CHAPTER 6-3
-Venturing the Flying Pyramid-
Now that our heroes were back outside, they knew they still had many ways to go. They also knew that they still had little time to move after fighting against the shape-shifting girl, Mimi, who really didn't come to destroy them. All she did was distract them long enough so that they would have even less time to get to the Pure Heart…wherever that may be at this moment. Chopper was starting to feel bad for this world, now that it was coming close to destruction.
"Poor, poor Desert Oasis…" Chopper said in agony while he stopped over by a Cactin and striking it with his needle attack. "Why does this world have to end immediately? The other worlds aren't even ending like this! …Seriously, the world doesn't NEED to end! The only time the world ends is when the sun explodes or something like that! …But it doesn't look like it now."
"Poyo. (This place seems to offer a lot more stuff than Desert Sands. Such a shame that this world has to go, though…)" Kirby trailed, looking up at The Void.
"Ugh… Don't even remind me about Desert Sands." Chopper frowned, remembering when he had to deal with the girl of his species, Berry. "Thinking about that place makes me remember...those!"
"Pbbbbbbth! You seriously FEAR those things?! Come on, man! They're not going to harm you!" Sonic burst out in laughter.
Tippi, being impatient, began to tug at Chopper's antennae. "Chopper! We don't have time to talk about this! The world is slowly starting to end! Haven't you seen something like this?!"
"…As a matter of fact, I believe I did," Chopper responded, turning to the rainbow Pixl. "But I don't wanna talk about that place right now. We still need to find a Pure Heart somewhere in this desert."
"I can feel that we're getting closer to the Pure Heart… It seems as if…it's in some sort of castle…"
"Man, this feels like Lineland Road all over again!" Chopper sighed, remembering those times when he was alone. But being alone wasn't technically a good thing then. "Anyway, moving on."
After jumping over a pit of quicksand, they began to feel some shaking coming from the ground. At first, Chopper thought that a brother of Dracktail was going to show up and attack, but it was something else.
A large, brown muscular beetle-like enemy rose from the ground, ready to put up a fight against the heroes.
"What in the world is THAT?" Blade questioned.
"I'll check using Tippi's powers," Chopper replied as he scanned the strange beetle-like enemy. He didn't know what this thing's name was, but he was going to call it a Muscle-head until he finds out what it's called.
"This is a Sand Beetle. This bug loves to live under the sand for the most part… Max HP is 22. Attack is 5. Defense is 2. They usually try to attack you by going underground and shooting themselves out of the ground to strike you… They can also fly around to avoid some ground attacks, so try to strike them with something that you can use in the air if they do that… Make sure they don't grab you, or else you're going to be in some big trouble…" Tippi informed.
"Oh, wow…" Blade drew his katana out. "Then it looks like we have some major butt-kicking to deal to this bug thing!"
Blade immediately charged at the Sand Beetle with a slash from his katana. He was able to make a couple of clones of himself so the Sand Beetle would end up hitting one of the clones with its sharp-bladed arm.
"Wrong one, bucko!" Blade smirked as he sliced at the Sand Beetle again. Unfortunately, he was soon struck by the Sand Beetle's arm, knocking him to the ground.
"We'll finish this up," Chopper tossed a fireball at the Sand Beetle's back, drawing its attention to him. It flew over to Chopper in an attempt to hit him, but he immediately ducked like a pancake and struck it with his needles.
Blade got himself up and made a dash at the Sand Beetle. Using his katana, he sliced both of its sharp-bladed arms off, leaving it defenseless against any of their attacks.
"And this is how you finish this thing off!" Blade stabbed the beetle behind it's back, knocking it to the ground while it held a white flag up. Its body began to sink back down into the sand.
"Looks like it gave up and let us win the battle," Chopper smirked as he jumped over a pipe with a Desert Piranha in it. He simply beat it down with a spinning kick attack before going over to the door.
"We're finally at the door? Wow… I'm not surprised." Sonic said as they walked into the next area, which had a slope going down with some slippery sand. It reminded Sonic of Sandopolis for some reason.
"Hey! I think we can slide down that easily! Let me check…" Sonic stepped on the sand going down the slope and it immediately brought him down without any problems. There was another slope filled with slippery sand going down to the left.
