Kirby and the Rod of Darkness
Chapter 40: Earthfall Brawl
The next morning Magolor was the first one awake...or so he thought. When he entered the Lor's main room with a yawn, he could hear some noises coming from the room to the right. He went to investigate and found Susie working on something there. "Susie? You're awake already?"
She looked up from her work, her yellow visor obscuring her eyes from view. "Yeah, I had something I wanted to build. I was inspired by our travel to Mekkai."
Magolor came over and took a look at the item Susie was crafting; it looked a lot like a Plugg but gray all over and much smaller. "What is it?" he asked her.
"A robot deactivator," she replied, "If I stick this into Mirrobo's power supply I should be able to deactivate it." She giggled. "I thought I might as well make it as cute as it is practical!"
A little later, after Kirby and Taranza woke up and breakfast was over (which involved tearing the former away from eating a huge portion as usual), Magolor led the others outside. "Today we're visiting a planet we all should remember," he told them, "Planet Earthfall!"
"Oh yeah, we were here during the Star Allies adventure!" Kirby recognized the place right away.
Earthfall was a beautiful planet with abundant nature and an autumn theme. Much of the scenery consisted of yellow grass and trees bearing orange leaves, and the weather was cool and pleasant. The morning sunrise lent the sky vibrant hues of purple and pink, and swirly white clouds were visible. "What a lovely sunrise!" Susie remarked, gazing at the colorful sky for a few moments with Kirby and Magolor. It was impossible to resist doing so.
Suddenly Kirby looked back, noticing one party member was missing. "Hey, what happened to Taranza?" he wondered.
It didn't take long to spot Taranza running around in a nearby field. He was being chased by three Broom Hatters, clean freaks who thought they needed to sweep him up because he was a spider. "Leave me alone!" he was saying, "Do I look dusty to you?" Kirby, Magolor, and Susie sighed at this sight, but the former knew how to take care of the Broom Hatters. He ran over and inhaled one of them, turning him into Cleaning Kirby; then he sucked the other two up with a vacuum cleaner and sent them flying.
Now that Taranza was safe, he and his teammates could start walking down the path they were on. Because Cleaning Kirby loved neatness almost as much as Broom Hatters did, he kept sweeping the path with his broom despite the fact that his friends didn't see a single speck of dust there. He also swept away piles of leaves scattered around. After a little while of this, he spotted a yellow-haired woman he recognized standing up ahead. "Zan Partizanne!" he called to her as he approached.
Zan turned to face the pink puffball and his team. "Bonjam!" she greeted them, "I certainly wouldn't have expected to find any of you here!"
"We came here to look for something important," Kirby answered, "Are Francisca and Flamberge here too?"
Zan nodded. "You know how those two are-one likes it cold and the other likes it hot, so when they want to spend time together they have to compromise. Francisca enjoys the sunrise on this planet. As for Flamberge, well…"
The electric Mage Sister turned her gaze back to the vast plain behind her, as did everyone else. There were the other two sisters. Francisca was at the top of a tree watching Flamberge, who was using her flaming sword to burn up every pile of leaves in sight. "Ha ha!" she laughed to herself, "I love having something to practice my fire powers on!" But then she paused, noticing a small white orb that had been in one of the leaf piles. "Huh? What's this?" she picked it up.
Kirby, Magolor, Taranza, Susie, Francisca, and Zan all came over to get a closer look. "That's the important thing we came for!" Kirby exclaimed, and so he told the Mage Sisters all about Shadread scattering the Dream Rod's power.
When asked if the three of them would help out, Flamberge was the first to respond. "You bet we will!" she bellowed, "I want to show those cowards they can't escape the wrath of Flamberge!" She was referring to the Star Allies' battle with Shadread in Another Dimension, when he and Mirrobo fled before she could strike.
Francisca and Zan agreed but less dramatically. "Of course," Francisca said, "We'll collect any light energy we find on our upcoming travels until we can give it to you."
After this discussion was over the Mage Sisters were ready to depart. "Thanks, Mage Sisters! Byyye!" Kirby waved as he watched them leave.
It was only a short time later when the hungry hero's sweeping was interrupted again. This time he paused at the sight of something that made his eyes sparkle: a group of three trees bearing oranges and melons. As one would expect, he eagerly dashed towards the trees and began inhaling all the delicious fruit. "Melons aren't supposed to grow on trees," Taranza stated from close by, "but I know Kirby won't complain."
Once Kirby finished eating every single delicious fruit in sight, he noticed another tree up ahead. This one stood out from the others with its large size and bushy green leaves, and there was something glowing brightly in its leaves. "Hey, look up there!" Kirby said excitedly. He floated over to grab the bright items only to be shaken off.
Suddenly a face appeared on the tree's trunk, revealing it was no ordinary tree but Whispy Woods! "You're barking up the wrong tree, puffball!" he said. There was more than one Whispy Woods but they all shared the same appearance, the same grudge against Kirby, and the inability to learn they couldn't beat him.
"Whispy Woods!" Taranza remarked as he hurried over with Magolor and Susie, "I thought he was on Falluna Moon."
"He is able to jump out of the ground, you know," Magolor told him, "Maybe he jumped through outer space to get to Earthfall."
Susie thought that sounded ridiculous but she didn't have a better explanation. "It doesn't matter how he got here," she spoke up, charging up her Transporter, "We have to take him down if we want that light energy!" With those words she started the battle by using her Transporter to charge right into Whispy Woods; then Kirby joined in by whacking him with his broom.
The terrible tree's counterattack involved shaking his branches furiously, causing countless apples to rain down on his opponents. Taranza quickly made a huge spiderweb above himself and his comrades which shielded them from the falling fruit. Once Whispy Woods ran out of apples Magolor struck him with his Ultra Sword. Though he was hurt by the blow, it did not succeed in cutting him down because...well, that's the way it works in the Kirby series.
Next Whispy Woods blew numerous puffs of air which were impossible to evade completely. Susie fought back by getting in her Business Suit, which protected her from the strangely harmful blasts, and launched missiles at the enemy until he was forced to stop the onslaught. But he was still ready for more and leapt out of the soil in an attempt to crush Kirby's team; they had to move fast to get out of the way.
After this repeated a few times, Kirby and Taranza found a brief opportunity to strike back; the latter tossed a big ball of magic power while the former, resorting to something stronger than a broom, smacked Whispy Woods with his vacuum cleaner. Then the persistent plant began to inhale just like the pink puffball himself, making everyone run as fast as they could to escape being sucked in. Magolor, however, used this move against him by throwing Gem Apple bombs into his mouth. The resulting explosion was enough to defeat Whispy Woods, who responded by hanging his head and shedding tears of sorrow.
Kirby hovered to the glowing objects in his leaves and took out six pieces of light energy before returning to land. "Sorry Whispy Woods, but we'll be taking these," he said. Then, turning back to the large pod filled with apples, he inhaled the whole thing with a grin.
Once everyone returned to the Lor Magolor, Taranza, and Susie searched for their next destination. "Looks like our next trip will take us to Planet Frostak," Magolor announced, "Better be ready to face the cold!"
Meanwhile Kirby was getting a bit carried away with his cleaning and was sweeping up a storm throughout the entire ship. When he passed through the main room his sweeping caused a cloud of dust to fill the air. Magolor, Taranza, and Susie coughed until it subsided and they were able to breathe again. "Magolor, when was the last time you dusted in here?" Susie gasped, waving the remnants of dust away from her face.
Magolor laughed nervously. He couldn't actually remember when he last cleaned his craft's interior, but what could he say? It was hard to think about dusting with being busy adventuring!