CHAPTER 9-4
-Ice Cream Galore!-
This almost felt like heaven for Chopper. It WOULD be considered heaven for him if there was pizza around as well. But, ice cream was definitely another favorite food. There was just so much for them to admire. The pink sky, the grass made of green licorice on the ground, and the ground made of a sweet candy such as a jolly rancher or even a lollipop. It was like another garden all over again…but with ice cream statues in the background as well.
"Seriously… There's so much ice cream around here." Chopper said while drooling over the giant ice cream cones floating in the sky. "Why can't I honestly eat one right now? My stomach's actually growling a bit…"
"Poyo? (What about those Super Shrooms we had back on that lake?)" Kirby asked.
"Well, they didn't do too much," Chopper stated, pointing to his stomach, or the lower part of his head. "One thing isn't going to do much for me, you know that? Same goes with you too, Kirby."
"Poyo, (Oh, yeah, I know that, that's for sure,)" Kirby nodded.
"So… Are you guys seriously talking about food or something?" Blade gawked, looking at the two small heroes. "Is this what you tend to talk about almost every single day you see each other? Or is this normal?"
"Nah, it's perfectly normal, Blade. We both tend to inhale things like a vacuum, so we're both expected to be inhaling things like…like gourmets!" Chopper began to ponder a minute. "Yeah, I do love to eat food, apparently."
"And I like to eat chili dogs!" Sonic said, making a pose that caused Chopper and Kirby to face palm.
"…We know that already."
Sonic: *face palm*
Mario: Are we gonna do something yet?
"…Yeah, I don't think we should just be sitting here and talking about what kind of food we like to eat," Blade suggested, scanning the area for any enemies. All he could see were a couple of Ice Creawfuls and Donawfuls on the flat area. "See those guys there? We could surely give them a beating."
"More ice cream guys? Well, I guess I'll just melt them with my fireballs." Chopper charged up a fireball in order to deal heavier damage and he threw it straight at the Ice Creawful, melting in entirely. Kirby inhaled the Donawful and swallowed it to regain some small amount of HP.
Chopper suddenly began to shiver. "Oh, man… Guys, don't you think it's a bit cold around these parts?"
Kirby realized this too and began to shiver the most out of everyone. "Poyo… (No kidding, Chopper… It's starting to feel cold around here! …Could it possibly be because of the ice cream?)"
"Well it's better than being in Snowy Mountain! That place was freezing!"
"I guess I'm glad I didn't go there. Anyway, moving on." Blade struck a ? Block that was in between two Brick Blocks. A Happy Flower popped out for them. Since they spent a lot of their coins on items, Blade decided to grab the Happy Flower.
Mario: The Happy Flower?
"Yes, Mario, the Happy Flower," Blade said with a dull look. "Haven't you already heard of this thing before? You ARE probably the one who's heard of this item more than us anyway."
Mario sweat dropped as he began to grab some of the coins that were falling from the sky. Chopper jumped on one of the Brick Blocks and managed to get to another row of Brick Blocks above him by smashing one. This made it easier for him to grab any small or large coins raining down near him.
"You know, that's not really a bad idea," Sonic pondered as he joined Chopper up on the blocks to collect some coins. Kirby decided to collect some by floating around the area. Overall, they did get a lot of coins.
"Man, that's a lot of coins we got there," Chopper sighed in relief as he jumped to the ground and turned back to the right. "I'm glad we at least managed to get some coins, that's for sure."
There was a pink Buzzy Beetle up ahead that was coming toward them. Mario stomped on it and then kicked it with Kickbrin's ability to knock it far from him, including knocking it out of the area.
Mario: That was…strange.
"I didn't find that strange," Chopper stated with a confused look. "Err… Anyway, let's see what else we have around here."
A Blue Koopa Troopa was walking toward them up ahead, but Blade drew his katana and simply took it out with a couple of slashes. They then found another donut platform like from the beginning of this world. Apparently it would go up to a platform where a door was sitting.
"Whoa… Another donut! We're seriously finding a lot of donuts around here!" Sonic gaped.
"Then we ought to use this like we did before," Chopper jumped on it and waited for the others to get on. Mario asked what they were going to do.
"We're simply going to run on this thing," Blade explained. "That way, we can get this delicious thing moving!"
