Everyone waited patiently for the hovering kart to take them to the New X-Naut Fortress's major interior. As they did, they continued to take a look at the beauty of the fortress itself. Needless to say, they were looking forward to storming this fortress.
"This is it, guys! We're heading into enemy territory!" Chopper announced.
"This is going to be TIGHT!" Sonic grinned, doing a fist pump.
"I'm SO ready to take down the X-Nauts again!" Scrub declared.
Their conversation was put to a halt when the hovering kart stopped at a door door and opened up. Everyone walked off of the device and they were in a big room with some small stairs going up to one door and also door right across from them. Just like in the X-Naut Fortress, there was a light above the door to determine whether it was locked or not. Both doors had red lights above them.
"Huh… There's nobody around here." Sonic noticed, his expression changing to a smile. "Well, looks like we're safe for now. Nobody's here to stop us! But… The door's also locked..."
"Well, if we can find a way out of this room and into another, I would appreciate that. How about we try upstairs?" Bombette suggested.
"That door's locked too," Vivian noted, pointing to the red light above the door. "You remember how the doors worked in the X-Naut Fortress, right?"
"Errr... I think I do have an idea of what a color might represent."
Scrub heard a beeping sound coming from across the door, making him gulp. "Uh… Guys, the door across from us is opening..."
Just then, the door's light switched to green and two X-Naut Hunters came walking out of the door. Unlike their predecessors, these X-Nauts were carrying weaponry, such as laser rifles. The sheer sight of those weapons was enough to make everyone stay on guard.
"Well, well, well… If it isn't Chopper! So nice of you to show up…" the first X-Naut Hunter said, aiming his weapon at Chopper, whose eyes shot wide open from the gun.
"Yeah, so nice of us to show up. Why? Because we're taking over this place!" Tamber proclaimed with a smirk. "You X-Wusses probably couldn't even harm me! That's why I plan on rolling you up into a ball and tossing you outta here!"
"Oh, I wouldn't mess with us if I were you…" the second X-Naut Hunter mused, aiming his weapon at Tamber. "We're X-Naut Hunters, perfectly trained to hunt down people such as you. Since you're in our territory, why don't we reward you all?"
"You mean you'll reward me with the Crystal Star?" Chopper asked, only for one of the hunters to fire. Thankfully, it had barely hit Chopper's foot, but it put him on guard. "I guess not, huh? Well, then I guess we have no choice but to fight you!"
"All right, then! We'll fight you! We planned on doing that anyway!" the first X-Naut Hunter smirked. "Hunter 32, how about we show these eleven what we can do with these guns and what skills we got!"
"Gladly," replied the second X-Naut Hunter. They charged at Chopper and the others, who had prepared for battle. Luckily, Goombella was able to come onto the stage and give the stats of these guys. They had 38 HP, an Attack of 13 and a Defense of 2. Together, X-Naut Hunters could be pretty dangerous.
"All right, let's get this show on the road! Hut hut… HIKE!" the two X-Naut Hunters tried to tackle Chopper, but they missed and fell on the ground. Smiling, Chopper approached the first one and brought his hammer down on it.
"Well, that was stupid…" the two sighed. Flyer did the honors of giving the first X-Naut Hunter up at the front a Flying Attack, leaving the X-Naut Hunter with only 23 HP left.
Both X-Naut Hunters attacked Chopper with their laser rifles. A blue laser fired from their guns and Chopper guarded both of their attacks. He proceeded on attacking the first X-Naut Hunter, with Mario following up with a Super Jump.
"Aw, man! That's NOT cool! Look what they just did! I'm down to 8 HP because of them!" the first X-Naut Hunter fired at Chopper, while the other fired at Mario. The laser knocked them back, but not by a lot.
"Well, this is pretty much over. Well, for you, it is kinda over." Chopper threw an ice ball at the X-Naut Hunter, causing him to freeze, while Vivian raised her finger and attacked with her Fiery Jinx, defeating the first one.
"No! Not Joe! Aw, Crud! Now you asked for it!" the remaining X-Naut Hunter fired a blast from his gun at Chopper. As usual, he guarded the attack and only took 12 damage.
"All righty… Let's see…" Chopper decided to toss an electric ball at the X-Naut Hunter, while Scrub attacked with his Gulp, taking 8 HP away from him. The hunter retaliated by shooting at Scrub's stomach.
"OI!" Scrub held his stomach his stomach as he he looked up at the X-Naut Hunter, who was readying his weapon. Chopper took the time to attack the Hunter with a Fire Stomp, leaving a burn on him. Sonic threw in a Spin Dash and brought it down to a low amount of HP.
