"I can't believe we 'ad all o' this trouble with those heroes!" O'Chunks gaped as he began to sweep the inside of his room. "Who would've thought that we'd be invaded by them and 'ad our palace heavily damaged?"

He grabbed a chicken leg from his cabinet and began to chomp on it. He didn't care whether or not he got grease all over himself. He was hungry ever since he was left out in space. He was lucky that an asteroid was able to bring him back to the palace, along with everyone else.

"Hmmmmm… So, now that The Void is back, I wonder what Tipral is plannin' on doin'? Since the heroes are probably gonna find those Pure Hearts, I think I oughta 'elp 'im out! Yeah! I need to get me chunks in action!"

O'Chunks walked over to the weights and began to lift a couple. But, since he still had grease on his hands, his hand slipped on the weights, leading one to fall on his foot, causing him to scream in pain.

"YEOW!"

"O'Chunks, is everything all right in there?" the bearded man stopped when he heard Nastasia knocking on the door.

"Errr… Yeah! I'm fine!" O'Chunks responded as he began to sweat. "C'mon, Chunky! Why do yeh always 'ave teh be so nervous when yer around wee Nastasia?! Yeh gotta man up once in yer life around a woman!"

"All right, sure. And when you have the time, come to the sanctum, 'K? Tipral wants everyone to come there at a certain moment."

O'Chunks heard the footsteps getting softer every second. He noticed that his hands were greasy, so he simply opened the door and decided to go to the bathroom to wash his hands. It was just a bathroom for one person, because Tipral didn't feel like getting two bathrooms.

"I am in needing of the room of baths!" requested Fawful as he knocked on the door while O'Chunks was washing his hands.

"Calm down, yeh mouthy bean!" O'Chunks barked. "Yeh gotta be patient with me! I need teh take me time when it comes teh washin' me hands!"

When O'Chunks finished washing his hands, he left the bathroom, but he also noticed that Fawful was holding a toothbrush and toothpaste in his hands.

"Wha…? Yeh said yeh 'ad teh go teh the bathroom!"

"I am needing of it," Fawful nodded. "Fawful wants to brush his teeth, that's all. Midbus is sleeping badly awful."

"Don't yeh mean 'awfully bad'?"

"I say no! Now let Fawful go into the room of baths!"

O'Chunks moved out of the way and Fawful went charging into the bathroom, closing the door behind him and locking it. He decided that now would be the best time to go back to his room and rest for a little bit…

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!" the sound of the high pitch shriek nearly left everyone in the palace deaf when Mimi walked out of her room holding her diary, which the lock on it happened to be off.

"WHO read my diary?!" she screamed. "I know someone here was responsible for reading my diary!"

"Mimi, why are you screaming?!" Dark hissed as he slammed his door open. "I'm getting a f-ing headache here! My third eye is finally sealed for once and now I have to listen to you cry about a diary. Grow up."

"But a diary is important to a girl! It's where I keep my…secrets."

"We all know that you like Tipral. It's not a secret." Mr. L pointed out as he opened his door. "Just stop whining, geez!"

"Well it's not good when someone else discovers my secrets," Mimi shrieked. "And it's not all just about Tippy, you know! There are…other stuff in there."

"Well none of us read your diary," Dark confirmed. "We don't even care about what's in a girl's diary anyway."

"So… You didn't read about the part where I wanted to marry Tippy one day? Out on the beach?"

"No...?"

"Uh oh… I just said that out loud."

"Said what out loud?" Mimi turned around and saw Nastasia walking out of her room with a cup of coffee. "What were you screaming about, anyway?"

"Someone read her diary," Mr. L snickered.

"'K… I see now. Mimi, do you think that it could've been one of the heroes that read your diary? As far as I'm concerned, the only one of the heroes who even came into the sanctum was the pale green one with the pair of antennae.

"CHOPPER!" Mimi's eyes began to burn as she seethed with rage. "I can't believe that that dummy read my diary! When I find him next time, I'm going to make sure he pays for what he's done!"

"That is, if you succeed," Dark said.

"Ugh… Well I'm going to make him suffer when I get a chance to face him again!"

"It depends on when we get teh chunk the heroes," O'Chunks pondered. "An' I wanna get back to wastin' 'em! I only fought two o' them before! I think I should get another chance!"

"Well, Tipral wanted us to meet him in the sanctum," Nastasia mentioned. "We should head there. …You guys did fix up your rooms from any damage, right?"

"Yeah," responded everyone.

"'K… Well, what we can do now is go to the sanctum. Is everyone here?"

The bathroom door opened and Fawful came out, sighing in relief.

