Another note: Grim and Trucker don't belong to me, all right? They belong to my friend named Maniacal Toaster, who let me put these guys in this fic. That's basically all I needed to say here.
CHAPTER 11-4
-Grim's Underground Headquarters-
The only thing our heroes could really see around them was the darkness in the cave. It wasn't like in Underwhere Road where it was too hard to see. They COULD see what was around them, but not much. The ground was made of rock instead of metal and it was a red color. Of course, that was hard to see with it being hard to see and all that. There were a couple of torches on the walls to bring in a little bit of light, but that didn't seem to be enough.
"So, Ninbot… How are things around here? In fact, what's going on around this area?" Chopper asked as they continued to walk through the tunnel. Everyone else was so silent that Chopper just had to speak up in order to see if the others would actually speak like they were back outside in Metallic Forest.
Ninbot stopped for a minute, causing everyone else to stop. He turned to the group and sighed. "What's through here… I don't think it's wise to tell you. It might be best to see for yourself… But I will warn you. It's not going to be something you like. It may just be one of the worst things you'll ever see in this world."
"But why is it so hot here?" Blade asked waving his arm like a fan. "I'm starting to sweat a bit. That's not a good thing."
"This place is underground. It's going to be hot here, obviously. But when we get out of this tunnel, expect to see some lava. Hopefully that dumb chameleon doesn't get his tail burnt or something…" Ninbot started to walk again, along with everyone else. Nobody bothered to ask him any more questions at that point.
"Poyo. (Wait… Lava? This…isn't going to turn out well.)" Kirby gulped as they passed by another torch.
"Relax, Kirby. Their might be something that'll help us be immune to it. Well, more like a Fire ability to say the least." Chopper hoped as he decided to pick his speed up. "OK, I think we need to go a BIT faster."
After walking for a bit more, they found a door at the end of the tunnel. It seemed that a password was needed to unlock it, but what Ninbot did was stab the machine with his katana, instantly opening the door.
"…I could've done that," Blade stated with a blank look.
"OK, let's not get into any competition here…" Sonic trailed as they walked through the door and into an area where they were at the edge of a cliff. They saw an elevator coming up for them in this larger area. Now THIS place was a bit hotter than what the tunnel was like, which began to bother Blade and Mario.
Mario: It's hot here!
"Poyo… (Ugh… Tell me about it…)" Kirby nodded while trying to fan himself with his hand. "Poyo…? (Couldn't this place have been, you know…a lot…cooler…?)"
Unfortunately, when they turned back to Ninbot's attention, they saw that he was no longer around. "Hey! Where did Ninbot go?! He was here a second ago…" Chopper looked around. "Ninbot?! Are you there?! We're trying to…"
Before he could finish the elevator stopped. It appeared that they were down on the rocky ground. But what they heard was apparently crying and even the sound of…pickaxes? Now who would be mining for supplies in a place like this?
"Great… First we lose Ninbot, now we have all of these pickaxe noises…" Blade groaned as they stepped on the rocky ground. "So… What's the next thing we're going to hear now? Is it going to get any worse?"
Now they were hearing some people crying from doing their work. It didn't sound robotic either. To them, it sounded more like a real voice than anything else they've heard in this world. And no, it wasn't Francis.
"Blade… WHY did you have to say something like that?!" Chopper asked with an irritated look. "You should realize if you ever say…that sentence, things ARE going to get worse!"
"Wait? What did I say? Do you mean, 'Is it going to get any worse?"
They heard an explosion coming from a lava pit up ahead. A rock ended up landing on someone too. Although, it sounded a bit more funny than sad, to be honest.
"See? That's what happens when you say stuff like that! People get brutally hurt! …Whatever, let's just search around here." Chopper suggested as he walked around the large room. It was just a straight pathway with a couple of prisoners that sort of resembled the ones back in Merlee's Mansion. Well, it turns out they ARE those kind of people!
"Hey… Haven't we seen people like them here before?"
"Uhhhh… I haven't seen people like them around here before…" Sonic trailed as he looked at the prisoners.
"Poyo, (That's because you weren't here when we saw these guys,)" Kirby pointed out as he looked at them. "Poyo! (These are those prisoners Mimi held, uh…prisoner back in Merlee's Mansion!)"
"Oh, yeah! Those guys! Back in Chapter 2!" Chopper recalled. "I can't believe these guys are here! How did they even get here anyway? Were they kidnapped from Merlee's Mansion and brought here?"
Mario: We should ask them.