"…Did you bite off a piece of the donut we last encountered?" Sonic asked.
"Nooooooo…" Blade replied with shifty eyes. "What makes you think I would do something like that?"
"Because your eyes are being shifty like you were really the one who was behind a crime scene," Chopper explained.
Mario: No kidding!
"…Dang. You've found that out, didn't you." Blade frowned as he got on the donut, along with the other three (Chopper was still on the donut, mind you). At this moment, they began to move on the donut in order to make it go up to the platform for them to jump off and walk over to the door.
Walking into the next area, they noticed that there was a pathway going up to the wall in the background. In fact, the whole floor was made of a waffle cone, with speed bumpers on some of the walls to help someone steer their way through here.
"Hey, guys, did you ever notice that those clouds look kind of like cotton candy?" Chopper asked, pointing to the pink, fluffy clouds. "They sure remind me of cotton candy."
"Speaking of clouds… I think that door led us to someplace higher in this world. We're actually pretty close to some of those giant ice cream cones." Sonic grinned, striking a Mechawful blocking the slope leading up to the waffle cone wall in the background.
Mario said he'll finished it off, so he simply kicked the Mechawful using Kickbrin's ability. There was even a tall block blocking the way to the slope, so he knocked it over with a kick.
"Man, I think that Pixl is the most useful for you, Mario!" Chopper commented, giving him a smile.
Knowing that only two out of the five people could actually move on the wall without falling off, Chopper immediately grabbed a hold of Kirby's arm, while Sonic grabbed both Blade and Mario's.
Mario: What are you doing?
"Well, we're gonna try to help you get through this, don't worry," Sonic assured as he began to move up on the wall and then to the left thanks to a little speed bumper.
"Poyo? (How come you only grabbed my arm?)" Kirby asked.
"It's because you're probably easier for me to take you through this area. I can assure you that if I was grabbing a hold of Blade or Mario, I'd have a harder time. Just hold on tight and you'll be just fine."
Chopper stretched his feet for a couple of seconds and immediately took off, running up onto the wall and used the speed bumper to follow Sonic over by the left. There weren't any obstacles, so it felt kind of safe.
"Heads up, Chopper! Another speed bump leading up!" Sonic warned as he hit a speed bump, making him go up. Another one made him move to the left once again. Looking back, he could see Chopper was still following.
"Don't worry, Sonic! I'm still following you!" Chopper shouted.
He followed Sonic up and then to the left thanks to the bumpers. There happened to be a door just up ahead when Sonic managed to run off the wall and let go of Blade and Mario so he was no longer holding onto them.
"Whew… Well that sure was something!" Sonic said, sighing in relief.
"Well we still have to wait for Chopper and Kirby," Blade pointed out.
"Yeah, that's true."
As soon as Chopper made it to the three, he let go of Kirby and began to pant. "Man… I never knew that that would be so tough for me… I thought for a second that I was going to fall off!"
"Well, don't worry about it, Chopper," Sonic assured as he opened the door ahead. Everyone followed him into an area where they were pretty high up. They were standing on large ice cream sandwich platforms with large ice cream cones around the sky.
"Poyo! (It's a giant ice cream sandwich!)" Kirby said cheerfully as there was a Mechawful and an ice cream sandwich enemy called an Ice Creawful Sandwich, which could only rush at its enemies.
"That? Oh, this should be easy…" Chopper swung his arm and tossed a fireball directly at the Ice Creawful Sandwich, melting it entirely. "Yeah, these guys are too easy for me, which kind of stinks."
"But those Mechawfuls are annoying," Blade stated as he gripped his katana and sliced through it with one slash of his katana, making it disintegrate in smoke. "How come they turn into smoke when we defeat these enemies?"
"Probably because it was made that way," Sonic simply shrugged before running on ahead, striking two ? Blocks. One contained a Mushroom, while the other contained a Ghoul Shroom.
"Aw, come on! THESE mushrooms are still here?!" Chopper growled as he clenched his fist. But Mario stepped in and gave the Ghoul Shroom a good stomp. Two stomps managed to finish it.
"Whew… Well, at least you took care of that thing, Mario. Those things are a bit dangerous…but not as much as these enemies."