"Gah! This isn't finished!" spat the X-Naut Hunter. He fired at Chopper, but his shot had missed. Chopper smirked and threw his hammer at him, and then Tamber had finished off the hunter with a Combo Punch, rewarding them with 10 Star Points.
"Ha ha! You guys are such weaklings!" Tamber scoffed.
"But you only finished off one X-Naut," Flyer informed.
"Well... I was still cool!"
Both Hunters got up, still exhausted. But, rather than staring at them with intimidated looks, they slowly stepped back in fear, with the first X-Naut Hunter saying, "Whoa… I didn't know this kid really had it in him. Dude, I say we make a run for it and warn everyone else!"
"Good thinking! YAAAAAAAAAAAH!" the two X-Naut Hunters yelped as they bolted. Fortunately, for the heroes, they had forgotten to lock the door behind them.
"Hey, they left the door open for us!" Chopper smiled. "Looks like they were too scared to pay attention to the lock!"
"Yeah, or else we'd be stuck in here forever!" Scrub mentioned.
"It's great when minions are not the smartest bulbs out there," Berry smiled.
Just as they were about to progress, they heard the speakers go off. The voice coming from them was fairly obvious to most of them.
"Attention all X-Nauts! This is Sir Grodus speaking. In case if you didn't know, Chopper is in the base. I repeat, Chopper is in the base." Grodus informed. "I suggest you lock every single door in this base and eliminate him on sight! We can't let him find any useful items in the rooms. I am locking the elevator leading to the sixth floor as well. If you need something in my room, you must speak to me via communicator. If not, then you're out of luck."
"Well, looks like they already know we're here," Sonic shrugged, not caring too much. "I'm guessing the Crystal Star is up on the sixth floor, right? Then that Grodus must be there as well!"
"I'm sure that staircase will lead us further," Vivian noted, looking over at the other door. "Maybe we can find a way to unlock it through this door?"
"Yeah, we should check this door and see what we can find," Chopper walked through the door and noticed a couple of trees and bushes in the area. Everyone else got a look at the tropical forest and gawked.
"Wait... A tropical forest in this place? Something doesn't seem right..." Berry trailed.
Looking up, the group got a glimpse of the beautiful, blue sky. Thankfully, not many of the trees were blocking it, so it was awfully bright in here. Regardless of the confusion, they liked it here.
"This is just amazing! There's a sky right inside of a fortress! Genius!" Flyer squealed. "I never knew they could throw in something like this! Not even I am able to think of stuff like this! Chopper, we NEED to check this place out!"
"Well… All right. It does look cool and life-like, but it feels like it's kinda fake too." Chopper remarked as he walked around.
"That's what I meant when I said something didn't feel right here," Berry reminded. "Bringing a forest in here would be a bit too difficult."
"Yes, well... I suppose I should've thought of that." Flyer shrugged, following his friends through the small forest. Surprisingly, the trees seemed to be real when Chopper whacked them. Nothing seemed to come out, though, so there was no point in hitting them. After Tamber smashed a stone blocking the way to the next area, they reached a small area with a small waterfall and stream. Near a rock were two X-Naut Scouts.
"There's a couple of X-Nauts here. I guess we ought to take 'em down!" Scrub suggested.
"They're probably a lot weaker than the hunters, so this shouldn't be too bad," Chopper ran over to the scouts and jumped on one of them. This had led into a battle, and when the others joined him, the X-Naut Scouts were clearly outclassed. Before they knew it, they had defeated them. "Well... That was pretty easy."
Upon jumping on the rock, they noticed a door just up ahead. Since they couldn't do much else, they took the door into a larger area. However, unlike before, there were Jungle Shy Guys holding spears patrolling the area. They didn't seem to pay too much attention when they approached them, though.
Mario: They're ignoring us?
"What are they even doing?" Bombette asked, noticing that two Jungle Shy Guys were swinging their spears at each other, along with attempting to jab at each other. Seeing as they were not attacking them, they took this opportunity to land a first strike. Chopper jumped in the air and landed a jump on the first one. ...Well, he would've, if he hadn't phased through it and fell on the floor.
"What the... I couldn't even jump on them!" Chopper gaped, noticing his body phase through the enemies. "Are they even real?"
"They're holograms, Chopper," Flyer informed. "They're technically not real."
"Oh... Well that's good. I guess we can just move on and not bother with them!" Chopper moved on and found another X-Naut Scout, so they all defeated it quickly and reached a gap with water below.