Mario walked up to one of the prisoners and waved to him to greet him nicely. Although, he didn't necessarily get the nicest greeting in the world.
"Listen, chubby mustached man, I don't want you bothering me right now!" the prisoner snapped, making Mario back away a little. "This place blows. I hate that a guy with hair under his nose is here too…"
"This reminds me of that other prisoner we saw back at Gloam Valley…" Timpani groaned. "I just hope that isn't the same prisoner from before."
"Hey, wait a minute… I remember that voice! Is it…the hot girl?!" the prisoner jumped up and walked up to Mario. "Hey, chubby man! Do you know where that voice came from?! I GOTTA know!"
"And this guy thinks he could try to hit on my wife…" Blumiere grumbled.
"Relax, Blumiere. There's no way he can get to me. I'll still stay by your side. Always. But I think he could help us find our way out of here. You guys should ask him about this place."
"I'll do anything to get that girl! Ask me anything!" begged the prisoner.
The other prisoners looked over at him and nearly groaned. "See, this is why I hate being next to him," one grumbled.
"What is this place?" Chopper asked.
"This is the Quartz Mine," the prisoner explained. "We prisoners are mining for some quartz so Grim can make lots of money! He said robots will get scratched up, so he's using us because no one really cares about us."
"Poyo… (That's not good…)" Kirby frowned.
Everyone else was a bit silent, but they had to ask another question. "Who's this Grim person that we've been hearing about?" Sonic asked. Some large truck guy was apparently talking to him and we're a bit curious about it."
"Grim? All right, now you might be thinking he's a grim reaper, but that's not true. He's actually some guy wearing a cloak and is actually green and yellow! I mean, that's pretty cool! …But, in all honesty, we don't like it here. We're forced to work in this place and there's no way of freezing us."
"I think I have a solution," Chopper said as a light bulb appeared over his head. "Kirby, I'm gonna need your help if we're going to pull this off. Blade, you can try to help as well since you have fire."
"Poyo? (We're going to cut their chains off with fire?)" Kirby gawked.
"Well, with your cutter blade having some fire on it, we can actually free some of these prisoners. I believe you can cut chains with something hot… I think that's something Flyer told me before."
"Oh, you mean like this?" Blade brought his sword down on the prisoner's chain with fire energy, cutting it off and freeing him.
"Wait… I don't believe it! I'm actually free! YEAH! Now to go get me some babes!" the prisoner smirked while putting on some shades. "Awwww yeah!"
"…Where did you get the shades?" Chopper gawked.
"Now's not the time for that. We need to free all of these prisoners!" Sonic suggested. Chopper immediately got to work and tossed a fireball at Kirby's cutter blade. The pink puffball immediately used it to cut through the other chains. Blade did the same thing as well.
"SWEET FREEDOM!" the prisoners cheered as they fled out of the Quartz Mines. Hearing those words made Thoreau smile.
"Ahhhhh… I always love to hear them cheer like that!" Thoreau sighed happily. "It's so nice…"
"Yeah, it's nice that they're happy," Blade nodded. "But do you know what else is nice? Beating the snot out of our enemies and kicking their butts! Let's get moving!"
They rushed past the rest of the prisoners that were fleeing and headed through the red door up ahead into another area. This was small, kind of like a cavern room, and what was worse was that there was a Robbie lying over by the corner, making most of them bite their lips.
"…Robbie," Chopper gulped.
"Crud. We gotta attack it from a far range." Blade began to throw shurikens at the Robbie, but it immediately let out its ear-piercing scream, causing everyone to cover their ears (unless they didn't have ears). It began to creep its way toward the group, but Kirby managed to use his Final Cutter attack to finish it off since it doesn't always let out a freaky scream.
"Poyo, (These things are freaky,)" Kirby shivered as the Robbie was disintegrated into smoke. It also made a door appear right next to them. They all knew they should just walk through the next room, and that they did…to find some platforms floating on lava and even some floating robotic enemies that have smoke coming out.
"Weird enemies… But let's see what they are." Chopper pulled the wand out and aimed it at the strange robot to investigate it.
"That's a Robobomb. These things are generally used as weapons. Max HP is 1. Attack is 10. If you end up touching it, it will explode and deal some massive damage to you. But, you won't get hurt if you pick it up with Thoreau. You might be able to throw them at any enemies and cracked walls!" Timpani informed.