"Poyo? (Yeah, why are these Ghoul Shrooms here anyway? It's just a big waste of time.)" Kirby hit a Brick Block, which triggered another Ghoul Shroom to pop out and move all over the place. But, it was soon destroyed when Kirby pulled out a bomb and blew it up with it.
"Poyo! (That should take care of that!)" he smirked.
Up ahead, they saw some smaller ice cream sandwich platforms that looked a bit lighter than the large one. Nevertheless, they jumped on it and ran as fast as they could to avoid falling to their dooms.
"I don't understand how a door would lead us up to here," Sonic stated with a confused look on his face.
"Well, I'd rather not let that bother me," Chopper stopped at a bigger ice cream sandwich platform that didn't appear to fall. They could all see a spring at a right diagonal pointing straight at a large ice cream cone.
"Oh, man! We're finally going to be going into one of those!" Blade said as he used the spring to be launched all the way to the big ice cream cone. Everyone else followed him and landed right on a cotton candy cloud that was next to the ice cream cone.
"Yeah, that thing's huge…" Chopper stated.
Blade noticed a little door on the ice cream cone. It seemed to blend in with the waffle cone itself, but it was pretty noticeable, so they simple walked inside, where they saw up above them the vanilla ice cream. Some of the liquid-y stuff from the ice cream dropped on Chopper's mouth.
"Vanilla… It's so…good…" Chopper smiled, opening his mouth to inhale another drop.
"Hmmmm… Well, I think we can climb up the inside of this cone. It looks climbable to me." Blade grabbed a hold of the cone and began to climb up. "See? This is working perfectly!"
"Poyo, (There's a sign in here,)" Kirby walked over to the sign and he began to read it.
Be careful, heroes… The ice cream that drips from inside of the cone is more likely to push you down to the bottom of the ground. So, if you see a shadow above you, it would be wise to get away from there. Trust me, heroes, you're going to need to do that if you wanna reach the top.
"Well, that's pretty interesting, considering that we have to climb up there," Chopper stated as he began to climb up. Everyone else followed him, trying their best to avoid the drops coming down on them.
Mario: Mama mia!
One drop landed on Mario's cap, but Sonic managed to grab his arm before he could fall down. He pulled him up and they proceeded to climb up to the top, where they noticed a spring on a platform.
"What do you think this is here for?" Blade asked.
"Whatever it does, surely it should take us out of here," Chopper jumped on the spring and was launched through the ice cream, making a little hole which disappeared. He ended up landing on top of the large vanilla ice cream.
"How is it up there?!" Sonic shouted.
"It's…pretty nice, actually!" Chopper shouted back, his voice echoing through the inside. "I can see the whole place from here, honestly! Even that large castle that we've seen before! Maybe we should try to find a way over there!"
Everyone else jumped on the spring and were launched up to where Chopper was. Blade almost slipped, but Mario managed to grab a hold of his arm and pull him away from the edge.
"Whew… Thanks, Mario." he said, sighing in relief. He looked up at the sky and then on the ice cream. "Man… I feel like I could eat this stuff! It's not even melted from up here, so that's nice!"
"Hold on a second, why would you eat that?" Sonic asked, pointing to their feet. "We've stepped on this! Do you really think we should be eating ice cream that we've been stepping on?"
"Errr… I would." Chopper already swallowed a scoop of vanilla ice cream. "What? It's not going to hurt me."
"Well, I guess that means I get to…" Blade was interrupted when Chopper threw an ice cream ball at his face. "What the hell, Chopper? Are you trying to be an immature kid or something? You're more mature than this!"
"You wanted ice cream, so I gave it to you," Chopper gave him a nod before scanning the large area. "Now… Where can we go from here?"
He noticed a cotton candy cloud moving toward his direction, so he simply jumped on it. Up ahead were two more clouds, but when he jumped on them, they began to launch him in the air, but not too high up.
"Whoa! You gotta be carefully on these!" he warned as he jumped to the other cloud and bounced on that. Another large ice cream was just up ahead, but it was strawberry instead of vanilla.
"Poyo! (That one has strawberry!)" Kirby said cheerfully as he floated over to the ice cream. Chopper, on the other hand, had his tongue out in disgust at the strawberry ice cream.
"Strawberry? But that stuff's disgusting!"
"Yeah, strawberry's not exactly the greatest flavor in the world," Blade agreed as he landed on the ice cream.