"Poyo! (Hey! That sounds like fun!)" Kirby squealed as he slid down the sand next, following Sonic down to the bottom of the area.
"Meh, might as well follow them," Chopper shrugged as he slid down the two sandy slides to the bottom, where they saw a big stump and a door made of stone that was blocking the way.
"Guess it's time for me to hit this thing, right?" Sonic performed a corkscrew on the stump with Screwdy's ability to make the stone door collapse, allowing them to go to some quicksand with some platforms on top of them.
"Looks like we need to cross this quicksand to get over to the door. Fair enough." Chopper jumped on the stone platforms, which began to sink as he stood on them long enough. But, he managed to make it over to the door.
Kirby simply floated over the quicksand to make things easier while Sonic and Blade jumped across the quicksand by using the platforms. When they made it to the door, they pressed on ahead.
It was a lot flatter than the other area they walked in. This one had a lot of enemies roaming around, on the other hand…but there were a couple of Brick Blocks around this place as well, with one ? Block being close to them.
"Let's check and see what we got here," Chopper punched the ? Block, making a Mega Star pop out. "Whoa! A Mega Star!"
Everyone tried to snatch the item, but it was Chopper who managed to get a hold of it first. He transformed into a giant 8-bit version of himself and then moved on ahead, trampling all of the Bandits, Pokeys, Sand Bugs and Sand Beetles in his way.
"Now THIS is fun!" he said cheerfully until he got to the door, where he turned back to his normal size. "Awwww! That's not fair!"
Tippi urged Chopper to open the door after looking at The Void. He waited until his friends came, then he opened the door to the next area, which led into another similar area as the other, only with some Bandits rushing at them.
"Whoa!" Chopper immediately brought his needles up to knock the Bandits back before they could snatch his coins. Sonic immediately finished them off with a simple Spin Dash.
"That takes care of them!" Sonic smirked as he made a pose…until a Poison Pokey struck the blue hedgehog with part of its body, poisoning him.
"Allow me to help you," Piccolo flew over to Sonic and began to play a song that sounded like the Green Hill Zone theme. Not only did it heal Sonic of the poison, but it also put the Poison Pokey to sleep.
"OK, I'll handle this thing," Blade pulled a couple of shurikens out and tossed them at the Poison Pokey. He finished it off with a slice from his katana before seeing a sand pit up ahead.
Before they could jump over it, a Sand Bug came out and spat a poison ball at the heroes. Kirby immediately inhaled it and spat it at the Sand Bug, while Chopper hurled a couple of fireballs at it, defeating it.
Up ahead they noticed a large, violet colored platform shaped like an upside-down triangle. It was right below this weird kind of ship. It almost looked like it was…a flying pyramid?
"What in the world? What's a flying pyramid doing here?" Chopper questioned. "Oh, forget it… We might as well see what's in here."
They all jumped onto the violet pyramid-shaped platform upside-down and it began to take them inside of the ship. They knew for a fact that it was going to be a lot different than the underground area.
Inside-
"Poyo! (Whoa! Look at THIS place!)" Kirby gaped as the platform continued to take them up. The walls looked pretty futuristic and there were cannons on the walls that were shooting blue blasts of energy at them.
"Whoa! Incoming!" Blade deflected the shots back at the cannons with his katana, but they didn't seem to get destroyed.
"You can't defeat those cannons… All you can do is avoid them…" Tippi informed.
"Then time to use our dodging skills! …Whatever that may be." Chopper began to dodge the lasers being shot at him. He didn't want to do some kind of dance, because that would look plain silly.
They were soon taken to another room, where they saw these moving platforms of yellow and hot pink color. Some of them began to go into the wall, where there was a glowing color of that kind of platform. There was also a U-shaped wall with a ? Block inside of it in the center.
"We gotta jump up those at the right moment," Chopper stated as he began to jump up onto the yellow platform that was moving. Everyone else followed him onto the platform and waited for the hot pink one to move to the left so they could jump on it.
"Why do we have to do all of this jumping? It's really hurting my legs!" Blade whined as he continued to jump up the platforms with the others.
"Oh, would you quit your whining already, Blade?" Sonic suggested. "We're almost there, so quit with the whining already."