"Hmmmmm… Let's give it a go!" Chopper used Thoreau to grab the Robobomb so he was holding it up. He jumped on the lava platforms to avoid getting burnt and flipped into 3-D to find a crack. So, he simply threw the Robobomb at the wall, causing it to make a large hole.
"What do you see through there?" Blade asked.
"I see…a pipe? I think we can use this pipe to get down somewhere!" Chopper smiled as he jumped right into the pipe and let him go down it in the weird, pixel-like way where his body turns into pixels as it goes down the pipe.
"Poyo? (Does anyone know why our bodies become pixel-like as we go down a pipe?)" Kirby asked. Unfortunately, since Chopper already went down the pipe, no one else could understand what he was saying.
Mario: Errr… I don't understand…
"Dang it… We don't understand what Kirby's saying…" Sonic groaned. "But, whatever. We gotta get moving, either we like it or not. That's probably the important part in this entire quest…I think."
They all followed Chopper down the pipe before doing anything else.
Another cave room-
They jumped out of the pipe and saw that they were in another tunnel, except this one seemed to be going down a bit and not to mention there was a large gap up ahead that looked rather tough to cross. However, there did seem to be something that could help, such as the glowing arrows up on the walls over the gap. That could be a little something for some of them.
"Hey, it's another tunnel! Maybe we can see what we'll find up ahead!" Chopper smiled as he made his way down and began to run on the wall over by the gap. Sonic followed as well and managed to get over to the door ahead.
Mario: Now how do I get through?
"I think your Triple Jump could probably help you here," Blade pointed out.
Mario decided to try it out and, it turns out, that it ended up helping him get across the gap with no problem. Blade simply made a huge jump to get over using his ninja skills. Afterward, they headed through the door, where they saw that they were standing right on a platform floating in the lava. A couple of blue Lava Bubbles rose from the lava and tried to spit small fire at them.
"Oh, boy… Those things. I remember seeing those back in The Underwhere… But they're now blue." Chopper groaned. "Although, I don't know what their stats are…" he pulled out Timpani's wand and investigated them.
"It's an Ember. They are said to be phantoms of dead Lava Bubbles… Max HP is 20. Attack is 9. They usually rise up from the lava and try to spit small fireballs at you if possible. It's not too hard to get rid of them though. Just bash them with an attack that doesn't involve you touching them and they'll be gone. They also seem to hate cold temperatures and water…" Timpani informed.
"Oh, really? Well let's see what this does!" Chopper was about to toss a fireball at the Ember, but he paused for a minute. "…Wait, I think I have a better idea."
"Better idea? What do you mean?"
"Just watch," Chopper inhaled the Ember and gained the Fire ability upon swallowing it. "I think I'll be able to handle the lava if I have the Fire ability on. Now we just need one for Kirby…"
Chopper jumped to the next platform and punched the ? Block. Luckily, there happened to be a Fire ability that came out. Kirby immediately removed his ability and took it so he could have it as well.
"Poyo! (Now THIS is much better for this area!)" Kirby smiled.
"Tell me about it!" Chopper saw a Patrolbot hovering over the lava, but Kirby was the one to get to it first by jumping and attacking it with his Fireball Spin attack, making him spin in a ball of fire as he destroyed the Patrolbot.
After two more jumps, they could see that the next platform was a bit too far to reach. Plus, there was a huge wall of fire blocking the way in order to prevent people like Kirby from getting across the large gap.
"Poyo? (Is it possible to go through there with this Fire ability?)" Kirby questioned.
"I'm not so sure… But I'll see what's in 3-D." Chopper threw his arms up and flipped into 3-D. He saw that the whole wall of fire wasn't covering all of 3-D, to his relief. There were even a couple of other platforms, but they were more of a grayish color than a brownish. He decided to scan them with Timpani's wand.
"Those platforms can sink if you stand on them for too long… They'll rise back up if you're off of them, though." Timpani informed.
"If you're a bit too close to the lava, I would suggest you jump so you can let the platform rise up," suggested Blumiere.
"Well I guess that helps us…" Sonic shrugged as Chopper helped him and the rest of the group into 3-D. "I still wonder… How does Grim get his robots through this area? Aren't they vulnerable to the heat?"
Mario: Beats me. I don't know about these robots!
"Who really cares? It's best that we just get rid of the bad guys here!" Blade said as they got past the wall of fire and went back into 2-D on a gray platform. They could see another Ember pop out of the lava, but Chopper took care of it by tossing an ice ball at it.