"Uh huh. That's why I don't choose to eat it. It just… I don't like the taste of it! It's just…" Chopper was soon hit in the face by a ball of strawberry ice cream. Of course, he ate that no problem, but he suddenly found himself shivering. "Sheesh… It's so cold around here. Before it wasn't as cold, but now… It's just cold as heck! How cold is it, exactly?"
Mario: I don't know…
Chopper sweat dropped before looking around. There was an ice cream sandwich platform just up ahead, so he simply jumped on another bouncy cotton candy cloud and landed on the ice cream sandwich.
"Man, this stuff looks delicious enough to eat," Sonic drooled over the large ice cream sandwich. "But, I know for a fact that I can't eat this. It's not good for my health anyway."
Blade looked at Sonic with a blank look. "You eat chili dogs, for Pete's sake! Those things are bad for you, too!"
Mario: He's right…
"Yeah, well… Er, yeah, that's true…" Sonic trailed as he ran over to the door while striking a Mechawful in his path twice in order to defeat it. He then opened the door for everyone to rush through.
When they reached the next area, they noticed that they were standing on another ice cream sandwich. But, right next to them was a giant fudgsicle. The stick appeared to be climbable for them too.
"Poyo! (It's a giant fudgsicle!)" Kirby gasped.
"No kidding. It looks good enough to eat! …But I think we need to use it to get through here." Chopper jumped over to the fudgsicle and grabbed a hold of the stick. The other fudgsicle next to it was upside down, so he could easily grab a hold of it and jump onto the top of the third fudgsicle, which was right side up.
"Man, I never would've imagined jumping on giant fudgsicles," Sonic said in surprise as he jumped down over by a fudgsicle pointing sideways toward a chocolate ice cream cone.
"They've even got chocolate-flavored ice cream here," Blade said, surprised.
"Well, chocolate is certainly better than, well, strawberry," Chopper stated as he walked across the fudgsicle and tossed a fireball at an Ice Creawful walking around on it, melting it entirely.
"So, who wants to take a stroll on these giant fudgsicles? 'Cause I certainly find it a bit fun!"
"Although… We ARE technically pretty high up in the air." Blade pointed out. "If you're afraid of heights, then it might be wise NOT to look down. Trust me, you're not going to like what you see."
Unfortunately, that didn't work out. Chopper already looked down and jumped up in surprise. "Holy… Yeah, we're definitely high up. Although, I'm not going to let heights get in my way. The Overthere was probably higher than this."
"Oh, don't even bring up that place…" Sonic groaned.
"Poyo, (That place seemed a bit annoying, although it seemed very peaceful,)" Kirby stated.
Mario: I remember that place!
"Seriously, guys… I think it's best to just move on from that world…" Chopper let out a deep sigh as his head hung low. "Bad things have happened back there. I think we need to just move on from all of that."
"I agree with you, Chopper, don't worry," Sonic assured. "Let us just move on, all right? We DO need to keep going anyway."
They walked straight to the red door right next to them and move on into an area where they were standing on a large ice cube with a low going down to a ramp that would eventually reach a strawberry ice cream cone. A sign was right by the slope, along with some Blue Koopa Troopas walking up it.
Mario pondered as he walked over to the sign and began to read it, curious to what he was going to find on it.
Here's a little tip for the hero garbed in red.
If you ever find yourself near a slope, you can slide down it if you wanted to. With this, you can knock away many enemy that are walking up, no matter how much HP they have. However, you gotta be carefully when you're doing this on enemies that have spikes on the sides of them, because you're surely going to get hurt from them, that's for sure.
Mario knew exactly what to do. He simply slid down the slope and took care of the Blue Koopa Troopas on it. Because of the ramp, it sent him right in the strawberry ice cream cone without slipping.
"Well that was a way for Mario to get across, now I need to get through," Chopper began to move his feet in a figure-8 position as he charged up a Speed Dash. As soon as he took off, he ran off the ramp and landed in the strawberry ice cream headfirst. Because of this, he struggled to get himself out.
Mario couldn't help but chuckle at Chopper as Kirby, Sonic and Blade made their way onto the ice cream. Unfortunately, Kirby lost his Bomb ability when he landed right on a metallic enemy covered in spikes called a Bristle – something Chopper remembered encountering in the Glitz Pit.
