"Unnnggghhhh… What… What happened…?" Nastasia slowly opened her eyes and got herself up while picking up her glasses and putting them on. "Wait… Where am I? This isn't the castle…"
"Ah, I see you've waken up, Nastasia," Tipral was right on a different platform in this new place. "Welcome to my new palace. This place is somewhere in a different galaxy, which should probably interest you."
"What about the count?"
"Count Bleck? He and Tippi have left, apparently. However, the fight's not yet over. There are still a couple of Pure Hearts left to find throughout the universe. I'm going to need your help to help stop the heroes."
"What would you want me to do? All I'm usually good at doing is reminding people of what they need to do."
Tipral folded his arms. "Well, if you join me, I'll give you whatever you want. My scepter can give you something you've always wanted more than anything else in the world."
Nastasia pondered. "Well… I've always wanted to have a little desk in my room and a shelf with organized folders. If you could do that, I could probably help you, 'K?"
"…You should be surprised that for your room, I actually made that. It didn't take me very long, but I understood you were the secretary type of person, so I did that just for you."
"R-Really? Wow… I guess I should end up joining you. There really isn't much else to do, now that the count's gone…" Nastasia looked down at the dark purple platform in sadness. The center of the platform had a dark star in it, sort of symbolizing Tipral's dark side.
"We can go along with our plan without Count Bleck," Tipral pulled the Dark Prognosticus out. "I'm glad I finally got this back. It's been a while since I had my scepter and this book. Now we can finally move back to the dark prophecy!"
"You plan to use that book?"
"I've been using it ever since I've gotten my hands on it. I'm not quite finished yet, you know. Just because The Void is gone doesn't mean that I can destroy all worlds. I DO plan on returning back to it!"
Tipral pondered a bit and turned away from Nastasia. "But I realized something… I don't think I'll be able to stop Chopper with just you and the other three… I'm going to need more minions."
"Well what about the Pure Hearts? If I could recall, the tenth Pure Heart is somewhere…strange. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it's not as dark as this world is."
Nastasia looked at all of the stars inside of the large meeting room. The palace itself was sort of like Castle Tipral, but it didn't have white outlines like that place. There was also a large chandelier on the ceiling with black and purple flames lit up. The platforms themselves were glowing a light purple on the other part of them, but the inner part was dark.
"Hmmmmm… Now that I look at this place, it sort of reminds me of Castle Bleck… But this feels a bit darker than usual."
"That is because I made it so that it would be dark," Tipral explained. "Ever since I was trapped in a dimension for five months, I began to devise up a palace. Thanks to this weapon, I was able to create it easily! …Now where are the rest of the minions?"
O'Chunks, Mimi, Dark and Dimentio teleported in the room. O'Chunks looked exhausted, Mimi was fanning herself and Dark didn't do anything at all.
"Man… Packin' me stuff was a great pain in me tooshie!" O'Chunks panted. "Yeh don't know 'ow much gravy I had teh carry, along with me pile of meat!"
"Ewww! You smell bad, O'Chunks!" Mimi said in disgust. "Tippy! Make O'Chunks wash himself! I don't want to be around a smelly, big guy!"
"'Ey! Bein' smelly is pride fer me kind! Ever since I was a general in a great war, we men were meant teh be smelly!"
"Ah ha ha ha. Oh, my! That smell is rather contagious, my friend!" Dimentio chuckled.
"Yeah, like you would honestly care, meanie-head!" Mimi frowned.
"Guys, settle down. Now's not the time for arguing!" Tipral roared, making the minions shut up. "I've worked hard to devise this palace, and you should be thankful that I'm letting you stay here!"
"So, what fantastic plan are you thinking of this time?" Dimentio asked.
"I'll get straight to that, Dimentio," although he wiped Dimentio's memory clean of any of his devious plans, he still had that same personality and intelligence in him. "Now, minions… You realize that there are only four heroes, right?"
"Yeah, I know that."
"Of course I do, Tippy!"
"It's pretty obvious…"
"Do we plan on stopping them from getting the Pure Heart once again?"
"All four of you settle down," Nastasia suggested. "Go on, Tipral."
"You see… I've heard that there are still two more heroes left to find. We could easily be outnumbered if possible. So, that's why I'm planning on bringing more minions into our group. Ones that are strong, tough, intelligent, and strategic. If we do that, I can confirm that we will be able to defeat the heroes."
"So, yeh want us teh go teh the next world an' stop the heroes?" O'Chunks asked.
"No. I've already taken care of that." Tipral explained. "I was able to find someone else that I believed would be someone good to add to our group. As for the Pure Heart… He's taking care of that."
"What? You mean we have to stay here and let him take care of that?! No fair!" Mimi whined.
"Hush, Mimi. You probably want a break after that intense fight in my previous castle, do you not?"
"Well… Yeah…"
"Then you should go back to your room and relax."
