Please let me your thoughts on the chapters. Knowing what you think can motivate me and also let me know how to improve the story! I would highly appreciate it to see reviews about what you think of the story and not just theories on what will happen!
Chapter 8
Eye of the Storm
Kirby and his group boarded the Lor Starcutter. Looking around, Mica said, "This place looks nice! And it's going to take flight soon? That would be the first time I'm riding inside an airplane or anything that flies!"
"Me too! I wonder how it feels like to be in the sky at all times," said Blanc with enthusiasm.
A Capsule J2 approached them and said to them, "You're new here, aren't you? Let me take you to your living quarters then. Follow me."
The group followed the robot-like being through the hallways of the Starcutter. Looking around, they saw various species of Dream Land getting busy with preparing for takeoff. Some were moving cargos around, some were cleaning the place, and some were performing checkup to the engines and anything electronic.
"Not only is this my first time riding something that will fly, it may even be my first time tinkling with the inner workings of a flying machine!" said Liter with interest. "I wonder if they will give me the opportunity to look into how this things work."
"You can go to the engine room and ask the engineers there if want to contribute to something," the Capsule J2 told her. He then stopped in front of a couple of doors. "Here we have two empty rooms. You can decide for yourselves how you want to split between rooms. Is there anything else?"
"We will let you know if there is anything," Meta Knight told him.
"Well, then good luck! We should be taking off soon! Enjoy the ride!" said the Capsule J2 before walking away.
"Hey wait! I just thought of something!" Anis called out to him, but he already disappeared around the corner and didn't hear her.
"What did you want to ask him?" Mast asked her.
"It's about our ammo… We're going to run out of ammo, and if don't have any way of reloading, we won't be able to do much in combat…" Anis said to her.
"You're right! We used quite a bit fighting that tree, didn't we? I don't think we have enough for this entire trip!" said Mica.
"You don't have infinite ammo for you weapons?" Kirby asked them.
Anis looked at him and said, "Too bad we don't… Some Nikke are fortunate enough to use weapons that are either have infinite ammo, but not for any of us…"
"Then we'll have to ask the crew member here about it," said Meta Knight.
An oval-shaped being wearing a chef hat was then seen walking down past them, and Kirby called out to him in surprise, "Che Kawasaki!"
The chef turned to Kirby and said, "Did you call me?"
"I didn't expect to see you here!" Kirby said to him.
"Do we know each other?" the chef asked him with a raised eyebrow.
"No, but let's just say I know who you are," Kirby told him.
"Of course you would know who I am! I am the famous Chef Kawasaki after all!" boasted the chef while puffing his chest with his hands on his hips. "The king hired me to be the main cook for this trip, and you can be sure to eat delicious meals every day as long as I am here!"
"Yay! I can't wait to eat your cooking!" said Kirby happily.
"Then look forward to today's meals! You'll love it!" said Chef Kawasaki before walking away, waving good-bye to Kirby while doing so.
"You know him?" Blanc asked Kirby.
Kirby nodded. "Yeah, he runs his own restaurant in the version of my world, but business isn't good for some reason."
"Chef Kawasaki isn't a very good cook, which is why he failed to attract customers," explained Meta Knight. "Kirby is the only one who finds his cooking delicious and so eats there often. I wonder if this Chef Kawasaki has the same level of cooking skill as ours, or if this one is better…"
"If the king is willing to hire him, then he probably is better than yours," said Anis.
Meta Knight then remembered something. "It just came to me… I feel like wanting to know more about the world you come from. Perhaps some info can be useful in helping you get back to your world."
"Me too! I want to hear about your world too!" said Kirby with a nod.
"It wouldn't hurt to tell you, I guess," said Anis with a shrug.
Magolor's voice was then heard coming from a speaker on the ceiling close to them. "Attention, everyone. We are getting ready to take off, but you do not have to worry about fastening your seat belts, because the Lor Starcutter travels so smoothly that you will not feel a thing at all! You won't even feel like you're inside a spaceship that has taken flight! I can guarantee you that the ride will be smooth and comfortable!"
"That's great!" said Mica happily.
"If you want to enjoy the view as we fly, feel free to look out any windows! Windows literally can't be opened, by the way," continued Magolor. "Without ado, we're taking off!"