"I find it rather strange that I'm using ice when I have the Fire ability on…" Chopper trailed as he got to a door being blocked by some large rock. There happened to be dynamite next to it, but it wasn't lit up.
…So, basically, he touched the fuse with fire energy on his fingers to make it go off and blow up the door, thus allowing them to press on ahead into the next area, which was a bit smaller, but there weren't any lava platforms. It was just the ground they were standing on and a couple of jars filled with water.
"Huh… What's with these large jars?" Blade asked, poking the jars. He noticed up ahead on the lava that there was a huge spring of lava shooting out to an upper pathway up ahead.
"From what I see, those jars could probably cool down some parts of the lava and allow you to walk on it," Timpani predicted. "Maybe you can throw one of those jars into that lava spring. It might be able to help us."
Mario grabbed a hold of the first jar using Thoreau and tossed it into the lava. A large rock appeared, floating on the lava as soon as the jar broke and all the water went all over the place. Kirby grabbed the next jar with Thoreau and threw it on the lava spring while it was resting for a bit and they all jumped on it to hitch a ride.
"Now this might be a bit fun," Sonic smirked.
"Why do you say that?" Chopper asked.
"Well, I'm pretty sure riding up a lava spring could be pretty fun! Although, I think lava surfing is a bit more enjoyable than this…"
"Sonic, you ALWAYS think that snowboarding or surfing on anything is better than riding something like a rollercoaster or this thing!" Blade pointed out. "It's so obvious to what you always prefer."
They jumped off the rocky platform and landed on the upper ground where they saw another door. Mario struck the ? Block to gain a Mushroom (that they all split) and moved on into the next area.
Surprisingly, they saw that there was a bridge up ahead in a bigger area. However, there was someone blocking the way, and they were certainly not happy to see who it was. It was none other than…Trucker.
"What the… Who the heck are you people?" Trucker questioned, looking confused. "You don't look like robots at all! In fact, there's a pizza guy with you too! Oh, don't tell me… You're more pizza guys?"
"No, we're not pizza guys. We're here to find that Pure Heart!" Chopper declared. "But that requires you to get out of the way first…"
"Errr… Whuh? Listen here…"
"OK..."
"Hey! Don't interrupt me like that…er…whatever it is…" Trucker snapped. "But, I'm still not movin'. Grim ordered me to keep watch here an' I ain't gonna move until he tells me to do so! An' if yer askin' fer a fight, then just try an' get past me! I'm too big fer ya all anyway!"
"So you're saying that the only way to get through is by force?" Blade asked, getting ready to draw his katana. "'Cause if that's what you mean, then we'll be happy to take you down!"
Blade charged straight at Trucker and tried to strike him with his katana. Unfortunately, it didn't really do anything and it only bent his katana instead of going right through his metallic body.
"HA! See? You can't strike me with my metallic body! But I can do THIS!" Trucker began to fire his machine guns straight at Blade. The ninja began to dodge using his ninja skills and made his way back to the group.
"Poyo! (Blade! No! Don't get him over here!)" Kirby shouted as Trucker began to fire toward them. But this time, he fired a missile at them. Chopper immediately got into 3-D with his friends and they saw some rocky steps to their right to avoid the missiles and get away from Trucker.
"Huh…? Where'd they go?" he gawked.
"It's a good thing we're safe from that fat robot," Chopper said, sighing in relief. "I didn't want to be stuck with that thing."
"But how are we going to get him out of the way?" Sonic asked. "In fact, have we even investigated this guy? Maybe if we did that, we'll be able to find out how we can get him out of the way!"
"I'll check," Chopper pulled Timpani's wand out and used it to investigate Trucker.
"That's Trucker. He's one of Grim's minions. He's not really that smart of a robot, though… Max HP is ?. Attack is 10. Defense is ?. None of your weapons will work against this guy. Try all you want, but you're not going to hurt him… The only thing that might work against him is if you have something related to a jetpack… But I don't see any jetpacks around here…" Timpani informed.
"Jetpacks, huh? We just have to ram into him with that? Well… Let's check around here." Chopper saw a lava platform making its way over to them. They jumped on it and allowed it to take them over to a lava platform that was standing still. There also happened to be a ? Block floating above the platform.
Punching the block, Mario noticed a jet plane helmet with wings and shades pop out.
Mario: It's a helmet!
"Hey, maybe that's what we need to hit Trucker!" Chopper threw his Fire ability away and inhaled the helmet. After swallowing it, it happened to appear on his head, but now there was a large jet engine on his back. He was also wearing the shades that were given with the ability as well.