"I HAVE RELIEF!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "It's so nice for Fawful to go to the room of baths! It gives Fawful the giggles!"

"All right… So that's everyone." Nastasia slowly nodded. "I guess we can go to the sanctum. I'm sure Tipral will be waiting for us there."

Everyone agreed and began to make their way to the door leading into the sanctum.

Tipral's room-

Tipral just finished fixing his room after discovering that his room was actually damaged by Dimentio, just like the other rooms. From the look on his face, he felt incredibly frustrated with doing this.

"Ugh… Dimentio just had to wreck our rooms…" Tipral growled as he finished fixing his room. "There. That takes care of that."

With that, he sat down in his chair by his desk. He was wondering if it was a good idea for him to give Chopper the seventeenth Pure Heart. Sure, he helped him get rid of Dimentio, but he knew that giving it to him would mean that they would have an easier chance of getting the remaining three.

He looked over at some of the stuff in his shelf. He noticed that there were a couple of old plans in there which he didn't get rid of, but he also saw an old picture of him and the little girl.

"I thought I got rid of this?" Tipral was about to smash it, but he decided not to and put it back in the drawer. "I'll…just hold onto this for now, just for some memories, even if I'm through with that now."

With that, he teleported out of his room in a flash.

Sanctum-

"So, now that Dimentio is gone, how are we going to go after those heroes now?" Mr. L asked as everyone got onto their platform.

"We don't need that clown anymore," stated Tipral. "I only needed his help in resurrecting The Void. Now that the job's done, we can go on without him. Too bad he tried to backstab us again."

"Would you have disposed of him even if he didn't feign his memory loss?" Mimi asked.

"Only if he became useless to me. However, he actually proved to be a bit useful. Anyway, what we need to focus on are those heroes. They're going to be searching for the Pure Hearts again, and if they manage to collect the rest of them, there's a chance that they could form the Purity Heart, which has the power to counter even the Chaos Heart's true power. However, for the Chaos Heart to get this power, it must make contact with The Void. Some say its power might be too dangerous."

"Ummmm… Are you going to be doing that?" Nastasia asked.

"I will, but sadly, I can't teleport into The Void. It'll require us to open a portal to the inside of The Void, which may take a while or a second to open. So, in the meantime, we'll focus on keeping the heroes from grabbing the Pure Hearts."

"Tipral, why don't yeh send me out teh get 'em?" O'Chunks suggested, waving his arms around. "I'll give 'em a chunkin' that's never been like before!"

"You? Take down the heroes? Oh ho ho! Sometimes I feel like I have to laugh at you!" Mr. L scoffed. "What makes YOU think that you can beat those heroes? You lost to two of the heroes in this palace!"

"But you had the defeating as well, mustache!" scoffed Fawful. "I have suspicion of hypocrisy!"

"Hey, don't go mocking the 'stache! Anyway, all right, we were all bested. It doesn't mean that we'll do any better when there are six of them!"

"Very well, O'Chunks. I'll send you out." Tipral stated. "I'm sending you out as well, Fawful. I want to make sure that Chopper and his friends don't get their hands on that Pure Heart. There may be some consequences to failing…"

"I will be taking care of the punishments, as stated by Tipral, 'K?" Nastasia confirmed.

"YEAH! I've been waitin' fer this moment!" O'Chunks cheered as he raised his arms. "Trust me, Tipral! I won't fail yeh!"

O'Chunks jumped off his platform while Fawful began to cackle. "Very well! I will have the bidding from Tipral! This will be the requiring of Midbus for his helping!"

Fawful waved goodbye as he jumped off his platform and left the sanctum. Mimi just gave a confused look as she put her stick hands on her hips.

"Can any of you still understand that guy?" she asked.

"Not at all," Dark said with a shake of his head.

"So… You think they're going to stop them?" Mr. L asked.

"Definitely not."

"Doubt it."

"Well I'm glad people agree," Luigi smirked.

"Well, even if they lose, it'll push the heroes back just a bit," Tipral informed. "The portal that leads into The Void could appear in any moment. Giving us more time would be better than letting the heroes get those Pure Hearts."

"Good point," Dark nodded. "So… Doesn't it feel a little different without Dimentio around?"

"Personally, I think it's all the better that he isn't around!" Mimi huffed. "That annoying clown would always read my diary!"

"Let's just hope it stays that way," Mr. L stated.

"From what I saw, Dimentio burst into flames and began to sink into the ground," Tipral confirmed. "Why he ended his own game, I don't know. But, let's keep it like that."

