like fire!" Chopper smirked, throwing the fireball at Wintrino. He cringed from the heat, but it was something he easily shook off. Vivian made her move next and left a scorching punch on Wintrino thanks to her Shade Fist, causing him to get burned.
"Fire... Ugh, fire has always been a pain for me to endure, but a small amount of flames will not save you." Wintrino declared, creating an ice orb in his hands. He fired it directly at Chopper, who guarded it just in time to prevent himself from being frozen. "Hmmmm... Impressive. But it will not be enough to save you!"
Wintrino cringed once again as he was damaged by Vivian's burn. Chopper took this opportunity to jump in the air and attack him with a Fire Stomp. Afterward, Kirby attacked with his Cartwheel and brought him down to 89 HP.
Raising his arms, Wintrino summoned icicles to hang from the ceiling, followed by his eyes flashing. Mario suddenly found himself frozen from an icy lightning strike.
"Mario!" Chopper cried.
"As usual, people such as yourself are weak to my ice attacks," Wintrino scoffed.
"Well, we know what you can't stand!" Chopper equipped his Fire ability and began to breathe fire on Wintrino. Afterward, Vivian raised her finger and used her Fiery Jinx to melt the icicles and deal more fire damage to Wintrino.
Snapping his finger, a large blizzard had come into the room and managed to strike the group. Thankfully, they did not freeze, but Chopper ended up losing his Fire ability because of that.
"Ugh... That was intense." Chopper gawked, blinking for a brief moment before getting back in a fighting position. "But we're not backing down just yet!"
Once Wintrino got hurt from being burned, Chopper decided to attack him with a Power Bounce. He managed to hit him about seven times, dealing 8 damage. Berry used her Ruby Throw on Wintrino next, leaving him with 62 HP.
"It seems as though I underestimated you all..." Wintrino trailed. "But neither have I unveiled my true strength!"
He closed his eyes, and soon a dark, icy aura surrounded him. "I cannot give you any mercy now. You will all witness my true power!"
Wintrino opened his eyes and clenched his fists, causing him to raise his Attack power by 10. While that happened, he took damage from getting burned, and Mario had become unfrozen, taking 1 damage in the process.
Mario: What happened?
"Poyo, (That god just raised his Attack,)" Kirby said in a worried voice. "Poyo? (How can we stop that?)"
"By hiding, of course," Chopper replied, leaping in the air and attacking Wintrino with a Fire Stomp. "OK, Vivian! You can hide us in the shadows now!"
Vivian nodded and successfully pulled them all into the shadows. With them safe, Wintrino unleashed his full power and fired a large, dark ice pulse around the whole room. Thankfully, they managed to avoid the attack and emerged from the shadows. However, that didn't stop Wintrino from spinning and charging straight into all the heroes. To his luck, the burn wore off.
"We're over halfway done with this guy," Chopper noticed. "I think we've got this!"
"I know of a way to quicken this process," Shadower suggested as he hit Wintrino with a Shadow Punch. "Use a Spring Jump, all right?"
Chopper nodded and launched himself into the air. Wintrino looked up for a moment, but was not expecting him to fall on him and deal 12 damage. To retaliate, he created a large hammer made of ice and brought it down on him.
"That looked painful," Bombette winced.
"Ungh... Yeah, it is..." Chopper moaned. "Geez... I could go down pretty soon! I think I seriously need to heal up!"
"I think you can hold on for a moment," Scrub assured. "Right now, I'm going to give him a little something!"
Scrub fluttered above Wintrino and attacked with his Ground Pound, while Chopper reduced him to 23 HP with his Spin Jump. When Wintrino tried to attack him with his fist, he found himself low on HP.
"Oh, man... This doesn't look too good." Chopper groaned. Though he was close to 0 HP, there was no way he was going to go down to soon. He took out the Sapphire Star and began to hurl stars at depictions of himself, his partners, and some flowers that were floating down to recover some HP and FP. He was luckily able to recover 35 HP, while some of his partners recovered around 20. Chopper even received 18 FP as well. "OK, I think this should be enough to last this fight."
Bombette ran up to Wintrino and exploded, bringing him down to 18 HP. Wintrino himself was started to feel exhausted as well.
"You mortals are very strong... Much stronger than I expected..." Wintrino panted. "But I will never give you the star. It is rightfully mine."
Wintrino created a sword made of ice and swung it at all eight heroes. Thankfully, they took less damage by guarding it, but they ended up taking 11 damage in the end, which was no laughing matter.