The Nikke entered their rooms after the broadcast ended. It was a simple room with three beds, a table, and a couple of closets. There were some windows on one side of the wall, and Mica and Kirby ran up to them to look outside. At first, the spaceship was still on the ground, but true to what Magolor said, it soon began to take flight, hovering up from the ground. They could see the ground below them going lower.
"It's flying! It's flying!" said Mica while bouncing up and down excitedly.
From the outside, the Lor Starcutter floated high up into the air, and it stopped ascending after reaching a certain height. Inside the navigation room, Magolor and some navigators consisting of Sword Knights and Blade Knights were operating the flying machine. Towards the back of the room were two thrones on which Dedede and Ludmilla were sitting on.
"We're ready to access Another Dimension any time, sir," one of the Sword Knights told Magolor.
Magolor turned to Dedede and asked him, "Are you ready, your majesty?"
Dedede nodded. "Ready whenever you are!" He then pointed ahead. "Let us enter Another Dimension."
Magolor nodded then pressed a button on the control panel. This caused a large wormhole to open up in the air in front of the Lor Starcutter, and then the spaceship entered it. The wormhole disappeared after the spaceship went inside.
When the spaceship first went inside, the passengers were greeted with a dark blue sky with strange patterns far in the distance. There were also strange indescribable objects floating around slowly, but none of them were in the way of the Lor.
"Whoa… What is this place…?" said Liter in awe as she looked out the window.
"We're in Another Dimension already," explained Meta Knight. "It is a place with little to no logic and contains its own rules of physics and whatnot. You will never know what you will encounter here, and they may be dangerous."
"Let's hope none of those will be a burden to us…" said Anis nervously.
For the next several minutes, the Lor Starcutter flew across the sky of Another Dimension smoothly. Nothing bad had happened so far.
All this time, Kirby and Meta Knight were in the same room as the Nikke, listening to them talk about their world. "It seems that your world is in a bad state…" commented Meta Knight after learning about things like Raptures and the surface world being taken over by them.
"I know, right?" said Anis.
"But at least you are still living happily in a large underground city. That calls for celebration!" said Kirby in a cheerful tone.
"The Ark has lots of great stuff and all, but I'd imagine that things would be a lot better if we can live on the surface without fear of Raptures," said Mica.
"I'm sure you'll be able to defeat them all someday," Kirby told her with a smile. "Maybe I can head over there and lend a helping hand!"
"That would be nice!" said Mica happily.
"Not sure if you will find Raptures tasty…" said Liter.
"I have a question," said Blanc. "Should we tell the others the truth? I don't think it's anything bad for them to know the truth."
"That is a good question. Telling the truth will help, but we do not know if they actually know anything about different universes, and if they don't, they may not necessarily believe us right away," said Meta Knight. "Therefore, I suggest that we observe them a bit and know them better before deciding whether or not we should tell them."
"Yeah, better to be patient and observe first than to rush headfirst into things..." agreed Liter with a nod.
Drilley and Hammering were in one of the rooms of the spaceship, sitting beside a table and chatting with each other. Liter and Anis appeared in the room, grabbing the former two's attention. "Mind if we come in for a bit?" Anis asked them.
"Sure! C'mon in! There's a vending machine over there that's completely free of charge! Feel free to get whatever you want!" Hammering told them while pointing at said vending machine against a wall.
While Anis went to get Soda, Liter sat down on a chair close to those two, while Volt down next to her. Seeing the mechanical dog, Drilley asked, "Nice robot dog! You built it yourself?"
"Not entirely my handiwork, but I did play a role in his creation regardless," replied Liter while petting Volt's head. "He's a nice boy, don't you think so?" Volt barked happily when he heard that.
"He looks nice and well made all right!" commented Hammering with a happy face as she bent down close to Volt and petted him, which he also likes. "Can he do tricks?"
"Of course, and more than just your usual dog tricks! If you need any kind of support in getting things fixed or even combat, he'll lend you a helping hand!" boasted Liter smugly.
Anis came back from getting a soda called Yellow Dunes from the vending machine and sat down on one of the empty chairs. "So… how'd the two of you ended up here? I mean getting hired by the king for this trip…"
"We saw fliers being handed out by the king's servants, saying that he is in need of people good with skills in geology, excavation, and whatnot," replied Drilley. "He wanted to look for treasure, which are usually buried underground, and since we're experts in dealing with the earth, we've decided to tag along."