"Yup, we made it up!" Chopper jumped onto a platform that was near a passageway above them leading into the next area. "First, I wanna see what's in that ? Block."
Chopper jumped down to the ? Block, where he smashed it with his hammer to get a Mushroom. He grabbed it and split it into four and then brought it up to the others to help them recover 10 HP.
They immediately moved on up to the next area, where they found a small, dark room with nothing around them. But it did seem that this room DID hold some sort of purpose…
"Poyo. (Hmmmm… Nothing's really here, so we should just go on ahead.)" suggested Kirby as he walked over to the doorway ahead.
Chopper shrugged and followed him into the next room. But what they found were a couple of buttons. There was one of a tree, star, raindrop, moon, sun, carrot and cloud. Yet, the ladder leading up to the doorway ahead was locked.
"I don't know which ones we're supposed to hit!" Chopper frowned, looking at the switches while holding his hammer. "It's hard to judge which ones are the ones needed to be hit."
"Why don't we check back in the other room? It was dark in there…but maybe we should check in there…" suggested Tippi.
"Might as well," Sonic shrugged as he walked back into the dark room with everyone else.
"Wait a minute… Maybe your powers can see through the dark!" Chopper used Tippi's powers to scan the whole area. On the walls, he saw a tree, sun and raindrop.
"These symbols… I don't know where they came from… But, these symbols might be here for a reason…" pondered Tippi.
"Ah-HA!" Chopper had a light bulb appear over his head as he rushed back into the other room. "We gotta hit the buttons of that symbol on the wall!"
Grabbing his hammer, he slammed it down on the tree, sun, and raindrop button. This triggered the doorway up the ladder to open up, and also allow them to move to the next room.
"Whoa… Take a look at THIS place!" Blade gaped as they climbed up the ladder into the next room. They could actually see some windows in the big room. However, The Void is really what they could only see through the window.
"I wish we could actually see the sky…" Chopper frowned as he walked up the steps. They seemed to be in checkered colors such as orange, green, blue and pink. There were also some blue diamond enemies that shoot these green blasts on energy called Diams.
"This'll be easy," Chopper smirked as he walked on the glowing violet platform, only to lose his Needle ability when the Diam struck him with one of its lasers. "Ack! My Needle ability!"
Alas, it was too late. The yellow star containing his ability fell down the bottomless pit below them. There wasn't anything he could really do about it anyway.
"Dang… Guess we're gonna have to press on without that." he sighed as he and his friends took the platform up to some more platforms of checkered colors, where they saw another violet platform moving from left and right.
"This looks pretty simple, to be honest," Sonic stated bluntly as he walked over to the violet platform. The others barely made it over to the pink-checkered platform that a Diam was floating above.
Chopper simply took the Diam out by inhaling it and spitting it out before another violet platform that was moving down came down for them to take, allowing them to go higher up in the room.
Landing on the orange-checkered platform, they waited for a violet platform over by their left to come to them. There was another one of these platforms that they walked onto next until they walked onto a green-checkered platform.
"Poyo… (Man… Is this the last one?)" Kirby asked, pointing to the cylinder-shaped platform while panting.
"It seems to take us higher up in the room, so I guess so…" Chopper panted as he stepped onto the platform. At that moment, they were taken up into a small room with a large Diam floating in the room.
"Oh, great… Don't tell me we have to fight THAT thing." Blade groaned, drawing his katana. "Is my weapon even GOING to deal any damage to this thing? …Unless I use an elemental attack with it."
At that moment, his katana was surrounded in fire energy as he sliced at the large Diam. We'll call it a Mega Diam, OK? That sounds like a good name for it. Anyway, Blade was able to slice through it, but it didn't exactly beat it.
Kirby noticed a regular Diam appeared above him, so he inhaled it and spat it out at the Mega Diam. Sonic followed up by using a Homing Attack on it, knocking it over to the wall.
"How much HP does this thing even have? …Meh, it doesn't make a difference. We should just beat this thing down!" Chopper smirked as he inhaled a normal Diam and spat it out at the Mega Diam. He then followed up by jumping over to it and using a slamming kick attack to knock it to the ground.