"Aw, come on! These guys are here too?!" Chopper pulled himself out of the ice cream and tossed a fireball at the Bristile. Sadly, it didn't do a thing to it because it's impervious to fire.
"Poyo? (Fire doesn't work against these things?)" Kirby gawked.
"Doesn't look like it… We're gonna need something that can actually take these guys down…" Chopper pondered for a couple of seconds before Mario walked over to the Bristle and used Kickbrin to take it out easily.
"Oh, yeah, that Pixl is capable of taking care of those guys," Sonic smirked, giving Mario a thumbs up. "At least we're safe from those guys for right now!"
They jumped off the strawberry ice cream (to Chopper's relief) and jumped onto another fudgsicle pointing sideways. Another Bristle was here, but thanks to Kickbrin, Mario managed to take it out without any problems. A chocolate cone was up ahead, so they jumped onto that.
"Hey, maybe I can drill through this ice cream! Maybe there might be something interesting!" Sonic snapped his finger, getting the idea, so he simply used Screwdy's corkscrew to drill through the chocolate ice cream.
"Well, there goes Sonic," Blade said.
Inside-
"Huh… This is interesting… Instead of vanilla, there's chocolate." Sonic landed at the bottom of the cone, where he noticed a couple of Ice Creawfuls inside. There were chocolate and vanilla kind.
"Well this'll be fun! Being able to take down ice cream guys!" Sonic grinned as he performed a Homing Attack on them a couple of times, followed by a Spin Dash that took both of them out.
"So… What's around this place?" Sonic searched the whole room carefully. In the end, he saw a chest sitting on a platform that was a bit high up in the room. So, he simply climbed up to the chest to open it.
"I hope it's a new badge," he hoped, opening the chest. "Maybe there'll be a badge that can let me do a super-cool attack!"
Well, that wasn't the case for him. A Door Key made of chocolate ended up coming out of the chest and floating above Sonic's head for him to hold up. He wasn't completely satisfied, but it's better than nothing.
"I guess I should take this back to the others, considering that the door there is probably locked or something."
Outside-
"So… You guys have a deck of cards for us to play a game of Go Fish while Sonic's down there?" Blade asked, looking at the other three. All he got was a shake from Mario and a shrug from Chopper. Kirby, on the other hand, scooped up some chocolate ice cream and ate it.
"Kirby… You… Oh, forget it." Chopper wasn't going to bother with him eating the ice cream. He knew that the pink puffball wasn't going to listen to him anyway.
Mario: So, you guys have any other ideas?
"…Since when could Mario talk in a longer sentence?" Blade questioned.
Mario: Since always.
A Bristle was creeping toward them, attempting to poke Kirby with one of its spears. But, when Kirby spotted it, he got on Carrie and jumped on it a couple of times to defeat it.
"Poyo, (Good thing I can take these guys out with Carrie,)" Kirby said while sighing in relief. "Poyo! (I would've been taking some serious damage if I didn't have her with me!)"
"It's strange that those things don't have as much HP as some enemies back in Castle Tipral…" Chopper trailed. "Meh, I guess it's because of its high defense and all of those spikes covering it."
Before anyone else could say anything, Sonic came jumping out of the ice cream and held up a chocolate key. "Here it is, guys! This is the key we're probably going to need to move on!"
"Oh… It's a chocolate key." Blade said with a blank look.
"…So? We've seen a key like this before."
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Blade took a deep breath and turned away from Sonic. "Really… WHO'S the idiot that came up with all of this?"
"I don't think anyone can hear you say that…" Chopper trailed. "Besides, I don't think you want to tick that 'idiot' off, if you know what I mean. He could easily erase you from existence."
"He's not Grambi, so there's no way that he can do any of that to me."
"It's not Grambi, it's…" Chopper paused for a moment and was thinking of what in the world he was talking about. "You know, forget what I just said. Let's just get going."
Chopper grabbed a hold of the fudgsicle stick up ahead and used it to jump onto a vanilla ice cream cone – something that he definitely loves more than chocolate and strawberry (of course, you already know that already).
"Man… I just love it when you land on the kind of ice cream that you love so much. It makes me feel good!"
