CHAPTER 13-5
-Tower of the Sun and Moon-
"So… We've finally made it to the castle… Partners! The time has finally come…to put and end to the ferocious SunMoonFlower!" Arcaine declared as he pointed up at an angle. Everyone blinked and face palmed at the same time because of how many times he's said that.
"OK, Arcaine! We get it already! You don't need to keep telling us about this SunMoonFlower thing! We already know about it!" Sonic snapped, trying to get Arcaine's attention. Unfortunately, for him, it didn't seem to work, since he was simply ignored by Arcaine.
"Ugh… Just don't even bother, Sonic. He's not going to respond." Chopper groaned as he looked down at the ground. "Why is it that this castle feels so much similar to the previous castle we've been in? It's kind of…weird."
At this point, everyone took their time to look at the whole castle's interior. Unlike King Sunday's Castle, this castle's floor and walls were more of a dark blue color, in a way that it matches the night sky. Even out the window, they could see the full moon shining through the window. However, the most notable thing in the castle was the portraits of King Moonnight, which were a bit difficult to see because the castle was a bit dark, but not dark like the Mansion of Nightmares was.
"Chopper… I believe that if we go to King Moonnight, we might be able to find the fourteenth Pure Heart." Timpani stated. "Although, getting past those guards might be a little difficult…"
Everyone took a glance at the dark blue armored Mooners carrying swords. I guess we can refer to these guys as Moon Knights, unlike the Sun Knights. Their swords were glowing a white color, to some of the people's surprise.
"Hold on a second…" Everyone paused when Timpani was about to say another thing. "I can feel something else above this castle… I don't know what it is, but I can feel that the Pure Heart's…up there?"
"I thought you said the Pure Heart was somewhere in the castle?" Luigi gaped.
"That's what I got at first, but now I'm feeling another presence in this castle… For some reason, it doesn't seem like it's harmless."
"Then it must be the ferocious SunMoonFlower!" Arcaine declared. Everyone turned to him with confused looks. "Hey! She said that something that isn't harmless isn't here! It's GOT to be SunMoonFlower!"
"But didn't your monitor thing tell you that it was in the sewers?" Blade asked, tilting his head.
"…Maybe it moved somewhere in the castle," he predicted. "Wait a second… What about that pipe? Maybe if you went down there, you would be able to find SunMoonFlower down there, my squadron!"
"Wait! What do you think you're…" Before Sonic could finish, Arcaine started to push the heroes over to the dark blue pipe. "Hey! We're supposed to be going to King Moonnight! Not going down into more sewers! …As if we've already been through enough already."
Unfortunately for them, they were dragged into the sewers by being pushed. Just to make sure that things would be all right, Arcaine grabbed a boulder in the room and put it right on top of the pipe to prevent them from coming back up.
"What the heck?! The pipe's blocked!" Arcaine could hear Luigi's voice crying out from the sewers. "Arcaine! What did you do with the pipe?! We can't even get out of here now! Is there something in the way?!"
"I put a boulder on top of the pipe just to make sure SunMoonFlower can't get out! That way, you'll be able to find that monster with no problem!" Arcaine shouted back. "While you guys search for SunMoonFlower, I'm going to get some help! Just stay put there and I'll be back!"
"Hold on a second… Did Arcaine seriously trap six people in the sewers?!" one of the Moon Knights gasped as Arcaine came walking over to them. "Is that even legal?!"
"Step aside, Moon Knights! I need to ask for King Moonnight's assistance!" the weird person declared.
"You're just going to leave the prophesied heroes down in the sewers?!" the second Moon Knight gawked. "You realize that you can't DO something like that! We can't let you pass because of some monster that's complete bogus!"
"Well I still need to ask for the king's assistance! He'll know what to do! Plus, after what I saw my squadron do before, I think they can handle the power of SunMoonFlower! Trust me on this!"
"Dang… Well, I guess we'll just let you through. HOWEVER… I don't wanna hear any more dumb stories from the king again. You BETTER have a good reason for wanting to talk to him anyway. Got that?"
"I'm super sunious, sir," Arcaine nodded as the two knights stepped out of the way and allowed Arcaine through. "Look out, SunMoonFlower… You're going to be history at the end of this!"
Sewers-
"NOO!" Blade screeched as he continued to kick and punch the pipe. Unfortunately, none of that seemed to be working against the boulder blocking the way. "I can't believe that scoundrel! He left us to die in these sewers! Why the heck would he do that?!"
"I really wanna go home now…" Luigi sniffled as he crouched down in the dark and gloomy sewers.
Mario: At least the water's not so bad here…
"Yeah… I can understand that… It kind of looks like those underground rooms we're usually in. But WHY did Arcaine throw us into the sewers like this?!" Chopper asked before his communicator went off. It turned out to be Bow.
"How is your adventure going?" Bow asked, only to notice him not looking too happy. "Wait… What's wrong?"
"We were thrown into the sewers… It's not pretty…" Sonic explained, overhearing Bow's voice from the communicator. "Although… I did find a letter lying around here for some reason."
"A letter?! That must be one of the letters I lost!" Parakarry spoke up as he communicated with Sonic through his communicator. "Please… Bring that back to me in one piece. I'll repay you if you do!"
"Relax, Parakarry! You don't need to give me anything in return!" the blue hedgehog assured as he put the letter away. "I'll make sure this letter comes back in one piece. You can trust me on that."