"Nice! I think this should do nicely!" as soon as Chopper jumped, he noticed he was hovering over the ground thanks to the jetpack. "I think I can use this to fly over the lava! This is pretty nice!"
"Poyo, (Well, hopefully I can get one of those,)" Kirby hoped. "Poyo… (Although… I didn't find the Jet ability THAT useful…)"
"True, but we need it to stop Trucker," they made their way back up to Trucker, who was looking around for the heroes on the bridge. When they appeared right in front of him via flipping, he got his weapons ready and prepared to fire.
"All right, fools! Now you're going to…" Trucker was interrupted when Chopper rammed straight into him with his foot thanks to the powers of the Jet ability. Despite this, Trucker didn't seem to move.
"Ha! A jetpack?" Trucker began to wheeze before starting to laugh. "You stupid little…"
Chopper smiled as he saw Trucker was almost about to fall, saying "See ya!" in his mind before Trucker ended up falling straight into the lava.
"Oh, crud! I'm in the lava!" Trucker pouted. "Great… Now Grim's goin' to be mad at me! I better not tell him about this though…if I even make it out of here alive, that is…"
After Trucker sank into the lava, everyone smiled as they walked up to the door ahead, leading into an area that looked more like a base. They saw multiple Securibots patrolling the ground here. They even saw a sign right next to them. The sky seemed like a light orange color, but a bit foggy.
"Sheesh… What a foggy area." Sonic stated. "I can hardly see any of the Securibots around here! I can see their searchlights, though."
Surprisingly, Ninbot landed right in front of them, causing nearly most of them to yelp, but not in a loud way. "Whoa whoa whoa! Hang on a second here… How'd you get through all of that stuff we were in?" Blade asked.
"I took a different way," Ninbot bluntly explained as he looked at the sign.
No entry beyond this point. This includes Ninbot and people that are not robots!
-Grim-
"Sheesh! I guess these robots don't really like you that much…" Chopper trailed as he looked at the sign. "What have you done to them? …Or rather, have they done anything to YOU instead?"
"And it's OK to tell us why," Sonic assured. "We're not the bad guys."
"Fine… I suppose I can explain why." Ninbot sighed. "This place used to be inhabited by peaceful robots. I was one of the people who lived here a couple of years ago. But when Master Mind came here and invaded our world, we were defenseless. Because of how peaceful we robots were, there wasn't a way for us to fight back. I thought things would be fine…but I was wrong."
"So… How did you end up becoming a ninja?" Chopper asked.
"There were only two survivors. All that was left was me and a sensei that was a bit old for a robot. Of course, I was programmed to be a ninja, but I haven't really learned moves that can help me escape from danger. Only moves that help me fight back. After learning those abilities, he ended up shutting down, with only me remaining. I DID manage to thwart Master Mind's plans and put an end to him. But his right-hand man, Grim, still lived. He's trying to find a way to stop me."
"Poyo, (That's pretty interesting,)" Kirby stated, who was a bit surprised with all of this. "Poyo? (So where is Grim right now?)"
Chopper had to translate what Kirby said to Ninbot, since he doesn't know what he's saying. "Grim is somewhere around here. I can feel it… If we can just stop him, there's a chance that this world can be saved."
"…But what about Robo Chopper?" Chopper questioned.
"Oh… There's still him too." Ninbot didn't say anything else as he jumped on a couple of the Securibots to take them out. Everyone simply followed Ninbot through, with Chopper flying over the Securibots with his Jet ability.
"Hold on, I think I saw something," he flew up to a platform on a high platform and saw a chest. He kicked it open and found a Base Key, which was a bit strange for him to find high up.
But, who cares, right? He went back down and they all followed Ninbot through the headquarters and over to a large, gray door up ahead. The only problem, though, was that the door was locked.
"The door's locked," Ninbot tried to cut it with his katana, but it didn't seem to work. "We're going to need a key to get through here."
"You mean this?" Chopper pulled the Base Key out and inserted it into the lock, breaking it off and allowing them entry. "See? There's something that can be helpful for us! Now let's go through!"
Inside-
As they walked through the door, they noticed that they were in a room with a dark blue quartz ground and walls and also a large, glowing blue core in the middle of the room. It seemed to be some sort of holographic model of the planet, for some reason. There was also a chair facing the hologram, but it wasn't facing the heroes.
"What a strange room this is…" Sonic trailed.
Mario: It's kind of creepy…
"Poyo! (But at least it isn't hot!)" Kirby smiled.