Asteroid-

Back on the asteroid where the heroes fought Dimentio Doom, there were still some remains of the monster on the ground. Mostly the monster's head and its right arm seemed to be remaining above the ground. It seemed that it was all over for Dimentio.

…Or was it?

The last of the remains began to disintegrate as a dark mist came out of the monster. All that could be seen were two evil eyes. The right eye was black while the left one was yellow.

"Ah…ha…ha…ha…" the mist cackled slowly as it noticed that the remains of Dimentio Doom was now gone. It looked around in space before flying off to the palace. The only thing it happened to notice was O'Chunks and Fawful leaving.

The mist started to remember about losing to the heroes. The biggest part it remembered, though, was when it got stabbed in the eye by Chopper. Despite this, it grinned, despite not having a mouth.

"The deed…isn't…finished…yet… They…will…all…die…like…a psycho…chopping…a cucumber…" After a cackle, the dark mist disappeared.

"Hey, Tipral… Have you ever wondered about your perfect world?"

"…Yes, Timpani. I believe I can think of a perfect one. A world full of peace and happiness. I can imagine such a thing. …What do you think it's like down there?"

"I bet it's beautiful. I wish we could go down there and see the world again."

"Are there more people like you down there?"

"Of course! I'm sure they're very nice! They probably miss me too..."

"Would you…like to go down there?"

"Really? But how?"

"All you need to do is grab my hand, and I can take us out of here in an instant."

Flipside, Merlon's house-

"…And that's what happened," Chopper finished as he and the rest of the group explained to Merlon about their journey through Tipral's Palace. They even explained what happened to Kirby, Sonic, Blade, Mario, and Luigi when they were thrown out of the palace, and up to the part where Tipral brought back The Void.

"Very intriguing…" Merlon trailed. "Unfortunately, it seems that you didn't manage to succeed in your goal to stop Tipral…"

"Yeah, pretty much," Sonic frowned. Chopper took it worse as his head hung low. "Whoa, bud, what's wrong?"

"You really wanna know how Tipral was able to get the Chaos Heart?" Chopper asked.

"Didn't you say that the dark matter had to do with resurrecting the Chaos Heart?" Luigi asked.

"It goes a little deeper than that. You see, Tipral needed to gather dreams to resurrect the Chaos Heart, right? Well, it turns out that there was something else that he could do to resurrect the Chaos Heart and void. Using that would make it much stronger…"

"Poyo? (Who told you this anyway?)" Kirby asked.

"Tipral did," Chopper explained. "You see, the other thing he had to do was find love from a pale green puffball, which happened to be me."

"Love from you? But how could that even be possible?" Luigi gawked. "You don't like romance!"

"Hmmmm… So all six of you had a part in bringing back The Void…" Merlon trailed. "These news are quite disturbing."

"Hold on…" Blade pondered. "Did you kiss Luvbi?"

"No, I didn't kiss her. She kissed ME! It was up at the balcony, if you wanted to know. Before I knew it, there was a white flash that appeared for a second. Now, I feel terrible because I feel as if this is all my fault."

Mario: We caused the Pure Heart to come back, too!

"Yeah, you really shouldn't say that because part of it was our fault too," Sonic agreed. "While I'm not exactly the happiest because of these news, it's not going to stop me from saving the universe."

"I'd strangle you for that, but you have no neck," stated Blade.

"Thanks…"

"So, with the Pure Heart, where do we take it?" Luigi asked. "We've put at least eight hearts in Flipside and Flopside. Where would the last Heart Pillars be?"

"Unfortunately, I don't have any clues…" Merlon sighed. "The last four Pure Hearts were kept hidden from the Light Prognosticus to prevent those seeking the prophecy to find them."

That's when Mario remembered something. He recalled Nolrem saying something about a town above both Flipside and Flopside. He decided to mention it to Merlon.

"What? A town above Flipside and Flopside? …Wait, hold on a moment… If I could recall, my ancestors once said something about a secret town above the other two towns. Sadly, getting there is no easy feat."

"How do we get up there?" Chopper asked. "Do we have to climb some clouds?"

"No way! I don't wanna climb clouds!" Blade retorted.

"No, you don't need to climb clouds, Blade," assured Merlon. "As for getting there, my ancestors said that the path to the town above would only be revealed to the six legendary heroes. There, they will be able to reach the town and find the remaining four Heart Pillars, as far as I know."

"Where should we search?" Sonic asked.

"Poyo? (Should we get more information from Nolrem?)" Kirby asked.

"I would start by going to the shrine in between Flipside and Flopside," advised Merlon. "You managed to get to Flopside through there, and that's the only place that I know only the heroes could enter. If you go there, I'm sure you might find something."