"Well, hopefully you get out of the sewers in one piece," Bow hoped.
Mario: We can do that!
"Well, gotta go. Bye now!" Chopper smiled, turning off his communicator.
"So… What do we do now?" Luigi asked as he stopped cowering for a second and looked at the whole sewers and its dark blue background that still reminded him of the underground areas.
"Well, the only thing we can do is find a way out of here," Blade said after giving up. "Look… I can't do this anymore. Breaking the boulder is nearly impossible when it's hard to see it."
"We're not planning on going that way," Sonic noted. "We're going to be exploring these sewers. As for that SunMoonFlower… I still think that it's kind of bogus, if you ask me. Choppor said there isn't a SunMoonFlower!"
"Good… There better not be…" Luigi huffed as he jumped into the shallow water. When they looked up, they saw water dripping from the ceiling. Nevertheless, they just jumped into the shallow water that was up to Chopper's feet and continued wading through the water. Two Moon Koopas were walking around here as well.
"Poyo, (And just as we thought we were done with these guys,)" Kirby said as he threw his cutter blade like a boomerang at the two Moon Koopas and defeated them instantly. One of them happened to drop a Dried Shroom too.
"Ewww… These things are nasty." Chopper gagged as he picked up the Dried Shroom. "It's kind of weird that the legendary treasure of the Thousand-Year Door turned out to be nothing more than a Dried Shroom."
Mario: Oh, yeah! I remember that!
"But, I guess we should just stop talking about that and get back to business," Chopper ran up ahead over to the pipe sticking out of the wall. He entered through with his friends into another sewer room. They were standing on a platform that was above a water current that appeared to be going rather fast.
"Gulp… This doesn't look too good…" Sonic gulped as he looked down at the water.
"Then let's just go in already," Blade suggested, pushing Sonic into the water and letting him get carried by the current. He jumped in next, followed by Chopper, Kirby, Mario and then Luigi.
"This current is very strong… You might want to be careful when exploring this place…" Timpani suggested as Chopper managed to grab a hold of a pole hanging from the ground. He tried his best to avoid the spiky bombs nearby, but he ended up getting hit by them and took some severe damage.
"Ouch! That's not fair! Why are there bombs down here?!" Chopper exclaimed while he cringed in pain.
"Poyo, (At least I didn't get hit by those,)" Kirby giggled as he avoided a couple of the bombs coming his way. He was so used to avoiding these kinds of things when he used to swim underwater in the past.
"Ugh… I still hate going in the water at some points. Especially here…" Luigi groaned as he tried avoiding the bombs. One of them hit him and he took some severe damage. Although, it wasn't as bad as what Chopper took.
Mario: I think we're almost through this current…
"One more pole to go," Chopper said as he grabbed a hold of the next pole. Since the current was still too strong for him to grip onto, he let go of the pole and got carried through a hole that fired out of a wall and made everyone go flying down.
"WHOA! Why am I reminded of Hydrocity, all of the sudden?!" Sonic yelped as he looked down and saw more water ahead. He groaned as he sank to the bottom of the water and landed right next to an Invincibility box. He hit it to gain invincibility for a couple of seconds.
Of course, he still had that timer he had to worry about.
"Mmmmmggggffffhhhh!" Sonic tried to run in the water, but since water is a lot different than air, there was no way he could move fast. Heck, Chopper had a hard time moving when he sank to the ground.
"Well, this is kind of interesting… I didn't expect the sewers to be this whole underwater place…" Luigi commented.
"Poyo! (Heads up! Some Koopatrols up ahead!)" Kirby pointed to the Koopas wearing scuba gear. After investigating it, Chopper discovered that these enemies were called Scupas.
When the Scupa got its weapon ready, Blade swam up to it and slashed at it with his katana a couple of times to defeat it. It ended up dropping some kind of bubble item that he decided to test out. To his surprise, he was surrounded by a bubble that gave his fresh air.
"Whoa… I didn't know we'd find items like this!" Blade gaped. "I'm glad that I can finally breathe for once! Although… I still think we need to help Sonic over there… He doesn't look too good."
Mario: He's right by an air bubble.
Sonic took in an air bubble that popped up from the ground and then continued his way down the slope. Chopper shrugged and ran down as well, despite the water hindering his speed, kind of like with Sonic.
They found a red spring up ahead after going down the slope that was facing in front of them, but there was no purpose of using it because if they did, they would be sent back over to the wall.
So, instead, they swam over it (Sonic jumped over it) and up the step there were these strange propellers that were making bubbles fly up to the surface. Kirby was the first to try this out. He ended up getting carried by the current upward to a conveyer belt. When he grabbed onto it, he started to get carried by it.
"I'm going to give that a try," Chopper allowed himself to get carried up and followed Kirby on the conveyer belt. They had to be careful of some spikes above them on a platform above them, so they both let go and landed right next to some more air bubbles.
"I guess we can just ignore that then," Blade said as he swam past the conveyer belt and swam over to the air bubbles. Sonic acted fast and grabbed an air bubble before reaching a platform that appeared to be breakable. A Scupa was standing on top of it, but was soon finished when Sonic sued a Spin Jump on it. This triggered a part of the platform to break off, allowing him to reach a platform down below with another Scupa. When he took care of that one, the platform broke and brought him to the bottom of the area.
"Whoa! Slow down, Sonic!" Luigi suggested as everyone else got down to where Sonic was. He already took in another air bubble and jumped over more spikes. They happened to notice a tunnel with the current getting a bit stronger up ahead.