"Even if the treasure isn't actually buried underground, it's still once in a lifetime chance to go to an unknown area and learn more about the soil there!" said Hammering. "That's why we decided to join this expedition!"
"So what were you two doing before then?" Liter asked them.
"Just miners and excavators for hire," replied Drilley. "Business isn't much though…"
"This soda tastes great!" commented Anis aster taking a sip from the Yellow Dune soda she got.
"How about you folks? You're carrying firearms with you. You don't see much people carry those stuff around here often," Drilley asked them.
"We're… We're mercenaries," replied Anis, sounding a bit nervous, as she wasn't sure what to say.
"I'm also an engineer and technician," replied Liter straightforwardly. "You can count on me to get things fixed!"
"So why'd you want to come along with us?" Hammering asked them.
"Let's just say business has been slow, so we decided to tag along and see if we can put our weapons to use so that they don't get rusty," replied Anis after taking another sip of her soda.
"They say Another Dimension is full of monsters, so I'm sure you'll put them to good use," said Drilley.
"I'd rather that we not get into trouble…" said Liter. "And by the way, sorry for pestering you back there. We mistook you for someone, and they're also in the same line of business as you two..."
"It's all right! Mistakes happen often! I guess we have the celebrity kind of face to get mistaken for others! Haha!" said Hammering in a humorous tone.
"Oh yeah! I want to ask something," said Anis, lowering her soda can. "Do you happen to know if there is any way we can replenish ammo here? It's embarrassing to say this, but we didn't bring any additional ammo with us…"
"Your weapons run on limited ammo? Who uses those anymore?!" said Drilley, sounding surprised.
"What do you mean…?" said Anis, surprised at the response.
"Anyone with the right mind uses star ammo nowadays! Put these things into your weapons and you can shoot as many times as you want without ever running out of ammo!" Drilley explained to her.
Anis and Liter's eyes sparkled with delight when they heard this. "You have something like this here?!" said Liter in disbelief.
"You're a mercenary, and you don't know this?! How deep do you live under a rock?!" said Drilley in shock by their ignorance.
"Well… Um… We're not the most up-to-date when it comes to the latest stuff…" replied Anis sheepishly.
"I guess not everyone knows everything… Anyway, you can ask the crew members here. I'm sure they have star ammo that you can use," Hammering suggested Anis and Liter.
Mica saw Ludmilla walking down the hallway by herself. Gathering up her courage, she went up to Ludmilla, hoping to start a conversation with her, but she still felt shy and was unsure what to say. Seeing her, Ludmilla went up to her with a smile and asked her, "May I help you, little one?"
"Um… Not… Not really…" said a surprised and embarrassed Mica. "I… I… I want to apologize for… surprising you out there… I mistook you for someone I know…"
Ludmilla chuckled a bit and said, "It's all right! There's nothing wrong with making a little mistake! I look a lot like the person you are looking for, right? You even called out my name, so I assume she has the same name?"
"Ye… Yes! You both have the same name and look a lot alike! Your personality is also similar! I seriously thought you're the Ludmilla I know!" Mica told her.
"Oh wow! It's like a twin sister of mine that got separated at birth! I would love to meet her someday!" said Ludmilla.
"Right… I wish to see her again as well, and also another friend of mine… We went… separate ways for reasons, and I now I miss them…" said Mica, trying to make up as much as she could.
"I'm sure you'll be able to find them soon!" Ludmilla said to her. "By the way, would you like to come to the navigation room? My husband is there at the moment, and you will get a good view of the outside too!"
"I'd love too!" said Mica happily.
The two walked together down the hallway towards the navigation room. Along the way, Ludmilla observed Mica from both sides and took note of her thong leotard. "You seem too young to be wearing such a risque outfit, don't you think?"
Mica blushed when she heard this. "Um… I… I feel like I'm old enough… It's comfortable and helps me move around easily! It's also quite cool for the body…"
"Well, as long as it doesn't harm you, I guess it's fine," said Ludmilla with a shrug.
The two entered the navigation room, where Dedede, Magolor, and the navigators are. Ludmilla sat down on the throne next to Dedede and told Mica to sit in between her legs, and the latter reluctantly did so. Looking at Mica, Dedede said to her, "I see that my wife has taken a liking to you, and you must've impressed her too!"