Once the Mega Diam floated back up, Kirby jumped on Carrie and then jumped on the Diam, destroying it with two jumps and allowing them to go up the ladder through the next area.
Next area-
"Huh… So there are two poles we can climb up…" Chopper grabbed the yellow pole to his left and he began to climb up. He noticed that there were some small platforms between the two poles and some over to the left.
"Poyo! (Watch out, Chopper!)" Kirby shrieked as he saw a circular-shaped electric spark with a face moving up the pole to Chopper.
"What the…" Chopper looked down at the electric enemy, making his antennae spring up. He immediately jump on one of the platforms to avoid the electric shock. "Dang! Why are there these guys here?"
"I'm not so sure… But I don't think you can defeat them…" Tippi informed. "The only thing you can do is avoid them…"
"Avoid them? Well that's just great…" Chopper waited for the others to make their way up the pole. Sonic ended up getting shocked, but it wasn't a big deal. Well, at least to HIM it wasn't a big deal.
After climbing up for about two minutes, they made it to the highest point of the Flying Pyramid. They were only in a control room with no enemies around. They could see what was going on outside, but there REALLY wasn't anything out there.
"Hmmmm… So where do we have to go now?" Blade asked.
"Over there!" Tippi looked over at the escape pods up ahead.
"Well, that looks like a way out of here," Sonic rushed over to the escape pod, which apparently was big enough for everyone to fit in, so everyone else rushed into it (including the Pixls).
"Hold on tight, guys… This COULD get a bit bumpy." the blue hedgehog warned as the escape pod began to take off further through the desert.
Somewhere in the desert-
When the escape pod door opened up, the four heroes walked out of the pod, stretching their arms and legs when they set foot on the sand. They noticed there was some rubble over by their left.
"Hold on, guys! We've found them!" the heroes turned, only to find some Dark Soldiers aiming their guns at them.
"Dark Creatures?! What are THEY doing here?!" Blade exclaimed, drawing his katana out once again.
"Well well well! If it isn't the heroes! We never thought that you'd make it THIS far! …But it doesn't matter now. We've got you where we want you!" the Dark Soldiers began to fire rapidly at them.
"Whoa!" Chopper immediately jumped over the blasts that were being fired at him and stomped on one of the Dark Soldiers, performing a stylish move before slamming his foot on the alien.
Sonic decided to use a Spin Dash to knock the Dark Soldiers away with ease, and also making his way to the door up ahead as well.
"Hold on, Sonic… We might wanna freshen up first." Chopper suggested, hitting the ? Block over by them. A Super Shroom came out, so they immediately split it to recover 20 HP.
"OK, NOW we can go to the next area," he announced, opening the door for everyone to go in. They found another desert area with nothing around. It…was actually a pretty small area at the very least.
"Ah, so you finally show up, do you? I'm not too surprised."
All four heroes paused as they saw Dark Doom in the center of the area, waiting for them.
"Dark? YOU'RE here too?" Sonic gaped.
"How did you get out of prison?! …Don't tell me YOU'RE with Tipral, aren't you?!" Blade hissed, gripping his katana as hard as he could.
"Wait, you're another one of Tipral's minions…?" Tippi gawked. "…So O'Chunks, Mimi and Dimentio aren't the only ones on his side… And I suppose you guys met him before, is that right?"
Dark spread his cape out and let the wind blow through his cape. "So, you're one of Chopper's helpers, are you not? I guess this is the first time we've met. I am Dark Doom, the king of all Dark Creatures! …That is all."
"OK, look, can you just let us through? We don't have time for any of this. Just…get out of the way." Chopper was about to jump over Dark, but he grabbed his foot and slammed him to the ground.
"I don't think so! You're not going ANYWHERE! I'm trying to PREVENT you from going further, you know. Try that again, and I'm going to make it worse for you!"
"Ugh… It's just like before." Sonic groaned before walking up to Dark. "Fine. You wanna fight? Then bring it on!"
"Ah. Now THIS is what I've been looking for!" Dark grinned as he raised his arms, making his cape blow through the wind. "I've come prepared this time, so get ready!"
But before Dark could strike, Blade immediately rushed at him, slashing at him with his katana. "Ha! Now I've got you!"