"Oh, boy… This doesn't look too good…" Chopper gulped.
"Poyo? (It's just a current. What kind of harm is there to it?)" Kirby asked as he was the first one to step up. The current simply carried him over to a pole up ahead, but since he couldn't hold onto it, his hands simply slipped off of it.
Mario: Poor Kirby…
"We should get going before Sonic drowns," Blade suggested as he went next. The rest shrugged and let the current carry them. Chopper managed to grab a hold of a pole and also grab a Super Shroom on the pole. He then released his grip on the pole and grabbed a hold of the next one.
"What's the point of all of these poles?" Chopper asked.
"Maybe it's to help you get some items, perhaps?" Luigi predicted as the current began to carry them up instead of to the right. They were suddenly shot out of the ground by water and were sent flying up. There didn't appear to be any pipes, however. But there was a door when they landed on the ground.
"FINALLY! We're out of the water!" Sonic panted as he took a couple of deep breaths right next to the door. "You don't wanna know how much I wanted to get out of the water… I'm talking big time here!"
"OK, Sonic, we already heard you for the eleventh time," Chopper groaned. "Let's just go through this door already."
They headed through the door and walked into an area with a road leading down like a hill. At the bottom, there happened to be a loop and another slope leading down to some more water.
"I think we can run on top of the water," Sonic pointed out as he looked down at the loops. "Yeah, this should be a piece of cake!"
"So you don't have a problem with running on water, yet you HATE being in the water?" Blade gawked. "What the heck?"
Sonic ignored Blade and ran down the road, going through the loops and running on top of the water. Chopper shrugged and followed Sonic down as well. After running over the water, they noticed that there was another loop, but at the top, there was a strange, blue slide that seemed to lead into the water.
"What's that supposed to be?" Luigi asked.
"Oh… That might be difficult to get through…" Chopper trailed. "No one else but Sonic and I can go through that loop. And, well, it might be a bit difficult getting you guys through. Of course, we can always try grabbing your hands and bringing you through…"
Mario: I think we did that before!
"I guess I'll do that then," Sonic grabbed a hold of Blade and Mario's arms and immediately took off through the loop and down the slide and into the water. Chopper did the same thing, but he grabbed Kirby and Luigi's arms and took off through the loop and down into some more water.
After rolling through a slide in a fast manner, they were sent flying up when the slide's slop moved up. They were right by the surface, but not for long when they saw a little tunnel through the bridge that they went up from the slide.
"I swear, this is getting confusing…" Chopper groaned.
Sonic was forced to hold his breath once again as he jumped down into the hole in the tunnel. Everyone followed him down into another tunnel down below, where they saw two Scupas swimming around.
"Mmmmmmggffhh!" Sonic struck one of the Scupas with a Spin Jump and managed to grab a Bubble Shield from one of them, protecting him from drowning. "Finally! It's about time I got one of these!"
"Hopefully it doesn't pop," Chopper snickered, aiming his finger at the bubble. However, Sonic slapped his hand away.
"Knock it off already!"
They continued their way through the tunnel and jumped over some spikes to find more propellers. When they turned on, everyone began to be carried by the current from the propellers and grabbed a hold of the conveyer belt above. They were a bit surprised to see that it was rather close to the surface.
"Man, we're so close to the surface!" Luigi gaped as they jumped off the conveyer belt and landed on a moving platform in the water. Sonic used his Bounce Attack and reached the next platform that was closer to the surface. However, they saw up ahead there was another tunnel going down.
"Wait… We're still not up at the surface? You've gotta be kidding me!" Sonic groaned as he jumped down the tunnel and right next to a door. The rest followed him down to the bottom and right beside a door.
"Poyo… (Man, I wonder what's going on above us…)" Kirby wondered as they headed into the next area.
Above the sewers-
"So, ze sandvich is an important thing, no?" one Moon Knight asked another while patrolling the hallway.
"Absolutely! Ve must value it!"
"Guys! Guys!" another Moon Knight walked up the stairs and began panting as he made it up to the two other Moon Knights. "We have a little problem… You see, I was going to the bathroom and washing my hands, but I noticed that the toilet AND the faucet wouldn't work! Something odd's going on around here…"
"Vat? Ve have a problem with ze pipes now? Oh, no no no no no… Zis is unacceptable!" one of the Moon Knights objected. "If water doesn't flow through ze pipes, then ze pipes vill burst and cause a leak in ze sewers, flooding ze castle as well!"
"This flood is no accident, my friends," Everyone paused when Arcaine walked up the stairs and up to the three Moon Knights. "And it isn't going to stop unless we move fast! I am super duper sunious!"
"Dude… What are you doing here? And what do you mean that we have to move fast? The pipes are already being blocked!" the Moon Knight retorted.
"I'm afraid we have a much bigger problem than a flood."
"And what would that be?"
Arcaine gave the Moon Knights a serious look as he showed them a picture of a flower-like creature with a sun head, yellow petals around its head, moon crescent arms and leaf-like feet.
"What is that? A MoonSunFlower?"
"No, stupid. It's SunMoonFlower."
"Vat? Are you seriously thinking about that stuff again?" the other Moon Knight groaned. "Look, you've said that countless times and ve're getting tired of that stuff! Ve're going down into the sewers now to check what's going on."
"Why won't you people listen to me?!" Arcaine suddenly felt some shaking going on down there. "Huh? Now what's happening now?"