"Allow me to help, Contadre! Get on!" Scrub shouted, pointing to his back. Chopper got on his back, and the Yoshi fluttered over the river. When they landed, they found another gap across from them with a blue ! Switch.
"Sonic, we need you to give us a hand," Chopper gestured Sonic to come over, so Flyer used his flying capabilities to help him across. Once he was there, Chopper kicked Sonic into a ball and sent him colliding into the blue ! Switch. This made a bridge for both gaps and allowed everyone to cross the bridged to a door ahead. Entering it brought them into a small, circular room with a green ! Switch on the ground.
Mario decided to give the switch a good kick, which caused something that surprised many of them. The tropical forest changed into a futuristic area that resembled the other rooms of the New X-Naut Fortress. The walls were silver and had glass windows, which gave everyone a glimpse of space. The floor was a navy blue color with an X-Naut symbol plastered on it.
"See? I knew it was all fake." Berry said. "They probably couldn't bring an entire forest here!"
"They couldn't, but their idea of creating a holographic forest is very interesting," Flyer remarked.
When they left the room, they noticed that there were now doors in the hallways. In addition, they had green lights over them, so they could freely explore them.
"Well, with this place finally back to normal, I think we can finally cause some damage!" Tamber rushed into one of the rooms, and everyone heard the sound of punching and smashing. The door opened up and two X-Naut Scouts were thrown out of the room.
"No! Please Have mercy!" cried the X-Naut Scouts.
"Tamber, you should just let them go," suggested Chopper.
"Wha... Seriously?! They're the bad guys!" Tamber exclaimed.
"But I think they had enough..."
When Tamber stopped paying attention to the two X-Naut Scouts, they ended up making a bolt for it. From what they could see, they were badly injured, and one of them even tripped. Regardless, they had made their exit through both hallways and returned to the room they first started in.
"Yeah! That's right, ya crybabies! Run away and go back to your alien boss!" Tamber called out. "We'll take care of him once we're done causing ruckus in this place!"
"I guess you showed them, huh, Tamber?" Flyer gawked.
"Totally! I showed them what muscles I got on me! Yup! I'm just too awesome! I consider myself better than any gumballs out there! Indeed… Gumballs don't have THESE muscles!"
"Ugh, this again?" Berry groaned, giving Tamber an irritated look. "It's getting old, Tamber."
"Guys… I don't think we should argue." Vivian suggested, standing in between the two. "It's not going to get us anywhere... I think we should see if we can find a switch that will unlock some other doors..."
"Good point, Vivian. Tamber, did you see a switch inside of that room?" Chopper asked. Tamber had shaken his head in response. "Well, then we better check in some of the other rooms if we want to unlock a door."
Chopper crossed the bridge and walked over to the next silver door. Inside they found a little picture of a room with an electric floor. There was also something that showed an electric stick figure being resistant to the floor.
"Oh, boy… I bet there's going to be a room with an electric floor. That's just super…" Chopper groaned before noticing a slip of paper on the wall to his left. "Though, I can see a little gray spot on the side. Go ahead and inhale it, Kirby."
"Poyo! (I'm on it!)" Kirby replied. He opened his mouth and inhaled a piece of paper off the wall, revealing a switch attached to the ceiling. Chopper smiled and jumped to pull it down. They heard a beeping sound come from the room, and on a small monitor, they noticed the door going upstairs was unlocked.
"Neat! We got the door unlocked!" Sonic smiled. "We should go head on outta here. Or, maybe we can check the other rooms around here."
Chopper shrugged and headed into the other hallway to find two doors with green lights on them. Entering one of the doors, they found a big fan that was blowing a strong amount of air to the right. There was also something interesting about the wall the fan was facing, and through that wall was a chest when Flyer picked it up via his treasure tracker.
"I'm picking up treasure through that wall," Flyer informed.
"Through that wall? Then maybe... Shadower! You should use your power to get me through that wall." Chopper suggested.
"All right, that doesn't sound too challenging," Shadower nodded, going over to the fan's air current with Chopper. They both became transparent, and they were blown through the wall, where Chopper found an Ultimate Shroom in the chest. The two both got out by phasing through the wall again and left the room. They all checked the last room to the left and found a long pathway with an electric floor that quickly turned on an off.
"An electric floor? OK... That doesn't sound too challenging. I can always run this one!" Chopper assured, running over to the metallic section of the pathway. However, seeing how quickly the electric floor turned on, he had a feeling it would be too difficult to get across. "Errrrr... This looks a little too difficult."