"That's a good idea!" Mimi giggled as she teleported out of the room. She was probably going to write in her diary again.
"Hmmmmm… Perhaps I should get going!" Dimentio smirked as he teleported out of the room. But, what he really wanted to do was read Mimi's diary, like he usually does.
"So… When do we get to meet this new minion?" Dark asked.
"You'll get to meet him as soon as he finishes with Chopper and his group of friends," Tipral confirmed.
"I see… How…interesting."
Merlon's house-
"Man… I can't believe we've found the ninth Pure Heart!" Chopper gasped as he, Kirby, Sonic and Blade walked into Merlon's house. "Who would've thought that it would've come from the Chaos Heart itself?!"
"I wasn't expecting that either…" Merlon trailed, getting off track. "…Anyway, now you four must bring the Pure Heart to its Heart Pillar."
"How can we do that? We've looked everywhere around this place and we haven't found any empty Heart Pillars!" Sonic explained. "How are we supposed to find a ninth Heart Pillar?!"
Merlon opened the Light Prognosticus and turned a couple of pages. "The Light Prognosticus clearly states that the ninth Heart Pillar is somewhere close to the very first Heart Pillar. If that's true, then you must go up to the third floor of Flipside. Chopper, you remember where that is, right?"
"Well, of course I do! The first Heart Pillar was over to the left! Maybe we'll be able to find it somewhere on the right this time."
"Perhaps that might be where it is," Merlon closed the book and put it back on his shelf. "Now, young ones… You must make haste! Go and find the next Pure Heart!"
Everyone nodded and they started to step out of the way. "…Oh! I almost forgot something!" all four of them fell over on the ground.
"Poyo?! (Now what?!)" Kirby groaned.
"My apologies for interrupting you… I just wanted to tell you guys that you still have two more heroes to find. With those last two, you'll be able to fully counter the Chaos Heart's true power."
"All right, thanks, Merlon," since Chopper didn't want to ask about what the true power was, he immediately set off to the third floor.
Flipside, third floor-
"Poyo! (Hey! This is where you found me!)" Kirby remarked, remembering when he appeared in this world.
"Yeah, this definitely brings back memories," Chopper raced over to the first Heart Pillar. "This is the first Heart Pillar that I've found with Tippi. Man, it brings back some memories with her…"
"No, Chopper! We can't keep bringing up sad memories!" Blade shouted. "…I'm not trying to be insensitive or anything, but if we keep remembering those sad moments, it's only going to make us depressed."
"…Yeah, that's true. Now where's that Heart Pillar?" Chopper began to search the area thoroughly, hoping to find the Heart Pillar.
"Hey, Chopper! I think I might see one over by the right!" Sonic pointed over to the right. He could only see a part of the Heart Pillar though. "Ermmm… It's hard to see, though."
"Well, I guess I gotta flip," Chopper flipped into 3-D and noticed a little open gate. He walked through it and returned to 2-D. There were a couple of small white blocks on the ground that he had to jump over to reach the Heart Pillar. He could see some of the gray on it on the lower part.
"Poyo? (Well, are you gonna put it in?)" Kirby questioned, trying to watch Chopper over the gate.
"Yeah, I'm gonna get to it," Chopper pulled the gray Pure Heart out and looked at it. "Perhaps this was a gift from Tippi?"
While he pondered these thoughts, he rose the Pure Heart up as it began to go into its Heart Pillar. Like all Heart Pillars, this one had a gray clock that appeared. They could even hear something coming up from Flipside Tower.
"We better go check it out," Chopper pulled the Return Pipe out as soon as he got to the other three and they immediately headed up to Flipside Tower.
Flipside Tower-
"Well, what do ya know? A pink door appeared right over by the gray door!" Sonic smirked as he walked over to it. It didn't really take him that long to get to it, since it was close to the end.
"Eww! Why does it have to be pink?!" Chopper gagged. "Seeing that color just reminds me of all the girliness that I've seen in the past before! Yuck!"
"You still haven't grown out of that, huh?" Blade gawked.
"What do you mean I haven't… Oh, forget it." Chopper opened the pink door and made his way through into the next world. The rest of the group shrugged and followed him through.
What would be through that door? Well… Whatever it was going to be, it might be something magical.
Having to continue their quest without Tippi was a tough one for Chopper and Co., but they realized that they had to do the right thing and move on. "I'm starting to get over losing Tippi… But I don't know how much…" trailed Chopper as they made their way into the next world. "Poyo? (Am I seeing…sweets?)" Kirby asked in shock as he saw something he never expected to see in any world. He knew for sure that this could possibly be one of the sweetest worlds that they would ever encounter thus far…
Yeah, you're probably wondering, "What about any other characters that are going to join the group?!" Well just hold your horse, OK? I'm not going to tell you anything about the next chapter, but I think you'll find it somewhat interesting.
...Yeah, that's all I have to say. :P