"Uh oh… Zis isn't good." A Moon Knight gulped. "If there's anybody down there, I'm pretty sure that they're no longer going to enjoy their games."
Arcaine had a big smile on his face as he heard these news. "I finally did it. I defeated SunMoonFlower. I saved this world from certain destruction. Everyone is super stoked for me…even if they don't know it."
Sewers-
"Well… I'm not too surprised with this." Blade blinked as they walked out of the door. They were right beside a Save Block, which he hit to save their game. Afterward, they looked at the tunnel they were in. They saw that up ahead there were two platforms that they could use to reach the edge of a cliff. That cliff had a spring right at the end of the wall that surprisingly led up to the surface.
"Man… I can't believe we've made it this far through the sewers…" Chopper trailed. "I would just like to get out of here, though…"
Unfortunately, they all began to feel a violent tremor coming from the left. They all yelped as they saw the wall to their left getting closer to them. From the looks of it, it was moving their way!
"Don't stop to talk now! Move!" Timpani cried as the wall got closer to them.
"Crud... Well, we gotta get going!" Blade swam as fast as he could through the tunnel and up to the surface where they found another tunnel. Everyone followed him up to the surface as well, with Sonic using the platforms to reach it. The wall was still following them, though.
"Oh, man! It feels like it's the end of us here!" Luigi cried.
"Not if we keep moving!" Chopper shouted as they reached the surface and ran through another tunnel. They saw a ? Block near another hole going down into the water, so he hit it quickly to make a Super Shroom pop out. They all took a piece and recovered 20 HP before jumping into the water.
"Poyo! (Move fast!)" Kirby cried as they jumped in the water and continued fleeing from the moving wall by swimming through the tunnel. To make things easier, Blade helped Sonic swim through the tunnel and up to the surface where they saw a wall that looked breakable.
"I got an idea!" Blade tossed Hommissile at the cracked wall and made a hole through it. Unfortunately for them, the hole was only in 3-D, so Chopper had to flip them all into 3-D so they could run through the tunnel and into a strange room with spinning platforms. The background itself was a bluish purple color as well.
"Whew! We're finally out of there! And we're not in the water too!" Sonic smiled.
"Gee, that spinning platform looks kind of difficult to reach, though…" Chopper sweat dropped.
Mario: Leave it to Luigi!
"I guess I'll try to reach that platform," Luigi crouched down and folded himself as he clenched his fist. Once he launched himself into the air, he landed right on top of the spinning platform.
"Wait! I got a better idea!" a light bulb appeared over his head with an idea suddenly striking him.
Moments later-
"Wow… I never thought you would be able to do THAT, Luigi…" Chopper smiled as he gave him a thumbs up after climbing up the drums. "Whoever thought your Cyclone ability would be able to help us get up those things?"
"Well, you know me… Sometimes I have some good ideas." Luigi blushed as he rubbed the back of his neck. "So… Should we get going?"
"Poyo, (Yeah, but now we've just run into a slide,)" Kirby pointed over to the slide to the left. It actually didn't look too much like a slide, but it seemed like something that some people could run through.
"Hey! That looks like something we can go through with no problem!" Sonic grinned, walking over to the light blue slide.
"You're right! I think we should go down it!" Chopper grabbed Kirby and Luigi's arms and started to ready his Speed Dash.
"H-Hey, C-Chopper! Why are y-you going at f-full sp-speed?!" Luigi stammered.
"Because I want to go fast! It makes things awesome!"
Of course, he simply took off just like that and began going down the slide at full speed. Unfortunately, it didn't last long when he went up a little slope and landed right by the edge of a cliff. He happened to notice some moving platforms going up. When Sonic, Blade and Mario reached their point, they all worked together going up the platforms and over to some spikes and even a Scupa out of the water that was walking around these parts.
"Oh, wow. We haven't seen any enemies here in a while." Blade simply tossed Hommissile at the Scupa and blew it up with no problem. They then proceeded through the loop ahead and went down the slide and through a loop that led them down another slide going underwater.
After going through the slide, they landed on a bridge right near the surface and saw a couple of spinning platforms after swimming through another tunnel. The only problem, this time… The water level was beginning to rise.
"Uh oh… This isn't good!" Sonic gulped.
"Quick! We need to get out of here!" Chopper cried, jumping on the spinning platforms. What was strange was that they happened to make him rotate around. "Ugh! Can't these things move any faster?!"
"If they moved any faster, they would be pretty difficult to get onto," Timpani pointed out.
"Oh… Yeah, that's a point and well made."
They hurried as they climbed up the spinning platforms while being chased by the water that slowly began making its way up to them. It even touched Sonic's feet, which made him scream like a little girl.
"Dude! It's water! Get over it!" Blade shouted. "You're not going to melt from it!"
"The only thing that makes me burn is when I get kissed by a girl," Chopper shivered as he finally reached the last spinning platform. At the top, they happened to notice a gray pipe and even a couple of other pipes leaking water.
"Poyo! (I think this pipe should take us out of here!)" Kirby said as he was the first to head through the pipe. They took no time at all to speak. They simply headed right into the pipe before the sewers got flooded. This time, there was no going back.
Bathroom-
A Moon Knight walked into the bathroom and into one of the stalls. However, before he could even get down to business, the heroes leaped out of the toilet and landed on the ground.
"Where the heck are we?" Blade asked.