"We are starting to get along!" Ludmilla told him with a smile.
"If I may ask… How did the two of you meet each other?" asked Mica.
"I'm glad you asked! It's a long story, and one that I am very proud of! Every time I think about our meeting, I am filled with nothing but joy about the day that I met my beautiful wife!" said Dedede with a look of joy on his face.
Hearing this, Magolor grumbled, "Oh boy… Here we go again…" He then took out a pair of headphones and wore them before playing the theme C-R-O-W-N-E-D for himself to listen to.
Dedede began to ramble nonstop about how he met Ludmilla, which involved stealing foods, tripping and falling on top of her, dancing under the moonlight, playing in the snow, eating parfait together, feeding each other, and more. Hammers and guns were somehow involved as well. The entire story took over 30 minutes, but Mica didn't seem to be annoyed. In fact, she enjoyed listening to every part of it.
"And then we finally got married amidst the ruins of my castle, right in front of Marx's dead body!" said Dedede, concluding his story.
"Wow! Amazing! You too really are made for each other!" said Mica with an impressed look.
Their happy conversation was suddenly interrupted by the sound of loud thunder that was accompanied by a bright flash of lightning coming from outside the cockpit. "There's something on the radar!" one of the Sword Knights said.
"Yes, I can see it," said Magolor, looking at the radar on his side. "It's heading in our direction!"
Dedede got up from his seat and said, "Are we under attack?"
"Unsure, but considering the direction it's heading, we have to prepare for the worst…" said Magolor. Everyone looked outside the cockpit window, trying to see what it was that was approaching them.
Outside, dark clouds filled the air and were emitting electricity. A yellow eye suddenly appeared in the distance, hidden within the clouds. The owner of the came out of the cloud, revealing itself to be… a spiked cloud with a single yellow eye.
"What is that?!" asked Blade Knight in shock.
"Is that Kracko? What is he doing here?!" asked Dedede in surprise.
"You know him?" asked a worried Mica.
"Yes, Kracko is a monster that terrorizes the sky and brings fierce storm with his appearance," explained Ludmilla. "The king has defended our land from his assaults often, but he always return every once in a while."
"Whether or not it's the same Kracko, if he wants a fight, we'll give him one!" said Dedede. "Get ready to fire at will!"
"Wait… Let's see if it really is going to attack us first, because provoking it…" said Magolor, but he was interrupted by Kracko firing a bolt of lightning at the spaceship, striking its head and making the whole thing shake, not to mention the lights flickering on and off for a few seconds. "All right! Fire at will!"
BGM: Another World to Win (Kirby: Star Allies)
The Lor Starcutter made colorful energy balls come out from behind itself, and then they flew forward, hitting Kracko all over the body. However, only the projectiles that struck his eye hurt him, while the ones that struck his cloudy body went through him harmlessly. Holes were created on the cloudy body, but they instantly regenerated.
Kracko generated a large amount of electricity around himself and then fired a powerful lightning bolt at the Lor Starcutter, but the spaceship moved out of the way at a fast speed. "Haha! Try your worst trying to hit Lor! This baby can move very fast if it wants to!" boasted Magolor.
The spaceship moved around in a zigzagged path around Kracko, bombarding it nonstop with energy balls. Kracko tried to shoot it with lightning bolts while receiving hits to his body and occasionally the eye, but the Lor's constant movement prevented any of his shots from hitting.
Inside, the passengers were able to see what was happening out there through the windows. "Hey! That's Kracko!" said Kirby in surprise.
"You know that thing?" Blanc asked him.
"We're enemies who fight each other often," Kirby told him. "He always comes back no matter how many times I destroy him. I can't believe he's here as well! Actually, he probably isn't the same Kracko, and I recall running into a black one before in Another Dimension once…"
The Lor Starcutter continued to shoot Kracko, who was now annoyed. He emitted electricity around his cloudy body and then created a powerful shockwave covered a large area of the air. The Lor was hit by it and blown backwards, causing the passengers inside to tumble around a bit.
Magolor got up from being tossed onto the floor and placed his hands back onto the control panel. "Ugh! Darn it! We got too cocky! Activate the force shield fast!"
Kracko fired a lightning bolt at the Lor, but right when it was about to hit the spaceship, a rainbow-colored force shield appeared around it, protecting it from the lightning bolt.