"Shrine? Wait, didn't we go through that before, Bro?" Luigi recalled.

Mario: Yeah, we needed to use it to get to Flopside.

"But then we just made a pipe to help us get to both places easily…"

"Well, then we ought to go to that shrine place or whatever it is," Blade agreed. "So… You guys know where it is?"

"Poyo, (We've only went through there once,)" Kirby recalled.

"Well at least I remember where it is," Chopper smiled. "For some reason, I never forgot about that place. We just need to go to the first floor and go into 3-D to head to a bridge leading to the shrine."

"Then let's go!" suggested Sonic.

Mirror Hall-

Upon entering Mirror Hall, they looked at the stained glass windows with portraits of the Ancients. One of them looked somewhat like Merlon, but his robe was a lighter blue color than Merlon's.

"Wow. This place is pretty interesting." gawked Blade.

"Hey, look at that!" Sonic spotted four blocks in the room. The block all the way to the left was a brown color, the second one was pale green, the third was a dark purple and the final block was a black color.

"From what I can see, those must be what the colors of the last few Pure Hearts are. But, why are there four blocks when we have three Pure Hearts left to find?" Chopper questioned.

"Well, who cares? Let's just hit these blocks!" Blade hit the brown one, while Luigi struck the pale green one, and Kirby hit the purple block. The black block was struck by Mario.

"So… What's going to happen?"

"We should be able to find out now, Chopper," Sonic said as he saw the glass on the room shattered and sparkled as it rained to the ground. They noticed that the glass disappeared as it landed on the floor.

"Whoa… I don't know what just happened." Luigi gaped.

Mario: Look at that!

A beam of rainbow light came down from the sky and made a pedestal appear in the center of the room. After the light disappeared, they noticed a gem inside of the pedestal that had a rainbow glow.

"Hmmmmm… So if Merlon says is true, there's a town above this place." Chopper confirmed. "All right, let's take a look."

When they jumped on the pedestal, a bright beam of rainbow light came down on them and began to take them out of Mirror Hall and high above Flipside and Flopside.

Unknown area, first floor-

As the beam disappeared, everyone noticed that they were standing on a pink floor. There was a bridge extending to a town up ahead. To them, it actually looked familiar to Flipside and Flopside, but with houses and people in different colors.

"The colors here remind me of the rainbow for some reason," Chopper noticed as he looked far off. "So, this is the secret town that the Pure Hearts are?"

"Well, why don't we go take a look?" Sonic suggested as he ran on ahead with a Spin Dash. Everyone shrugged and followed him up ahead to town. They noticed that there was a rainbow above the tower up above. There happened to be clouds of a shade of pink around as well.

"Poyo! (So much pink!)" Kirby squealed as he flailed his arms around.

"Yeah, the ground's only pink," Chopper noted as he looked around the beautiful sky. "Geez! This place is nice! No wonder why this place is a secret!"

"Let's see what's up on level two," suggested Blade as he ran over to the elevator with a rainbow-colored arrow. The people walking around took notice of them as they all stopped by the elevator.

"Look at those people," a male civilian whispered.

"Yeah, they look nothing like anyone else here," a female civilian nodded. "How do you think that's possible?"

"Perhaps that darkness in the sky brought them here?"

"Maybe…"

Unknown area, second floor-

This area of the town felt more like Flopside's second floor than Flipside's. Perhaps that one floor resembles a bit of Flopside and another Flipside? That's what it looked like when they were on the first floor.

"This is strange…" Luigi trailed.

Mario: It's interesting, in my opinion.

"Oh ho oh! Welcome, young ones! I expected your arrival."

"Poyo? (Who said that?)" Kirby gawked.

"Over here!"

The six looked over to their left and noticed a wizard resembling Merlon and Nolrem. However, instead of a blue or black cloak, his was a red color with a blue trim, and had a yellow mustache and green eyes. His shirt underneath his cloak was an orange color, and he wore indigo pants. While his shoes couldn't be fully seen, they could tell that he was wearing violet kind.

"Whoa… This Merlon has all the colors of the rainbow!" Chopper gaped. "Who would've thought we'd see this?"

"Poyo! (Yeah! I'm shocked!)" Kirby agreed.

"So, I suppose you are the heroes of the prophecy?" the wizard predicted, receiving nods from everyone. "I had a feeling that you would arrive ever since The Void was brought back."

"What about when it was in the sky before these events?" Blade questioned.

"In the prophecy, it went something like this: 'Six heroes of light will arrive in this town when The Void is resurrected once again.' So… How are you people faring in this town? Lovely, isn't it? My ancestors were responsible for creating it!"