"I think we're…in the bathroom?!" Luigi gaped as he and the rest of the group all looked at the stunned Moon Knight. Instead of drawing his sword, he walked up to them with a shocked face.
"Show me your ways…" he bent down and began worshipping them.
"Ummmmm… Yeah. I think we should go." Chopper suggested as he walked out of the bathroom. They noticed that they were in another hallway of the castle. There were a couple of Moon Koopatrols walking around in the castle as well.
"Hold on, I wanna see how far we've gone in the castle," Blade headed over to the door to the left, but when he headed through, he returned to the group in disappointment. "YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME! THAT ROOM WAS WHERE WE STARTED IN THIS CASTLE!"
"Wait, what?" Chopper jumped up in surprise. "You're saying that we BARELY moved through this castle?!"
"Well that's a shame," Sonic frowned while kicking a pebble on the ground. "At least it's better than being in the water. Plus, we actually get to explore the whole castle."
"Yeah… I guess that's something too." Luigi nodded.
"Well this is a shame…" Timpani trailed. "I can't believe that not only did we just jump out of a toilet, but we also ended up at the beginning of the castle… This is kind of humiliating, in my opinion."
"Then we should get going," Chopper suggested, walking away from the bathroom door and over to the Moon Koopatrol that attempted to charge at him. With his hammer, he knocked it out cold and defeated it with no problem. Up ahead was a Moonflower that looked ready to grab Chopper.
"Poyo! (Not this time!)" Kirby raced toward the Moonflower and threw his cutter blade at it like a boomerang, slicing the stem off of the Moonflower and leaving it to die. "Poyo? (Is it really a good idea to leave it like that?)"
"Uhhhhh… Beats me!"
Nevertheless, they left this hallway and headed through the door ahead, but Sonic hit the Save Block first before entering through the door into a courtyard-like room with the moon shining through the windows. Of course, there were a couple of Moonflowers in this room.
"Interesting… I guess the Moonflowers get their energy from the moon." Timpani commented.
"No duh," Blade responded.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard nothing from me."
"Guys… Enough." Sonic groaned as he used a Spin Dash to strike the Moonflower. When he clashed with it, it managed to grab him and throw him back, getting rid of his Bubble Shield.
"Well, I don't think I really need it anymore."
"I'll finish it off," Blade tossed a couple of shurikens that pierced through the Moonflower's stem. But it still had a chance to shoot a yellow seed at Blade that destroyed his Bubble Shield.
"There goes mine…"
"Who cares about a shield at this point? We can take these guys down!" Chopper said as he used an ice smash to defeat the second Moonflower in the room. After Luigi finished off the other, they ran up to a locked door. Luckily, behind a blue curtain, there happened to be a platform.
"I've got this!" Luigi said as he launched himself up to the platform above to their left to grab a hold of a Castle Key. With it, he managed to unlock the door up ahead into a room with a staircase.
"Now that I think about it… Where do you think Arcaine went?" Sonic asked.
"Poyo… (Probably to King Moonnight already…)" Kirby sighed.
"Maybe... And… Uh oh... Not those enemies!" Chopper cried, pointing to the yellow Cherbil making its way over to the group. It spewed out some electric gas that slowly began making its way toward them. Unfortunately, Chopper got hit by it and was paralyzed.
"What does paralysis even do?" Luigi asked.
"It prevents you from attacking for a while," Timpani informed. "However, you can still move around, but you can't jump too high…"
"Or better yet, I should have Piccolo help," Luckily for him, someone was able to play a song from Piccolo to help him get cured of the attack. Mario simply jumped over to the Electric Cherbil and bashed it with his hammer, defeating it with no problem.
Mario: These guys aren't too tough!
"I agree, Bro!" Luigi nodded as they went up the stairs and to the door at the top. There were two Moon Knights guarding the door, but they seemed a bit distracted…by looking down at the floor and ceiling.
"I vonder vhy ve're doing zis," one of the Moon Knights wondered.
"Vell, I don't want ze pipes flooding zis castle! Do you know vat vould happen if King Moonnight saw ze whole place flooded? It vould be horrible! HORRIBLE I SAY!" the other Moon Knight responded in a dramatic manner.
"Ummmmm… Excuse me? What are you guys talking about?" Chopper asked.
"Vat?" the knights stopped looking at the floor and ceiling and looked straight at the heroes. "HALT! Who are you and vat do you vant?!"
"Hey… Did you happen to see some guy named Arcaine walking around this castle? …Or can we see King Moonnight?" Sonic asked.
"We still need to give him a taste of his own medicine for what he did to us," Blade said while cracking his knuckles.
"Wait… We're not going to HURT him, you know…" Chopper retorted.
"Well I wanna!"
"Vait… Did you say that you're looking for Arcaine? Ze one who just ran off through zis door, if I could recall?" the first Moon Knight pondered. "And did you say that you vish to see ze king? For vat reason?"
"We must speak to him about something called the Pure Heart," Blumiere explained. "It's what we need if we're going to prevent the destruction of the whole universe…"
"Hmmmmmm… No person vould tell us that they're looking for something like ze Pure Heart… But how do ve know that you're…the ones?"
"Hey! I have a good idea!" the other Moon Knight spoke up. "Vat if ve vere to get ze 'heroes' to fight in ze arena? If they can prove that they are ze heroes, then surely they vould be able to vin a fight in ze arena!"
"Ah! I remember that! Maybe that's not a bad idea!" the first Moon Knight turned to the heroes. "All right, ve'll make a little deal."
