Chapter 10: Moving Up
Kirby continued to search each floor of Butter Building, fighting more and more enemies on his way. One type of enemy he fought frequently was the blue-suited Poppy Brothers Juniors. Word had apparently reached the others that he was killing them off, so the PBJs on higher floors did not hesitate to attack upon spotting him. Despite these battles being good ways to hone his skills, they did make progress through Butter Building difficult.
He ate a Maxim Tomato whenever he was hurt. He had accepted that they were the best thing for him at the time, and reasoned that all he would have to do to resume his previous lifestyle would be to stop taking them. He did like eating them, though.
On the 17th floor, however, things began to get thoroughly monotonous. It didn't seem like he was ever going to find the tube to Castle Lola that he was searching for.
A number of Flappers, scraggly bat-like creatures, swarmed down at him from the ceiling, but he torched them all with the Fire ability he had recently copied from another Hot Head.
Satisfied with his search of the 17th floor, he flew up to the 18th.
A Starman, a yellow, star shaped, cape wearing creature, flew low over Kirby's head, and then swerved back around to tackle him. But Kirby breathed fire on it, eliminating it.
He stepped through an opening in a wall and found himself in a short corridor, at the end of which there were two Grizzo, one on either side of an odd metal door. The instant they spotted the Dream Lander, they lunged at him, but fire from his mouth stopped them in their tracks.
With the two Grizzo out of the way, Kirby walked over to the door, opened it, walked through it, and closed it behind him.
He was now in a large, square room. The walls were made of the same type of stone as the rest of Butter Building, but had darkened blast marks all over them. Clearly many bombs had exploded in this room.
Across from the door that Kirby had entered through was another door, and in front of this one stood a tall version of the blue-suited Poppy Brothers Juniors. This was obviously the blue-suited Poppy Brothers Senior that Gooey had spoken of. Standing on his tiptoes, the Senior was about three times Kirby's height.
Still on his tiptoes, the Senior began to bounce from one foot to the other. His eyes were on Kirby.
"You're the one who's been killing all my Juniors, huh," said the Senior. He had a pompous voice of average pitch. "A Dream Lander with special powers, eh? My Juniors were right when they told me about you. Well, you know what people say: 'If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself.' So I'm here to kill you like my minions couldn't." His voice then became more aggressive and angry, though his cheerful facial expression never wavered. "You're gonna pay for what you did to my army!"
The Senior pulled a bomb from nowhere and threw it at Kirby, who dodged and ran towards him. The Senior threw more bombs, bouncing on his toes around the room away from his pursuer. Kirby tried using his fire breath, but his opponent was always too far away!
Finally the Senior stopped moving and just bounced in one spot long enough for Kirby to dodge bombs and get over to him. But as soon as Kirby opened his mouth to breathe fire, the Senior jumped out of the way and hit him with one of his bombs.
Kirby shrieked in pain and lost his Fire ability. Luckily, Dream Lander skin is very resilient, and the gray burn on his side was not severe enough to incapacitate him.
He quickly rolled to the side to avoid another of the Senior's bombs. Then he stood back up, shaking slightly due to the pain.
"Ha!" laughed the blue-suited Poppy Brothers Senior. "I'm much better trained than the Juniors you fought! You'll never beat me!" And he threw another bomb.
Kirby inhaled and swallowed the bomb to acquire Bomb ability!
Both he and the Senior threw a bomb at the same time. The two explosives met in midair and blew up.
"Copying our abilities, eh?" said the Senior as the smoke cleared. "They mentioned you could do that. But you'll never be as good as the original!"
The Senior threw another bomb. Kirby dodged and threw a bomb of his own. The Senior jumped out of the way and threw another of his. Kirby leaped over this bomb and threw yet another.
This went on for a few hectic minutes, with both combatants jumping every which way, throwing bomb after bomb at each other. But then the blue-suited Poppy Brothers Senior threw two bombs at once, and before Kirby could jump out of the way to let them fly by him, they touched each other in midair and exploded!
He shrieked again as the flames scorched his face and made him lose his Bomb ability. He could hear the Senior laugh, "Ha! I gotcha!"
He struggled to get up, and managed to stand. His eyes were watering from the pain of his burns.
"Still want more?" jeered the Senior. "Allow me to finish you off!"