Blade was about to strike him again, but Dark managed to grab a hold of Blade and elbow him in the stomach, making him gasp and fall to the ground.
"Now you know that you shouldn't mess with me," Dark brought his foot down on Blade's stomach again, making the ninja cat gasp for air.
Before he could shoot him with his blaster, Kirby immediately jumped on his head with the help of Carrie. "Why you little…! I'm going to get you for that!"
He aimed his blaster at Kirby and fired a blast at him, but the pink puffball was able to inhale the laser and spit it back at him instead, knocking him to the ground for a little while.
While he was on the ground, Chopper immediately used Tippi's powers to gather information on Dark, since he couldn't do it previously. She WAS in Francis's Fortress, after all.
"That's Dark Doom. He's one of Tipral's minions and king of the Dark Creatures… Max HP is 60. Attack is 5. Defense is 3. Dark will usually fight you with his martial arts skills or shoot you with his blaster if you're at a far range... He can dash at you if he wants, or he might even fired a Swift Strike or some meteors at you if he wants to. Those can be easy to dodge if you move fast, but they're not exactly the weakest attacks he has… They ARE strong. Very strong. And you say you've met him before, right? …If so, then this fight may not be too bad if you know his moves…" Tippi informed.
"I see… That's interesting…" Chopper immediately rushed toward Dark while he was getting up and landed a jump attack on his head, performing a stylish move while at it.
"Come back here you!" Dark tried to swipe at Chopper, but he was soon struck by a fireball. He used his cape to get rid of the flames on him, but that only got him knocked to the ground by a Spin Dash.
"Ack! So you think you can play tough, do you?! Think again!" Dark hissed as he shot Sonic with his blaster after he got out of his ball form, making rings fly all over the place.
"Hmmmm… You seem to have a lot of rings in your hands, do you? Apparently you don't lose them all from one hit." Dark kicked some of the rings away. "No matter… I'll still enjoy beating you!" (Just to let you know, the amount of HP Sonic has is kind of like the amount of rings he has, if any of you were curious about that)
Dark was about to shoot Sonic again, but he was soon struck in the face by a flaming spinning kick that Chopper delivered.
"I'm not done yet, Dark!" Chopper smirked as he began to spin his hammer around, hitting Dark multiple times with his hammer. Once he was finished, he got knocked away like a soccer ball.
"Aw, come on! Why am I ALWAYS getting knocked away like a soccer ball?!" Chopper exclaimed as he fell face flat on the sandy ground, spitting some sand out as he raised his head.
"Poyo! (Don't worry, Chopper! We'll take care of the rest!)" Kirby assured as he knocked Dark to the ground from behind with a little kick. Dark managed to grab Kirby's arm and slam him to the ground.
"Stupid little…" Dark grumbled before he was kicked in the face by Blade.
"You should've stayed in your prison, you stupid alien king!" Blade hissed, attempting to slash at him with his katana, only to have Dark duck and punch him in the stomach with his fist.
"I'll NEVER go back to that prison cell!" the Dark Creature king snarled as he bashed him in the head with his own head.
Blade was able to block his next move and kick him in the face with his foot. He then followed up by slashing him with his katana.
"If you're not going to go back to your prison cell, then I might as well finish you instead," Blade announced as he tried to stab him with his katana. Dark immediately kicked his shin
"OOF! …So this is how it feels like to get kicked in the shin…" he recalled, thinking about the times that Bang got hit in the shin. And it was quite common.
"Heh heh heh! Too easy!" the Dark Creature grinned as he got up and began to punch Blade in the face until he got hit in the face by Sonic's Homing Attack, knocking him over by the door.
"Leave him alone!" Sonic growled.
"Aw, did I hurt your cat friend?" Dark chuckled as he got himself up. He then brought the palms of his hands out. "En guarde! Swift Strike!"
Dark fired a red cutter boomerang straight at the blue hedgehog, who jumped up and came down at him from an angle with a kick. He then kicked Dark in the face, making him cringe.
"Hey! Who ever said I couldn't punch?" Sonic grinned as he grabbed Dark and began to beat him down with some Spin Dashes. But the Dark Creature king was able to push him off.