"Oh brother..." Chopper groaned.
"If you compete in ze arena matches and vin the battles, then ve'll recognize you as ze heroes! That vill allow you to see King Moonnight!"
"All right! That sounds good to me!" Sonic grinned.
"Wh-What?! But that's a bad idea!" Luigi shrieked.
Mario: Settle down, Luigi… We'll be fine… -_-
"Now ve'll let you through. Just go through ze hallway and find ze big door in the center. You'll find ze arena entrance there." the two Moon Knights stepped out of the way, allowing the heroes to enter the next hallway.
"Well… This is going to be interesting, don't you guys agree?" Chopper asked, turning to his friends.
"Poyo, (An arena match shouldn't be a big problem for us,)" Kirby smirked.
"I'd rather not do it…" Luigi shivered.
"Oh, lighten up already!" Sonic frowned. "You can't just act like a coward the entire time! C'mon, Lou! Show some bravery for once!"
"You're calling me Lou?"
"Sure, why not? I can call Chopper Chop and Kirby Kirb. It kind of works, if you ask me."
"And when I hear the word, 'chop', I think of chopping something…" Chopper trailed as he saw two Moon Koopatrols walking through the hallway. Kirby took care of the first one by throwing his cutter blade, while Chopper finished the other by inhaling it and spitting it to the wall.
"Now I'm starting to wonder what happened if I ever swallowed that Koopatrol…"
Over by the door to the arena, they noticed two ? Blocks. Kirby hit the first one to find an Ultra Shroom, which they all split into six pieces to recover 50 HP. Why there was an Ultra Shroom here, I have no idea.
"Kind of weird seeing an Ultra Shroom this early…" Sonic trailed.
"Now let's check the other!" Chopper punched the other ? Block and a blue bandanna popped out. He decided to eat it, only to turn his skin to a darker tint than his pale green. Chopper also had a blue headband around his head.
"Poyo? (Did you just get the Suplex ability?)" Kirby gaped.
"I think I did! Although… I don't remember this being ENTIRELY useful… But, I think it'll do!" (Suplex also has some abilities from Throw as well)
They headed through the door and found themselves in a large arena with a bunch of people cheering. The ground itself was actually filled with dark green grass and at the end of the coliseum, there was a throne with a king with a yellow moon crescent head, a blue robe, a dark blue crown with yellow moon jewels in it and a golden staff with the moon on top of it. He noticed the heroes' arrival into the coliseum.
"What's this? Who are you people?" demanded the king. "I am King Moonnight, ruler of Night Land! What business do you have with me?"
"You see, your highness…" Sonic began as they walked to the center of the arena. "We're here to speak about…"
"Wait a second… I sense something from you." King Moonnight squinted and waved his staff at the heroes. He got some sort of reading off them. "You guys were sent by King Sunday, weren't you?!"
"What? We have no idea who he is!" Chopper lied. "All we want to speak to you is about…"
"ENOUGH! Guards! Lower the gates! It's time we showed Sun Land people what happens when you step into Night Land territory!"
"But… We came here with Arcaine! We're the heroes!" Luigi cried. "You've gotta believe us!"
"Heroes, huh? Well then! If you think you ARE heroes, then let's see how you do against my guards! Seize them!"
Moon Knights stepped out of the gate and charged at the heroes with their swords ready. One of them tried to slash at Sonic, but he jumped out of the way and struck it with a Homing Attack to knock the enemy to the ground.
"Remember guys… Don't end their games! I'd rather not cause any more trouble!" Chopper suggested as he grabbed one Moon Knight and made a leap to throw the enemy to the ground. He knocked it out by using a diving kick attack that aimed straight down instead of at an angle like the Ninja ability.
"More reinforcements!" King Moonnight roared as a couple of more Moon Knights walked out of the gate. Unfortunately, one of them ended up tripping and ruined the whole line.
"Bruce! Get back in line!" the captain growled. "Idiot…"
"What's going on?" Bruce thought as he got back into line. They did nothing else but charge at the group, only to have them get knocked back by Blade's hurricane slash, defeating nearly all of them.
"King, you should realize that we're the heroes already! I mean, we're taking down your knights with no problem!" Blade smirked.
"I see… Well, let's see how you deal against THIS!" King Moonnight pulled a lever and a Knuckle Joe, Moonflower, Moon Koopatrol, Biospark and a Moon Motobug came into the arena. "These may not be on my side, but surely they'll be able to toy with you for a bit."
"…NOW we can take some enemies down!" Chopper started off by grabbing a hold of the Biospark and threw it straight at the Moon Koopatrol. With the spike on its head, the Biospark took even more damage when it hit the Moon Koopatrol's spiky helmet and even destroyed it.
"Poyo, (You know, you could've gotten the Ninja ability from that Biospark,)" Kirby pointed out.
"True, but I wanna test out my Suplex ability a little bit more."
"Poyo. (OK, go do that then.)"
Chopper grabbed the Knuckle Joe next and slammed it to the ground. Of course, it didn't necessarily defeat it. It was easily defeated when Kirby threw his cutter blade at it. The Moon Koopatrol that began to charge got struck by Bonjourang afterward and then bashed to the head by Mario's hammer.
Mario: I don't get how these enemies are so easy…
Unfortunately, Mario got grabbed by the Moonflower and was thrown toward Luigi, knocking them both to the ground. However, Blade managed to take down the Moonflower by slicing it up a bit with his katana.