"Poyo? (Are you going to eat this ice cream then?)" Kirby asked, only to get a reply with Chopper shaking his head. "…Poyo? (…Are you suuuuuuuuure?)"
"Yes, Kirby, I'm sure that I'm not going to eat this whole thing," Chopper assured while eating a scoop of the vanilla ice cream. He felt something cold in his forehead and immediately put his hands there. "Ack! Brain freeze!"
"Yeah, you usually get that when you eat too much ice cream," Blade stated as he jumped on the vanilla ice cream. "Don't worry, it'll wear off eventually. You just have to stay calm and you'll be fine."
"I know that I get it from that. I'm just going to take a break from eating ice cream so nothing like that ever will happen to me ever again."
Sonic wanted to check what was below them, but Chopper said that they should just move on instead by jumping on the next fudgsicle going sideways, where it led to a small ice cream sandwich platform with a door and a Mechawful guarding it.
"Oh, one of those guys? This should be easy pickings!" Blade jumped on the platform and sliced up the Mechawful with a couple of slashes. The enemy left an explosion as well.
"Awesome," Blade put his katana away as he walked over to the locked door up ahead. Sonic pulled out the chocolate key and broke the lock off so they could press on through the next area.
"Whoa… Look at that!" Chopper gasped at the large, red fruit by the foot. It seemed to extend far out past a vanilla ice cream cone and then twirled down like some sort of spiral slide, which looked like it led down to the ground below.
"Wow, so this is the way that we get led down to the ground," Chopper was smiling as he looked down. "Now this is what I've always wanted to see. It's really, really nice."
Mario began to remember the times that he was up on the clouds back on Flower Fields. The whole atmosphere sort of reminded him of it with the ice cream clouds in the background and all of the other nice things that he was seeing. Regardless, he made the first step on the fruit by the foot, where a Blue Paratroopa was hopping on.
Once they jumped on top of the vanilla ice cream, Sonic drilled inside of it to search for what was down below.
"Great… Now we gotta wait for Sonic again." Blade groaned.
"Well, then maybe we can try to do something while we wait for him," Chopper suggested, sitting down on the ice cream. He immediately got up when he realized that it could be sticky. "…Yeah, I don't think sitting on it is exactly the brightest idea in the whole world…"
"Poyo, (Then we'll just have to wait,)" Kirby began to wait patiently for Sonic to return to the group.
Inside-
Sonic landed on the bottom of the cone, noticing a couple of Ice Creawfuls in the room. He simply used his Homing Attack to take care of the enemies before grabbing a hold of the waffle cone.
"Man, I can't believe I'm the only one that can go through this place…" Sonic trailed as he climbed up to a chest. "It kind of stinks when you're the only one who's capable of doing these things himself."
Nevertheless, he climbed up onto one of the platforms where the chest was. By opening it, he managed to grab a hold of an Ultra Shroom Shake. "Oh… It's just one of these. Well, I guess it's better than nothing, I suppose."
He climbed up over to the spring and made his way out of the inside of the cone and to return to his friends.
Outside-
Sonic came flying out of the ice cream, but when he came plummeting down to it, his head ended up getting stuck in the ice cream. Both Chopper and Mario were forced to pull him out.
"Whoa… That sure was one heck of a ride…" Sonic said, feeling a bit dizzy after being launched up in the air like that. "Hopefully nothing like that ever happens to me ever again… I feel like I'm going to puke."
"You better not puke, or else we're going to have a problem," Blade stated. "…Maybe you could puke off the side, but I'm not sure if that's going to be…er…good. What? It could fall on anyone!"
Chopper frowned. "Let's just move on. I think we're getting close anyway." he jumped on the fruit by the foot past the vanilla ice cream cone and tossed a charged fireball at a Mechawful just up by the spiral slide ahead.
"I think that's the last of these enemies… Surely we'll find more below this place, though." Sonic stated, walking over to the slide.
Mario: Hopefully we're not too late!
Chopper took a deep breath and walked to the slide. "Well… The slide seems to go down pretty far. But, hopefully we'll be able to get through it and find that castle we need to find."
The antennae hero sat down, looking a bit puzzled. "I… I don't know if I could do this…"
"Yes you can," Blade objected.
"And how do you know that I can?"