"Ugh… Is THIS what has to happen when we fight like this?!" he growled as he began to fire blasts from his pistol at Sonic, who began to dodge the blasts coming at him.
"Take this!" Sonic delivered another kick, but his leg was soon grabbed by Dark, allowing him to throw him to the ground harshly.
After Dark finished with Sonic, he summoned a couple of small meteors at the others. Chopper and Kirby, being good inhalers, inhaled the meteors and spat them out at Dark, stunning him for a couple of seconds.
"Well looks like we can wrap up this fight," Blade smirked as he rushed at Dark, slicing at him with his katana once again. But Dark managed to knock him away with a punch. He was extremely close to strangling him.
"No no, Dark, we're not going to choke people," Chopper scolded as he kicked Dark in the chest with a flaming kick. He then did an uppercut kick on him to send him up into the air.
"Allow me," Sonic said as he jumped up and struck him with a couple of dashes in the air until Dark fell to the ground.
"Ugh… I'm not done with you yet!" Dark fired two red blasts of energy at Chopper and Sonic. They were both lucky to dodge the attack, but Chopper simply threw it back at him by inhaling it.
"I don't think my Needle ability would've come in handy in this fight, honestly…" Chopper trailed as he rammed straight into Dark with his head.
"You… You…" Dark grumbled, his nose now bruised. "This isn't over yet!"
Well, it turns out that it WAS over for him when Sonic struck him with one more Spin Dash. That's when he finally gave in…but it didn't feel like he failed.
"Gah… So I was wrong…" Dark growled as he got up and rubbed his nose. "But that's not such a big deal. Oh, no… Why don't you look up at the sky? You might be surprised!"
Everyone looked up at the sky, gaping. "Oh, no… The Void has grown much bigger now!" Tippi shouted.
Dark grinned, revealing one of his fangs. "Heh heh heh heh heh! Don't you realize what I was even doing?! Just like Mimi, I was only trying to stall you! …And it turns out that it worked perfectly! Tipral's plan is absolutely FLAWLESS!"
"Tipral's plan? What does he intend to do?!" Chopper exclaimed, clenching his fists.
"Oh, nothing really…except to keep you here until this world gets swallowed up by The Void! ...But, now my work here is done. Have fun looking for the Pure Heart, you fools!"
With his ripped-up cape, he teleported out of the desert, leaving the heroes with worried looks upon their faces.
"No… NO… NOOOO!" Blade knelt down, pounding his fist on the sand. "I can't believe he got away!"
"We fell right into a trap! That green girl was only trying to stall us and so was he! …Now it seems like we're going to run out of time!"
Chopper walked over to Blade and smacked him across the face. "Get a hold on yourself, Blade! We can't be sitting here and crying over this! We just have to move FASTER! I'm sure we'll make it in time if we step on it!"
"Hold on… We're not too far now…" Tippi trailed, looking over to the door ahead. "If we take that door, we might find where the Pure Heart is… I can feel it…"
"Poyo! (What? Then we don't have time to lose!)" Kirby rushed over to the door, dragging the others along to the next area. All that they could see was a Star Block and a large sand castle up ahead.
"A sand castle? That's where the Pure Heart is? …I never expected a sand castle to be out in the desert. Isn't that more fitting for a beach?" Chopper raised an eyebrow. "Oh, forget it. Let's just go."
Running over to the Star Block, Chopper destroyed it with one punch.
END OF CHAPTER
Not only did Mimi stall the heroes, but Dark managed to stall them as well – and succeed. "I can't believe this world is soon going to be destroyed…" Chopper trailed as he opened the door to the sand castle. "It almost reminds me of when the darkness was enveloping on my home planet… It feels so sad with this world being completely destroyed." He couldn't tell exactly which was worse, but what mattered right now was that they had to search for the Pure Heart…somewhere in the depths of the Sand Castle.
I was hoping to update this earlier, but since my brother was hogging the computer, I couldn't get a chance to update it then. Yeah, I hate it when that happens.
Next up: Chopper, Kirby, Sonic and Blade venture through the Sand Castle, which is probably my second favorite part of this chapter...my favorite being the last part of this chapter (which we'll get to later on in Chapter 6). So, yeah... See you then. ^^