"Hmmmmmm? Why do I hear voices in this place?" the chair turned and they saw a green robot with his head being half green and half yellow turn around. He was wearing a black cloak and was holding a scythe with jewels on the edge which seemed to make it a bit heavy. But, surprisingly, it didn't seem heavy to him.
"Are you Grim?" Blade asked.
"Yes, I am the one and only Grim," Grim got up from his chair and glared at the heroes with his red and black eyes. "And I see you're the intruders that were infiltrating my base and freed my slaves! Oh, you're going to pay for that… You're going to pay with your lives!"
"Excuse me, but you had no right to take those prisoners and make them your slaves!" Timpani retorted. "That's a horrible thing for you to do!"
"Tsh! I do it because I can! And besides, who's going to be the ones to get those quartz out of these mines? Certainly not me! At least I managed to use some of it to make this beautiful building for myself."
"So how come we didn't see any quartz around here? Did you get rid of it all?" Blade asked, drawing his katana, which was a bit bent. However, he managed to get it fixed thanks to Mario using his hammer to straighten it.
"You know, I could've done that too…" Chopper frowned.
"He asked first. I'm pretty sure his hammer is better anyway."
"Oh… Dang."
"Apparently those slaves have already mined all of the quartz in this area," Grim explained. "I'm afraid there's no more quartz left to be found around here. It's a shame, really. I could've used more of that to make this room even nicer or larger, but I guess not."
"But how could you now? You've got no slaves with you!" Chopper smirked. "We freed them, remember? It's over for you!"
"You may have taken my slaves, but the war isn't over just yet," Grim swung his scythe and aimed it at the heroes. "Since you happened to THROW Trucker off the bridge, I guess I'm going to have to do this myself. I'm not going to hold back against you though. Remember that!"
The chair disappeared and so did the hologram of the planet, leaving this room to look more like a fighting room. "As for you, Ninbot… I specifically told you NOT to come here! But I guess that I can simply avenge Master Mind by taking your life!"
"Oh, I don't think so!" Sonic curled up in a ball and struck Grim with a Homing Attack, knocking him back. Grim tried to regain conscious and attack Sonic, but he managed to avoid his scythe and kick him in the face.
"Argh! Fine! I'll take care of you people first, since you HAPPEN to be in my way!" Grim growled, readying his scythe. "Good thing I can fire lasers from this thing, or else I would be screwed from far range."
While the group started their fight, Chopper pulled Timpani's wand out and investigated on Grim.
"That's Grim. He's said to be a minion of a robot named Master Mind that was once destroyed by Ninbot. Max HP is 160. Attack is 10. Defense is 2. That scythe can be quite deadly from a close range. If he charges up his special attack with that thing, it's probably best that you get out of his way so you don't take even more damage… Those blasts he fires at you can be frozen, however, so you might want to try to freeze them with any ice attacks… Other than that, this guy is quite…strange. He's a robot grim reaper, yet he doesn't look like one…?" Timpani informed.
"Yeah, I think it's strange," Chopper immediately rushed toward Grim, but the robot managed to strike him with a blast from his scythe, knocking him back toward the wall. Kirby, however, managed to get into a fireball and ram into Grim to leave him a bit overheated.
"Agh! I'm starting to overheat a little!" Grim gaped.
Ninbot smirked and threw one of his shurikens at him while he was clinging to the wall, knocking Grim back a bit. Blade also helped by tossing a shuriken and then striking him with his katana.
"What? TWO ninjas? Great… Just great…"
"Take this!" Chopper cried as he flew toward him with his Jet ability. He stopped and brought his hands out and fired a green blast straight at him, sending him flying toward the opposite wall.
"Whoa… I can fired a blast of energy from my hands when I do that? Weird…" Chopper had a blank look on his face as he saw a bunch of blasts firing at him. He immediately flew up to avoid them, but he ended up losing his Jet ability from one of them. The yellow star that was flying around was even destroyed by one of the blasts.
"All right, that's it! No more Mr. Nice-guy!" Grim flew toward Sonic and struck him with his scythe, knocking him back. Mario ended up jumping on his head, but even then he got hit by Grim's scythe.
"Poyo, (Oh, yeah, I can make enemies dizzy with my attacks,)" Kirby jumped on Carrie and jumped on top of Grim's head, leaving him dizzy for a couple of seconds. That's when Chopper rushed toward him and did an uppercut kick with ice energy on his feet to send Grim up to the ceiling.