"Just watch," Blade pushed Chopper down the slide with his foot. They could all hear him scream as he began to go down the spiral fruit by the foot slide faster than they thought it would be.
"Poyo, (That slide is a lot faster than I thought it would be,)" Kirby plopped down on the slide. "Poyo! (But I'm going down there next!)"
By pushing himself, Kirby managed to slide down, followed by Mario and then Sonic. Blade was the last one to push himself down the slide because he wanted to make sure they weren't being followed by anyone.
"Well… Here we go…" he gulped.
Sweet Castle-
"Nyeah heh heh heh heh! I have victory!" Fawful cackled loudly as he stood on the bridge that led up to the throne room. He walked over to the pole and replaced the candy flag with a flag with a dark star on it.
"Tipral will have the pleasing when he finds out that I have the capturing of the castle! He will reward me with great buttery pancakes raining down on a happy turtle!"
"You… You…" a chocolate person aimed his chocolate pistol at Fawful. "You can't win this, Beanie! Just… Just leave!"
He fired hot fudge directly as Fawful's face, but it didn't do much when the bean child licked it all off his face. He trembled in fear as Fawful's grin showed all of the chocolate on his teeth.
"That's just disgusting!"
Fawful pulled out a toothbrush, put toothpaste on it and began to brush his teeth. A couple seconds later, Fawful's teeth were a sparkling white color just as how they intended to be.
"Fawful can't have a disgusting smile," he said as he put his toothbrush away. "It makes me lose my fury! …But, now that I have controlling, I will have changes!"
"You won't change a thing!" the chocolate guard paused when Fawful aimed his blaster straight at him. "Don't even think about…"
BLAST!
Near the Sweet Castle-
As soon as Chopper made it to the bottom of the slide, he landed in a beautiful garden. This one looked more lovely than the other gardens he's seen so far, meaning that they were rather…close to their destination.
"Wow, this is one heck of a garden here," he said while wiping his forehead in relief. "I thought for a second that I was about to get hurt."
Unfortunately for him, he ended up jinxing it. Kirby came sliding down and ended up knocking him over.
"Poyo! (Oops! Sorry, Chopper!)" Kirby helped Chopper up and also helped him move out of the way when Mario, Sonic and Blade came down from the slide and landed right where Chopper fell over.
"Well, at least you guys didn't fall over," Chopper said with a blank look.
"Was that meant to be sarcasm?" Sonic asked.
"No, it wasn't supposed to be sarcasm. But I will say that I ended up falling over from Kirby."
"Poyo, (I didn't intend to do that,)" Kirby added.
"When Blade stood up, he looked around him. In the background, they could see the castle. It wasn't exactly too far from them, but it was definitely right nearby, meaning that their quest for the tenth Pure Heart is coming close to an end.
"Man… After this Pure Heart, we'll be more than halfway done with collecting them…" Chopper said in surprise. "I can't believe we've already made it this far… It's just…unbelievable."
Chopper whirled his hammer around at a Shy Guy that was in his way before going over to the Star Block up ahead. "Man, I can't believe that we've found this already. …And we also don't have to worry about falling to our dooms!"
"Poyo, (Yeah, that's true,)" Kirby agreed with a nod.
Mario: I hear you!
"It was cool up there, but yeah, it was pretty dangerous up there as well. I don't disagree with you on that one." Blade nodded.
"So, Chopper… Are ya gonna hit the block or something?" Sonic noticed that Chopper already punched the block and broke it. How? Well, with all of those twenty stars, it definitely did show.
"Oh… You already hit it."
"Yes, I definitely did," Chopper smiled while nodding.
END OF CHAPTER
After their courageous efforts through the highest points of the Sweet Kingdom, Chopper and Co. managed to find the castle they've been seeking this whole time. "Too bad we're not going to see any giant ice cream cones around here…" Chopper trailed as they continued their walk through the beautiful gardens. Up ahead, they happened to notice what looked like a castle with a flag of a dark star resembling Tipral's symbol on the top.
There's a reason why I liked this part of Chapter 9. Take a guess on what that is. Was it the fudgsicles? ...Nah, probably not that. I'm not gonna even tell you why I liked this anyway. Also, that was the Fawful moment I was talking about, with him brushing his teeth.
One more part until this chapter's over! And it sure is going to be hectic! :D