"Whoa! That was impressive!"
"I want that katana!"
"Wow… Some people are actually cheering for us?" Blade gawked before getting ran over by the Moon Motobug. It began moving all over the place, which kind of made it tough for Chopper to grab.
"The only way I'm ever going to get that thing is if I catch up to it," Chopper said as he got knocked over by the Moon Motobug charging at him.
"Then I'll handle this!" Sonic curled up in a ball and used his Spin Dash to catch up to the Moon Motobug. With one attack, he was able to blow up the robot. There didn't appear to be any animal inside, though.
"Hmmmmmmm… This is interesting…" King Moonnight pondered to himself as the enemies were defeated.
"How about we send in the big guys? You know, some of the tougher ones?" suggested one of the Moon Knights.
"I think that isn't a bad idea," the king stood up and raised his staff. A blast came down from the ground and created a large, alarm clock enemy that was a dark blue color and had a black mustache.
"Meet Mr. Tick Tock! Try to beat him and I might believe you're the heroes!"
"No problem!" Chopper smirked as he used Timpani's wand to gather information on the foe.
"This is Mr. Tick Tock. He's a giant alarm clock, from what I can see. Max HP is 80. Attack is 10. What he normally tries to do is to stun you with its ringing sound. At some point, a couple of music notes will pop out and try to attack you. You can always inhale them and spit them back at him if possible. Other than that… He's just a clock." Timpani informed.
"Now you're going to get it!" Mr. Tick Tock growled as he charged at the group. They all jumped out of the way, but Luigi managed to deliver a stomp to his head before using his alarm to stun them for a couple of seconds.
Well, Kirby was the only one who didn't get affected due to his Defend. When Mr. Tick Tock stopped, Kirby immediately threw his cutter blade at him to leave him stunned, allowing Chopper to stomp on him and then use his Pinpoint Kick to hit Mr. Tick Tock.
"Ugh… This is becoming quite awful." Mr. Tick Tock set his alarm off again, but this time a bunch of music notes came out. Blade threw Hommissile at him while he was doing this and Chopper grabbed a hold of one of the music notes.
"Is it weird that I'm holding onto a music note?"
"Don't worry too much about that, Chopper. You need to take care of this enemy." Blumiere suggested as Chopper slammed the music note straight at Mr. Tick Tock. Of course, he managed to grab another and throw it at him as well.
"This shouldn't take long," Blade smirked while he rushed straight at Mr. Tick Tock and struck him with his katana.
In the end, he was finished off when Kirby threw his cutter blade at Mr. Tick Tock, defeating him and making him fall over on the ground. Although, what surprised them was that he didn't disintegrate.
"Poyo! (I'll take care of this!)" Kirby removed his Cutter ability and inhaled Mr. Tick Tock, gaining the Mike ability in the process.
"Wh-What?! He just ate Mr. Tick Tock!" a Moon Knight gaped. "What now?"
"Don't worry, I've got one last trick up my sleeve!" King Moonnight summoned an orange chef-like enemy called Chef Kawasaki into the arena. "This time, I want you to take care of him! If you succeed, I'll believe you're TRULY the heroes of the prophecy!"
But before Chopper could even investigate him (this wasn't THE Chef Kawasaki back in Cappy Town), Kirby used his Mike ability three times to leave Chef Kawasaki with incredibly low HP.
"Poyo! (All right! He's ready to be finished!)" Kirby giggled.
Luigi shrugged as he stomped on Chef Kawasaki and disintegrated him into smoke. The audience gasped as they saw them win.
…But their gasps went away and changed to cheers.
"Wow… I never thought they would take Kawasaki down THAT easily…" King Moonight said with a blank look. "All right… I'm starting to believe that you are indeed the legendary heroes."
"Thank you!" Chopper sighed in relief. "Now… Could we ask you a little something?"
"Well… I would answer your questions now…but I would rather you go to my throne room for the discussion. You must go to the top floor if you wish to see me!" King Moonnight was about to leave, but he froze for a minute and turned around.
"Oh, yes! I almost forgot! Since you heroes won the fight in the colosseum, I believe you deserve a prize! …Just watch out, all right?"
"What does he mean?" Chopper asked. "…And why has it suddenly got darker?"
"Chopper… Move out of the way!" Luigi yelped.
"What?" He looked up and saw that a large chest was coming down on him. "Whoa! I gotta get out of the way!"
He moved out of the way before the chest could land on top of him. He took this time to look at the chest for a couple of seconds.
"Apparently it's another one of these chests," Blade stated.
"Yeah… Well, I'm going to open it." Chopper slowly opened the chest, but he didn't see anything come out. "Oh… I think it's one of THESE again…"
"Wait… Am I finally free from this chest? Does this mean…" Everyone gaped when they saw a beautiful rainbow Pixl shaped like a star float out of the chest with its small little wings. "Wait… I think it is true! The heroes have arrived!"
Mario: That's a beautiful Pixl!
"I can't believe my time to help the heroes has finally come! …But first, I think I should introduce myself!" the female Pixl floated down to the heroes. "My name is Starbow. I don't exactly remember what happened 1,500 years ago, but I DO know that I need to aid the heroes!"
"You're a strange Pixl…" Timpani trailed as she looked at Starbow. "I actually like the colors on you!"
"Why thank you! Maybe with my help, I can summon stars to come down to aid you! It should really help you when something is too far or requires the stars to destroy something!"