As the Senior threw a bomb, Kirby inhaled, and then immediately shot the star shaped projectile back at the Senior, who did not dodge the fast moving star quickly enough.
It hit him right in the chest, and now it was the Senior's turn to shriek in pain as the blow knocked him to the ground. Little stars began spurting from his body like sparks.
Kirby inhaled again.
"N-no!" wheezed the Senior as he began to slide toward Kirby's mouth. "You can't!"
He pulled out a bomb in desperation, but it was immediately sucked up by Kirby, who shot the star back at the Senior.
When this shot hit the blue-suited Poppy Brothers Senior, he exploded in a huge shower of stars.
Kirby stood there for a few moments, trying to ignore the pain his burns were causing him.
"Did you win?" asked Gooey.
"Y-yeah," answered Kirby.
"Really excellent work, Kirby," said Gooey proudly. "If you can get to the nearest opening in Butter Building, I'll send you a Maxim Tomato."
Kirby turned back to the door he came through, opened it, walked through the corridor on the other side, walked through the room after that, and came to a large hole in Butter Building's side.
"Okay," he said. "I'm here."
After he had eaten the Maxim Tomato, Gooey spoke again.
"You beat one of the three Poppy brothers! I was listening to the fight the entire time and I could tell you were doing some impressive dodging. Very nice job."
"Bombs don't move very fast..." replied Kirby modestly. Having regained his health and energy, he was finally feeling the happiness of success. "And I got a lot of practice fighting the PBJs."
"Well, that's one less menace Dream Land has to deal with," said Gooey merrily. "Now you just have to get up into Castle Lola. Hopefully you'll find that tube soon; you're nearing the top of the Building." His voice then became more contemplative as he added, "It's odd, because I thought the tube started farther down than this."
Kirby turned around and ventured back into the room where he had fought the blue-suited Poppy Brothers Senior, exiting it through the door on the opposite side.
The area beyond the door was a short amount of flooring at the edge of a precipice. Kirby looked over the edge to see a sheer drop to a floor much farther down. Between him and the floor far below soared a huge cluster of Starmen. There was no way he would be able to go down that way without getting hit by them repeatedly. Yet, did he want to go down at all?
"Gooey," he said uncertainly, "I found a vertical tube in Butter Building."
"Excellent! I was starting to worry there."
"But... it goes down, not up."
"Oh." Gooey sounded let down.
"There's something weird about this tube, though," said Kirby, noticing something. "It doesn't have any holes in its sides. There's no way I could have reached it from any of the lower floors."
"Oh?" Gooey seemed to perk up again. "Hey, try floating down there. I have an idea."
"But, there are too many Starmen in the way. I don't want to get hurt by them."
"Hm. Well, see if you can find an ability to deal with them. Bomb might work."
"Alright."
Kirby turned around and walked back through the room with doors. He walked through the corridor on the other side and emerged in another room. He looked up at the ceiling and spotted a hole. He flew through it and found himself in an even more derelict looking part of Butter Building. This place was clearly being slowly crushed by Castle Lola a few floors above it.
He walked a few steps, but then stopped, thinking he might as well just go back down to search for enemies with abilities he could copy. There didn't seem to be any life up here.
It was then that he noticed some movement below him, looked at his feet, and saw a shadow growing beneath him.
He immediately jumped out of the way as fast as he could, barely avoiding a brown rock that slammed down exactly where he had been standing.
The rock then opened two eyes on its front, stood up on two small, yellow feet, and began slowly walking toward Kirby.
Without giving the Rocky a chance to do anything else, Kirby ran forward, inhaled it, and swallowed.
There was a familiar flash of stars before his eyes. A dark blue metal dome of a hat, with a tan rim and a yellow star at the front, appeared on his head. Metal plates of the same design extended down his back, and a tuft of light-red hair appeared above the hat.
"Stone ability!" declared Gooey.
"This will work," said Kirby, smiling.
He returned to the area with the precipice.
He jumped off and activated his power, transforming into a large rock. He plummeted down through the Starmen, crushing them beneath him, and hit the ground with great force. Luckily, the floor didn't give way beneath him.
He transformed back into himself and saw an archway in front of him that led to another area of Butter Building. But as he walked over to it, he was hit hard in the back of the head.
He was startled severely by this blow, and his Stone ability was lost. He spun around to see Starmen flying at him. He had obviously angered the swarm.