Chopper clenched his fists and tossed a fireball toward Wintrino, and to get back at him for freezing him, Mario whipped out his hammer and brought it down on the winter god.
Wintrino found himself limping, now having 8 HP left. But even as a god, he couldn't back down so soon. Standing up straight, he snapped his finger and created another blizzard. The heroes guarded it, taking 9 damage in the process instead.
"All right, this is it!" Chopper smirked, landing a jump on Wintrino. When he had jumped back to his friends, Kirby attacked him with his Cartwheel and ended the fight.
Before Wintrino could say anything, his eyes widened in pain as a bright light had enveloped him and caused an explosion, awarding Chopper and his friends 43 Star Points. Chopper even leveled up and chose to upgrade his BP to 36.
With Wintrino finally defeated, he collapsed onto the ground, the dark power in him slowly fading away. His dark purple appearance had finally changed back to snow white.
"So... We finally did it." Chopper sighed.
"You think he'll be all right?" Scrub asked.
"He doesn't appear to be possessed, though, so I think we did it."
The snow white Crystal Star ended up dropping from Wintrino and landed right in front of the heroes.
"The Crystal Star!" Berry gasped.
"Ye know what to do with that, matey!" Bombette recalled.
Chopper gave her a nod and walked over to the star. Upon touching it, it began to circle around Chopper and float above him. He then happily held it above him as usual.
You got a Crystal Star! Your Star Power is now 11! And Chopper can learn the special move Blizzard!
END OF CHAPTER!
The evil within the Winter God Wintrino has been defeated by Chopper and his friends, and peace will now be restored to Snowy Mountain! With ten Crystal Stars in hand, Chopper is halfway done with his adventure! However, even with ten stars, the heroes soon found themselves wondering about a few things. Were the X-Nauts finally gone? And what is Tipral planning? Chopper had a feeling the rest of his adventure would not be as easy as he thought.
"Mmmmmrgh…"
Everyone paused for a moment when they heard the winter god moan. Turning around, they saw Wintrino slowly get up. Though the dark power was gone, they all stood guard, preparing for any attack.
"Whoa... What the heck just happened?" Wintrino slowly looked around and noticed eight heroes looking up at him. "Say, did you guys do that?"
"Do what?" Chopper gawked.
"You know! That dark power that somehow got into me!"
"Oh... Yeah."
Then, suddenly the unexpected. "Oh, MAN! I can't believe you dudes managed to do that! You wouldn't believe how annoying it was to be possessed like that!"
Everyone else: ?
"What? You never saw someone who likes to be so awesome? It's not like I have to take my job seriously, you know."
"But... Wait... What?" Chopper gawked.
Mario: Mama mia...
"So, I take it you wanted that Crystal Star, right?" Wintrino asked. Chopper was about to answer, but he already beat him to it. "Just go ahead and take it, my man. I don't even like guarding that dang thing. It ain't fun, ya hear me?"
"Wow... He's...just giving it to us like that?" Vivian asked with uncertainty.
"You wouldn't BELIEVE how annoying it is to guard that dang thing! I don't even know why those other gods thought it was a good idea for me to hold it. They always call me 'irresponsible', 'irritating', and one who can't keep his mouth shut. Let me tell you! I remember this one time a couple of centuries ago when I was speaking to Heus about my role as a god, and many others were mad... And you wouldn't BELIEVE how much I loved eating chilly dogs!"
Several hours later-
"...And then you guys saved me," Wintrino finished, turning back to the heroes, who were currently sleeping. "Hold on... Is it nap time?"
Hearing that, everyone instantly woke up. "Oh... You guys are awake. Took you long enough."
Mario, being the most awake of the eight, asked him about getting possessed.
"You wanna know how I got possessed? Well... Errr... I guess it has to do with me not having that strong of a godly brain. You see, when a god has a stronger brain, the more likely they won't be controlled. Personally, I don't even care about that. I'm fine the way I am!"
"OK... Thanks for all of that." Chopper mumbled. "Well, we need to get out of here. Do you know any shortcut out of here?"
"No, but I do have a technique that I can do!" Wintrino's orange eyes flashed, and soon a large snowflake appeared and scooped the eight off the ground. "That'll take you back to Fahr Outpost, all right? Just make sure you don't leave a dent on that thing, 'cause I polish that thing constantly!"
"Got it!" Chopper nodded as the large snowflake flew out of the temple by crashing through the wall. Wintrino appeared to be proud as he turned away and began to go into a deep sleep. That is, until he realized something.
"I...don't think I should've made a hole through this temple."