"Stars, huh? Well that's interesting!" Chopper smiled.
"For some reason… I feel some strange connection between you and stars… It's like I'm meant to help you… Perhaps you might be the best one to use my power."
"Really? That's cool!"
"Poyo? (Wait, so you're saying I won't know how to use you?)" Kirby asked while frowning. Chopper had to translate for her.
"Well… No offense, but yes. But relax. You've got your own Pixls to help you!" Starbow turned back to Chopper. "Now we must go! We have some worlds to save!"
Starbow circled around Chopper and then he held her up when she floated above him.
The rainbow star Pixl, Starbow, has joined your party! With her, you'll be able to make stars rain from the sky! This can be very useful when you need to hit something that's too high to reach or to destroy any blocks with rainbow stars in them!
"With the power of the stars in your hands, there should be nothing that can stop us now!" Starbow declared.
"Yep! This should be pretty interesting!" Chopper smiled. "So… Let's go back into that hallway, all right?"
Hallway-
"So King Moonnight is up on the third floor, is that correct?" Luigi asked, wanting to make sure the information they got was correct.
"Yes, I believe that's correct," Blumiere confirmed. "You should be able to go through that door ahead."
"Right! Then let's go!" Blade opened the door and headed through, followed by everyone else.
When they walked into the next room, they saw a huge gap between them and the ground up ahead. There happened to be a blue ! Switch floating up above them, but they were surrounded by a bunch of rainbow star blocks, which didn't look like it would be easy for them to get through.
"This is a perfect place for you to test out my ability!" declared Starbow.
"All right, then let's try it out!" Chopper held Starbow up and she began to spin around. Stars began to rain down on the blocks surrounding the blue ! Switch and even destroyed them and hit the blue ! Switch, triggering the bottomless pit to be drawn as an actual ground.
"Hey, that Pixl is really useful!" Luigi commented.
"Yeah, I think that using her against enemies isn't a bad idea!" Chopper looked over at the Moon Koopatrol charging toward them and used Starbow to make stars rain down on the enemy. Each star hit the Koopatrol and defeated it instantly.
"Poyo, (That is good,)" Kirby commented.
With that, they headed over to the door ahead and entered a room with another staircase. This one, however, had a couple of Moon Koopatrols walking down and even some Moon Paratroopas. Of course, when Chopper held Starbow up, they got rained down by the stars.
"Wow… That was rather pretty." Blade commented.
"Yeah, it's interesting, if you ask me," Chopper said as he walked up the stairs and headed through the door. They saw that this small room had a large door up ahead, which could symbolize the throne room.
"Wow… Arcaine's not even here?" Sonic gawked.
Mario: It's no big deal.
"I wonder how he's doing…" Luigi trailed.
"Wherever he is, it doesn't really matter. Looks like King Moonnight decided not to let his guards guard this place! So, this isn't too bad!" Chopper smiled as he headed into the throne room with everyone else.
Throne room-
"Ah! I've been waiting for you, heroes!" Just when they entered the throne room, they were greeted by King Moonnight, who was sitting on his dark blue throne. The walls were a dark blue color, while the floor was a lighter blue, but they could also see their reflection through, which was cool.
"Now that we're not in a big room and has only us in it, I can discuss things about the Pure Heart. I know King Sunday sent you here, so you don't have to keep it a secret right now."
"Wait… How do you know?" Sonic gaped.
King Moonnight sighed and got off his throne. "You see… Ever since King Sunday and I became enemies, I hid a little device under his throne. It was so that I can find out what he's planning on doing. I heard you heroes through the device. But, I wanted to make sure you WERE indeed the heroes. I apologize if I was rude to you earlier."
"Hey, I think I see something under the throne," Luigi checked under the throne and found a device as well. "Hey, isn't this the device you're talking about?"
"Why… Yeah! King Sunday had one as well?! ...I suppose it makes me feel less guilty. Although… I wish one day that we could both get along and make peace between our lands. That would be nice…"
"So… You have the Pure Heart?" Timpani asked.
"The Pure Heart? Oh, yes! That!" the king opened his eyes and looked up at the heroes. "Luckily for you… I happened to have it! …And I said 'happened' for a reason."
"Wait… So YOU don't have it either?" Blade grumbled.
"Hold on! Calm down! Let me explain to you…" King Moonnight cleared his throat. "You see… A couple of days ago some weird tower appeared right on top of the castle, so I decided to check it out on my own. What stunk…was that I was holding the Pure Heart with me…"
"So someone snatched it?" Chopper blinked.
"Yes… But you're not going to believe who did it. …Well, it's more of a what. It's…" Before he could continue, everyone began to feel a large tremor.
"What's that tremor coming from?!" exclaimed Blumiere.
"I don't know! Look, there's no time for me to explain who or what holds the Pure Heart! I recommend you go up to the top of the tower and put an end to this madness!
"How do we even get up to the tower?" Luigi asked.
"Take this door," the king revealed a secret door under some curtains. "When the tower appeared, I wanted to use these curtains to cover it and prevent myself from going out. But, now that you're here, I believe you can use this to get to the top!"
"I guess that should be helpful," Chopper smiled as he walked over to the door. "All right! Let's head to the tower!"
With that, they headed outside, hoping to reach the tower where the Pure Heart was.
Lots of crazy stuff going on here... Sadly, Starbow is the final Pixl in the story, so don't expect to see any more of them soon. Well, it had to stop eventually...