"Then maybe I should give you a hand!" Tamber grinned, approaching from behind Chopper and attempting to push him. However, Vivian managed to pull him away with a lot of effort.
"Please, Tamber! That won't work..." Vivian panted, exhausted from pulling the furball.
"Hmmmmm... Well, judging by how quickly the floor is turning on and off, I don't think Sonic's ability could help get us across." Flyer deduced. "We'd need some sudden speed to get across."
"Let's not come up with an analysis so soon," Berry cut in. "Leave this to an expert!"
"Expert? Like you can do a thing to get past this!" Tamber laughed.
Berry ignored him and approached Chopper, the latter tilting his head. "Berry, what kind of idea do you have in mind?"
"Well... It's been a while since we've had a little kiss, right?" the girl asked, inching closer to Chopper. He, of course, had turned white and slowly backed away. However, Chopper soon realized what she was doing and no longer looked at her in fear.
"No way! I know what you're trying to do! You're just faking it! But I know your little game, and it's not going to work!"
Berry frowned at first, but another idea came into her mind. She wrapped her arms around Chopper's and got much closer to him. "I'm not faking it. Even you know that I would show you my undying love to you."
Now this seemed to get Chopper freaked out again and blazing through the unlit electric floor. Flyer was left in surprise when he saw Chopper over by the chest at the end of the pathway.
"...Of course!" Flyer exclaimed, snapping his finger. "When one is scared, sometimes their speed will increase when they get away! That's just like with many species!"
"Too bad he doesn't give me that affection, though..." Berry sighed.
Relieved now that he was safe, Chopper opened the chest and found a badge called the Rainbow Spin Badge, which was an Elemental Hand attack that used…rainbow energy? "You know, considering that I didn't use some of the other badges, I think using this one is not such a bad idea!"
He equipped the badge and performed a rainbow spin attack with his fists. He smiled when he saw the remains of what appeared to be rainbow energy cut through the air. Thankfully, the electric floor had turned off, allowing him to return to the others and show off his new attack.
"So the gumball can create rainbows. How nice..." Tamber trailed sarcastically. "What's next? You're going to spread pixies and wonder around?"
"Ummmm... No, not really. I'm more into kicking butt than that." Chopper replied.
Regardless of whether he was going to be throwing rainbows around, the group headed back into the first room where they fought the X-Naut Hunters and noticed the door upstairs was now unlocked.
"Yeah! Finally! We don't have to deal with this annoying area!" Scrub cheered.
"Poyo? (I wonder what we'll find around here?)" Kirby pondered.
"Only one way to find out!" Chopper declared, heading up the stairs and into the next hallway. It somewhat resembled the previous hallway, except it had windows with asteroids in the background.
"This place looks pretty cool," Sonic commented with a smirked. He looked down below and saw the ground with a couple of X-Naut Scouts working. X-Naut Hunters were down there, but they appeared to be doing the supervising rather than the working.
"I don't see any bridge here. How are we supposed to get across this place?" Tamber asked.
"Hmmmmm..." Chopper pondered for the moment, but he noticed he was standing on a panel. A very familiar-looking one at that.
"What is it, Chopper?" Flyer asked.
"Hey! It's a paper airplane panel! It's been a while since we've seen one of these!" Chopper gasped. Before he could transform, he looked to see what was across from where they stood. He saw a floating asteroid stuck on the door. Coincidentally, a door happened to be there too.
"Oh, I see a door!" Vivian noticed, getting a clearer look at the door. "I guess you know what to do, right, Chopper?"
"I sure do, Vivian! Now the rest of you guys will see my awesome paper airplane ability!" Chopper jumped up and he formed into a paper airplane, leaving those who hadn't seen the transformation gaping.
"Oh, my..." Flyer trailed.
"Wha... How the heck did he do THAT?!" Tamber questioned. "It's not like we live in a universe where we're made of paper! This isn't some kind of cartoon!"
"You know, I think it would be me doing the questioning, but considering all of the craziness I've seen, I can't come up with any hypothesis."
"Well, I ain't joinin' him in that plane! 'Cause I have a better idea!"
Everyone but Tamber joined Chopper inside of the paper airplane, and he started to glide down to the asteroid. Chopper turned back to normal, and the rest had landed on the asteroid too. As for Tamber, he decided to do it his way by gliding toward the asteroid. His landing, however, was not so great. He had hit the asteroid headfirst, leaving him in a daze.
"Need a hand?" Chopper asked, offering to help him up.
"I don't need help from a gumball!" Tamber retorted, slapping his hand away and getting up on his own. "See? I told you I could do it my way!"