He inhaled. A number of Starmen entered his mouth, and he shot a large star at the others, blasting apart the swarm. He inhaled another Starman and swallowed.
Yet another flash of optic stars heralded a new copy ability. A red and blue cape appeared that was attached to a golden headband on Kirby's head with little fastenings that looked like the wings on the Cutter ability's hat.
"Hi-Jump ability!" declared Gooey.
Kirby jumped into the air, soaring upward and smashing into Starmen, each of which disappeared in a burst of stars.
This was apparently too much for the remaining Starmen, which retreated, flying up the tube and through the door at the top. Kirby momentarily considered going after them, but he'd never be able to catch up.
He walked through the archway to enter another tube, this one leading straight up for a long, long way. Unlike the first tube, this one had metal beams crisscrossing through it.
"Gooey," asked Kirby, "is this the tube I'm looking for?"
"You're in one that goes up now?" replied Gooey hopefully. "It was through a door at the bottom of the one that went down, wasn't it?"
"Yeah," affirmed Kirby. "But this one has metal bars through it all the way up."
"Sounds about right to me! This should lead you to Castle Lola! ...finally."
"Good."
Kirby used his Hi-Jump ability to spring upward. His enhanced jump brought him all the way up to the first bar. He landed on it and leaped into the air again.
Suddenly, an explosion rocked the tube he was in. A part of the wall of Butter Building below him was blasted inward. Debris was strewn everywhere.
An eye twice the size of Kirby's whole body, with a blue iris, floated in through the new breach in the wall. It then turned upward, and a voice came from it.
"Scanning..." said the eye. It had a low, echoing voice, which was godlike despite being monotonous. "Glitch: located and identified. Name: unknown. Category: Star Warrior. Procedure required: deletion."
As it said the last word, four white spikes poked out from behind it and pointed at Kirby, becoming four white circles from his perspective. They began circling around the eye, which started to move in Kirby's direction, speeding up as it went.
"What?" gasped Kirby.
At exactly the same time, Gooey yelled, "Kirby! It's Kracko! Run!"
Instantly panicked, Kirby began Hi-Jumping as fast as he could away from the eye.
He jumped and jumped, landing carefully on each bar before springing upward again. But as Kracko got nearer, Kirby became more and more frantic. This eventually caused him to miss one of the bars and fall back towards the eye!
He quickly landed on another bar and Hi-Jumped to the side, out of Kracko's way as the eye crashed through it.
Kirby inflated and flew up to a higher bar, while Kracko made an about-face and sped downward at him.
He quickly jumped out of the way again. Kracko destroyed the bar he was standing on and he flew up to the next one.
"Assessing..." droned Kracko, attempting to collide with the Hi-Jumper again and running through another bar. "Error: target too fast. Deletion method required: rapid-fire."
Suddenly, the eye began shooting miniature cannonballs from above!
Kirby was too startled by this attack to dodge effectively. After all, how could an eye fire cannonballs? Kirby was hit!
He fell to the side and lost his Hi-Jump ability, but quickly grabbed the bar he was on to prevent himself from dropping. He grimaced as the dent in the top of his head smarted.
"Delete..." droned Kracko.
Kirby could hear Kracko coming down at him and crashing through more bars, so he let go of the bar he was holding onto. Kirby fell past three bars before coming to one he could reach. When he got to this one, he quickly grabbed onto it and swung, releasing at the lowest point of the swing so as to fly off of it, away from Kracko's path.
Miraculously, this worked. Kracko tore past Kirby, who landed on the next bar down.
Kirby looked upward to see a rain of pieces of the destroyed metal bars heading in his direction. He scurried to the wall of the tube as fast as he could, but then remembered he could inhale.
Kracko turned around again and sped back up at Kirby, who shot a large star in its direction.
The star slammed into Kracko's eye, stopping its ascent and blasting it back down about a foot. The eye rolled rapidly, but then focused again on the Dream Lander and resumed speeding in his direction, yet not before Kirby had inhaled again.
One of Kracko's four spikes sped into Kirby's mouth, and was subsequently swallowed.
A flash of stars appeared in Kirby's eyes, while a pink helmet, with a yellow visor and a yellow strap, appeared on his head. Then yellow spikes appeared all over the helmet.
"Needle ability!" declared Gooey.
Kirby activated his ability, turning into a ball of spikes just before Kracko slammed into him.