"Sheesh! That attack sure had some power to it!" Chopper commented.
"Not really… It didn't beat him…" Blade face palmed.
"…Well that stinks."
Grim raised his scythe and slammed it on the ground, creating a large blue wave of energy that knocked Kirby, Blade and Mario off the ground and sent them toward the wall. Afterward, Grim fired some homing mini-robots to go after them.
"I got one of them!" Chopper ended up inhaling three mini-robots and spat them out at Grim, doing more damage than what he would normally do when inhaling enemies. "Gee, that was interesting…"
Mario managed to grab a hold of the next mini-robot with Thoreau and threw it back at Grim, damaging him a bit. It sort of brought him back to his dream where he picked up enemies and other stuff and threw them at others.
Mario: Ahhh… Those memories never get old.
Mario avoided Grim's scythe again and managed to strike him with another jump, but this time he managed to ground pound his head and bash him in the head with his hammer afterward.
"Incoming!" Chopper cried as he began to spin his hammer rapidly, striking Grim and knocking him to the ground. Sonic followed up by using Screwdy's corkscrew attack on him to pierce right through his chest. A couple of sparks were left flying, but Grim wasn't exactly finished yet.
"Don't think I'm going to give up so easily," Grim got up and swung his scythe at the group. Rings flew everywhere as Sonic got struck and Chopper was just left with a terrible mark on his cheek.
"Ow! That left a bad mark on my cheek." Chopper said, holding his cheek in pain. "What stinks is that it's always my face that suffers the injuries."
"Just take it like a man," Blade suggested as he kicked Grim in the face and slashed at him with his katana, leaving a scar right on Grim's body, causing him to get angry and swing his scythe at him. Luckily, Blade managed to bring his katana up and defend himself against the attack.
"Whoa! That was too close!"
"Heads up, Blade, I got your back!" Sonic curled up in a ball once again and struck Grim in the back. Although that was meant to help, it only got the robot to fall over to Blade. But he was able to get him off.
Kirby made another move on Grim, spitting a fireball from his mouth at the grim reaper and setting him on fire. Chopper helped cool him down by tossing an ice ball at him. However, it didn't necessarily freeze him…
"Well if that didn't freeze him, then this should help!" Chopper pulled his hammer out and bashed Grim with it. When Grim swung his scythe, Chopper tried to block it, but things didn't work out for him. At least Sonic managed to hit Grim with a Spin Jump after being knocked back.
"Sheesh… I might need something else to help me!"
"Then take this," Ninbot tossed a shuriken right by Chopper's foot. The young boy looked down at it and picked it up. After thinking for a bit, he inhaled it and swallowed it. His skin turned to a light purple tint, while his gloves and feet were now purple. Chopper was also wearing a red helmet with three stars on the front, with the middle one being bigger, and the other two being smaller. The helmet also had a purple plume sticking out from the top as well.
"Poyo? (Is that the Ninja ability?)" Kirby gawked.
"I think so…" Chopper looked at his light purple self and then felt the top of his head. "Yeah, this is definitely my ninja ability. Although… I was hoping I would look a bit more ninja-like."
"Well don't just stand there like that! Help us fight!" Blade cried as he tried to push Grim's scythe away from him. Chopper nodded and made a dash toward Grim. With his small katana, he managed to do some serious damage to him. Grim even tried to shoot him, but he managed to use his new agility to avoid the attacks and grab a hold of him.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" Grim gawked.
"This," Chopper jumped up in the air with his and turned him around so his head would be aiming for the ground. He came straight down and struck Grim in the head, leaving him dazed so Kirby could ram into him as a fireball.
"Well that was…pretty interesting," Sonic commented.
Grim managed to get back up and knock both Chopper and Kirby back by shooting a couple of lasers at them with his scythe. He also managed to elbow Mario in the stomach to make him fall over.
Mario: Mama mia! My stomach!
"I think it's time for my new attack," Grim stored up a lot of power in his scythe, which began to glow a blue color. Ninbot tried to strike him, but it didn't seem to have any effect on him.
"Try THIS!" Grim began to spin rapidly around the room, trying to strike them all. Kirby was lucky enough to float over the ground and Chopper was lucky that he could cling onto the wall, just like Blade could. But as for Sonic and Mario… They ended up suffering from the attack.
"Ack! That attack is deadly!" Sonic wheezed. "Did I just lose 20 HP from that?!"
"Maybe you need to heal yourselves now," suggested Timpani.