"Yeah... I say we just get a move on..." Bombette trailed, walking over to the door.
The group entered the next room with a bridge going over a pool of water. The floor was silver, and the walls were more of a navy blue than what they usually were. Sonic looked down and gulped when he saw a couple of robotic Piranhas in the water.
Mario: Don't look down, Sonic.
"I know. I'm trying not to." Sonic replied, doing his best not to look down.
Sadly, there were no rails to prevent them from falling into the water. However, there were a few things in the pool, such as a few yellow ? Blocks, but Chopper decided not to bother with it and continued his way over the bridge. It even branched into three pathways, with one of them having two X-Naut Scouts cleaning the filth in the water.
"Dude, do you know what doesn't make sense? The fact that there's water up on the second floor…" one of the X-Naut Scouts said to his comrade.
"You said it, man!" the second agreed. "I mean, look at this place! Why do we have a place like this here? Wouldn't it be better to bring the water area on the bottom floor?"
"Sorry, but there's no way that can happen. The Piranhas can't take the pressure to the bottom floor, so Sir Grodus wanted us to bring the water here instead."
"Oh... Well that's lame. I wish we didn't have to deal with this dumb job either."
"Hmmmm... Well this is an interesting room indeed." Flyer remarked, flying over the water and getting a glimpse of a door ahead. "I think I've found our way out of this room! Just take the center path!"
"Who? What?" the X-Naut Scouts stopped upon hearing the voice and noticed Chopper and his friends. "Hey! What's Chopper doing here?"
"Uhhhh... I'm guessing he managed to get through that door..." the second X-Naut Scout replied. "So... Should we get them?"
"Heck yeah! Beating him means that Sir Grodus'll reward us!"
The X-Naut Scouts charged at them, but they were engulfed in flames by Vivian's Fiery Jinx. They jumped into the water to cool themselves off, letting them sigh in relief.
...Or, they would've been relieved if they didn't feel their butts get bit by a couple of Piranhas. They shot up like a rocket while screaming their butts off and ran out of the room.
"Well... That was easy." Shadower said with a smile.
"At least we don't have to deal with them!" Chopper smiled, getting ready to move on. Just then, the loudspeaker went off, but instead they heard another familiar voice.
"Attention X-Nauts! This is your awesome guy who's second-in-command, Lord Crump! Yup! I'm on this thing now! Buh! Buh! Buh huh huh!" Lord Crump laughed stupidly. "Well… That's not the point. You see, I can see you're here, Chopper. YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT! I KNOW WHERE YOU ARE! Ya know what I got in store for you? Have a look for yourself!"
Just then, the pipes on the wall began to burst with water, causing the water level in the pools to rise.
"Uh oh… This place is flooding!" Chopper tried to get to the door ahead, but they were too late. The whole room became entirely flooded with water, and there was nothing they could do about it. It was even worse for Sonic, considering he couldn't breathe. Good thing there were some air bubbles for him to take in.
But it wasn't over just yet. Chopper swam toward the door ahead, but he saw that through the door, there was a ledge leading to the surface. He gestured everyone to follow him through the door, and they had managed to swim up to the surface and grab a hold of the ledge. A door was in front of them, and taking it led them into a room with the floor being made of glass. Underneath the glass was more water, and up ahead was an elevator being guarded by two X-Naut Hunters.
"Whoa... Chopper's here?!" the first X-Naut Hunter gasped.
"Well don't just stand there! Let's get him!" Both X-Naut Hunters aimed their weapons and fired. Flyer had fired his arm cannon at the first soldier, leaving the X-Naut paralyzed and allowing the others to defeat him. Berry had stunned the other with her Ruby Hammer, and then Shadower used his Shadow Attack to pull him into the shadows and beat him up to defeat the enemy. With that, they turned their attention to the elevator.
"Well, looks like we're going to be going up to the third floor, right? This should be a little interesting!" Chopper remarked.
"We shouldn't be wasting any time. Let's move!" Scrub shouted.
Chopper pushed the button, and they all headed into the elevator. Unfortunately, the only floor they could head to was the third floor, so Kirby punched the button, and the elevator closed.
All they could do was wait.
Hooray for the introduction to the X-Naut Hunters! They're the first X-Nauts to use guns...er, I mean blasters against the heroes! Also, unlike the X-Naut Fortress in Chapter 7, this new fortress is not just put in one chapter. There's definitely a lot more in this one...
Just you wait and see what happens next chapter, though... Things could get a little ugly.