"Does it have a name?" Sonic asked.

"Of course, Sonic the Hedgehog! We like to call this place Rainbowside."

"Rainbowside? Really? …Well, I guess it's a little fitting."

"And what is my name, you ask? Why, I'm called Olnerm! Nobody, including Merlon and Nolrem, know about this place. Most people from the Tribe of Ancients have never heard of this place either. It was meant to be such a secret that those who discovered it were forced to live here to prevent them from telling others about it. Yes, it is indeed quite depressing for some people…"

"Never knew this place had such history," Sonic gawked.

"Now, I'm sure you heroes are looking for the Heart Pillar. You'll find that up on the third floor, if you don't remember where you put the Pure Heart in the first time you arrived in Flipside or Flopside."

"Really? Well, that's pretty easy." Chopper smiled.

"Here, allow me to give you something," Olnerm handed Chopper a rainbow pipe, which resembled the Return Pipe a bit. "This pipe will allow you to come back here so you don't have to go through the Mirror Hall each time. I've been saving this for the heroes anyway."

Mario: That's nice!

They stopped as they felt the tremor from The Void shake the whole town. When they looked up at the sky, they saw that The Void grew.

"Whoa! That thing grew pretty fast!" Blade gaped. "How are we to expect to stop it at this rate?"

"I apologize for wasting some of your time, young ones," apologized Olnerm. "I will let you place the Pure Heart in its Heart Pillar. Please, go on ahead."

"All right… Well, it was great seeing you!" Luigi waved goodbye as they made their way to the elevator all the way to the left. They passed the rainbow-colored tower and made their way to the other elevator.

Rainbowside, third floor-

"Geez, isn't this place a little confusing?" Chopper asked as they came out of the elevator door. They noticed all the way to the left, there was an empty Heart Pillar.

"Ah! So that's like the first Heart Pillar?" Sonic questioned as Chopper nodded. "All right, since you have the heart, why don't you place it in the Heart Pillar?"

"I guess I should," Chopper made his way to the Heart Pillar, but ended up bumping into it. When the rest of the group made it over to him, they noticed that he was a little dazed.

"Poyo? (What happened to you?)" Kirby asked.

"I bumped into the Heart Pillar, that's all. Sometimes stopping can be a pain when I'm going too fast."

"You'll eventually get used to it," assured Sonic. "It didn't take me too long to control it."

"For me, it's been nearly ever since I was able to run fast… Well, anyway, back to the Pure Heart." Chopper held the dark gray Pure Heart up and allowed it to go into the pillar. They all gawked as a dark gray clock appeared around the pillar.

Over at Flopside Tower, a brown door was drawn right beside the dark gray one.

"So, I reckon we go back to Flopside Tower," suggested Blade. "There are still some empty doors there, right?"

"Yeah, let's head there," agreed Luigi as Chopper got the Return Pipe out and selected to go to Flopside Tower.

Flopside Tower-

As they came out of the pipe, they noticed that there was a brown door. For some reason, the color brown reminded Chopper of Tamber.

"A brown door? I guess a brown Pure Heart is through there?" Sonic questioned.

"Interesting..." Blade remarked. "Let's just head through before we run out of time."

After exchanging nods, they all made their way through the seventh door of Flopside Tower.

Without Timpani and Blumiere's help.

With the resurrection of The Void, Chopper and Co. had very little time to interact with the people that remained in the Flipside world. Of all the heroes, Luigi felt the most worried of The Void. "Man… I can't believe The Void's back to cause massive destruction around the universe!" he shuddered. "Here I was hoping for an adventure that didn't involve the universe getting destroyed!" However, not all of them seemed too upset. Chopper, feeling a little better, was relieved that Dimentio was finally gone and would no longer cause trouble for them. Unfortunately, they weren't paying attention to the small atmosphere that would soon arrive.

So apparently all six heroes had a part in resurrecting The Void (the first and second time in this story). So much for being heroes when they're probably the sole reason the universe will be destroyed. Poor them. :P

And, according to the end of this interlude, we are now two-thirds through this story! Yes, there was the first part, which was Chapter 1 to 8, the second part, which was Chapter 9 to 16, and now the final part, which includes Chapters 17 to 20.

But, now that we're getting into the darker part of this fic, it might be a little more serious than it usually was (but, I'll still have humor thrown in too), since, you know, they're in a very, very serious situation here.

Anyway, that's all for now. Oh, and if you listen to songs while reading this, you should listen to Stickerbrush Symphony for Chapter 17-1. Just a little thought. :P