"Your HP IS rather low, I'll admit," commented Blumiere.
"We better do that," Sonic pulled an Ultra Shroom Shake and took a sip from it. They all passed it around and drank it until it was all empty. Of course, Chopper decided to throw the empty can at Grim to deal some damage.
"Hey! What was that for?!" Grim gawked.
"We always tend to do that!" Chopper nodded as he threw a couple of ninja stars at Grim's chest. They stuck to him, but he managed to pull them off and throw them at Blade. Of course, that was a rather stupid move for him to do, since it was easy fro Blade to just deflect them back at him.
"That was a rather dumb move," Blade commented.
Grim didn't say another word as he struck Blade with his scythe, knocking him back, but was soon hit when Ninbot jumped down and swung his katana at him, leaving him dazed. This allowed Kirby to use his Fireball Spin attack and hit him a couple of times while in a fireball.
"Poyo! (And here's something else for you!)" Kirby threw Crystaline straight at the dazed Grim, leaving him frozen. Afterward, he began to breathe fire at him to melt him and to deal some heavy damage, leaving his HP rather low.
"This is good… You have him! You can finish the fight!" cheered Blumiere.
"FORE!"
"Wait, what are you doing, Chopper?!" Timpani gaped.
"Settle down, Tippi! This should work." Chopper swung his hammer back and then struck Sonic while he was curled in a ball. The blue hedgehog's quills struck Grim and allowed Sonic to slam his foot right on top of his head as he got out of a ball, leaving him nearly weak.
"Urgh… What's wrong with me?! How come they're kicking my butt?!" Grim gawked.
"Because," Sonic began while waggling his finger. "We're…"
"Don't even SAY that, Sonic…" Chopper warned.
"I was going to say that we're awesome…"
"Oh, I thought you were going to say…"
"All right, we get it already!" Blade groaned.
"Fine…" Sonic did one last Spin Jump on Grim to finish him off. Despite not finishing him off, it was enough to leave him defeated.
"How… How could I lose to you guys?" Grim cried. "How could squishies defeat robots? We were designed to outrank you people!"
"Hey, man, just because you're a robot doesn't mean you're superior to non-robots," Sonic explained. "I've taken down armies of robots in the past and I'm not a robot!"
Mario: We've all taken down robots in the past.
"I see…" little did they know that Grim was planning one last attack. He was storing up power in his scythe from behind! "Too bad you won't live to take down any other robots! Especially that other robot that lives in that fortress!"
"Poyo? (Wait, what's he planning?)" Kirby gawked.
Grim raised his scythe and tried to finish off the heroes, but Ninbot jumped in and stabbed Grim in the chest with his katana.
"Ninbot… You… You… You're going to wish you've never done that…" Grim wheezed. "Someday, I'll make sure you and these people suffer a horrible, horrible death."
"I highly doubt that,"
With that, Ninbot pulled his katana out of Grim's chest. The robot ended up exploded as Ninbot put away his weapon.
"Wow… I can't believe you did that." Chopper gawked.
"But it's not over yet," Sonic reminded. "We still have Robo Chopper to stop! And to get that Pure Heart!"
"And we have to save Luvbi too."
They all saw a door mysteriously appear right near them. It's almost if that door was been hiding this whole time! Nevertheless, our heroes walked through the door into a small room where they saw a Star Block and a switch right by the end of the room.
"Oh, boy! This must be the way out!" Blade smiled.
"And now let's hit the Star Block first!" Chopper smiled as he punched the Star Block. "…Although, I have no idea where Francis went anyway."
"Poyo… (That is a mystery…)" Kirby pondered.
END OF CHAPTER
With Grim out of the way, our heroes knew that his minions should be stopping just about now. But despite this, they weren't finished with this world just yet. Up the elevator, Chopper could almost hear the voice of a girl. A voice that reminded him of a certain Nimbi princess that has an obsession of him. From that point on, he knew that Luvbi was in grave danger. "I just hope we don't get there too late…" hoped Timpani as the light from the ceiling led them outside, right in front of the Robot Fortress.
Well, that concludes this part. We only have one last part of this whole chapter! And surely things shouldn't turn out bad, right? You know, maybe Robo Chopper might actually SUCCEED in his plans, unlike the other times? Huh? OK, let's not get there just yet. I know I didn't say much about Grim in the past in Chapter 11, but I thought I had to here. So... Yeah.
And get ready for what we might see next in this fic. I'm pretty sure we're probably going to see something rather...big or interesting...or evil.