"Haha! Now let's see that monster try to hurt us!" said Magolor with confidence.
Kracko continued to shoot lightning bolts at the Lor, but the force shield around the latter protected it from the attacks. As Kracko continued to bombard the spaceship with lightning bolts, the latter suddenly spun vertically at a fast speed, detaching and firing one of its wings at Kracko.
Like a sharp blade, the wing sliced Kracko from top to bottom at a fast speed and then returned to the Lor like a boomerang. Kracko widened his eye in shock as he split into two down the middle.
"Yeah! Got him!" exclaimed Magolor.
"Good going!" said Dedede happily.
However, their celebration was short-lived when the two halves of Kracko each regenerated his eye and cloudy body, resulting in the creation of two Kracko. "It's still alive!" said a Blade Knight operating the spaceship in shock.
"What?! He can do that?!" said Magolor in shock.
The two Kracko each went to different sides of the Lor and fired a constant beam of electricity from their eyes at the force shield protecting it. At first, it seemed that the force shield was doing its job properly, but eventually, it began to flicker. "The shield won't hold forever!" the Blade Knight told Magolor.
"Ugh! Move away fast! Be on the offensive!" commanded Magolor.
The Lor moved ahead, making the electric beams clash against each other. The two Kracko turned to the runaway spaceship and gave chase. The Lor shot energy balls out of its back at the Kracko, but they swiftly dodged the incoming projectiles while firing lightning bolts that struck the spaceship's shield until it disappeared.
Meanwhile, the passengers inside continued to look out the window at the cloud monsters that were chasing them. "Those guys are persistent!" said Anis.
"That's Kracko for you," said Kirby in response.
"No storm is going to take us down! A pirate is not afraid of a little thundercloud!" said Mast with confidence.
Inside the navigation room, a Sword Knight said to Magolor, "We can't shake them off! What do we do?!"
"Use the tornado attack!" Magolor told him.
Outside, the Lor's mast and sail began spinning at a fast speed, generating wind around it. The wind was generated to a the point of becoming a large tornado that bent and twisted its trajectory so that it was aimed at the two Kracko. One of the Kracko was hit by the tornado, causing his cloudy body to dissipate and the eye to spin away into the distance. The other Kracko desperately dodged the tornado as it tried to hit him and fired a blast of lightning at the mast and the sail, halting the attack.
The Lor turned to one side, and then one of its oars was shot out like a harpoon at Kracko, stabbing him right through the eye. The momentum of the solid projectile pushed Kracko back through the air at a fast speed for some distance before the eye exploded along with the oar. Meanwhile, a new oar generated seemingly out of thin air at where the original oar was.
"One down!" said the Blade Knight.
The other Kracko that was blown away came back with a look of anger and new cloudy body. His entire body was covered in electricity as he moved forward in a zigzag path similar to an electric current. The Lor fired energy balls at him, but his super fast movement allowed him to dodge the attacks with ease and collide into the Lor, pushing it back through the air and zapping it at the same time. This caused constant damage to the spaceship, and the lights in there flickered, and sparks even flew out from certain parts of the walls. The passengers were crying in shock as they tried to grab hold onto things to avoid falling.
"We're gonna crash at this rate!" cried Anis, grabbing onto a bedpost.
"Don't worry! I can tell that this ship has what it takes to brave this storm!" said Mast loudly with confidence as she grabbed hold of the edge of a window. Morgan, on the other hand, was flying around in the air crying for help over and over.
And Kirby was tumbling around like a ball.
The people in the navigation room tried to maintain control of the ship and shake off Kracko. Dedede said in anger, "Darn it! That beast is aggressive!"
"I know, right?!" said Magolor in frustration in response.
"Sir! The force shield is back online!" the Blade Knight told him.
"Then turn it on to the max! Let him have it!"
Outside, a force shield appeared around the Lor, releasing a large amount of electric-like energy when it did so. This caused Kracko to be repelled and sent flying back. "Run him down!" commanded Magolor. The Lor then flew at Kracko at a fast speed, ramming into him with its force shield. While being pushed back, Kracko was also zapped by the electric-like energy the force field was releasing, and despite having electric attacks himself, Kracko was still hurt by it.
The Lor came to a stop, while Kracko continued flying back. Energy balls were then fired at the him, blasting him all over the place.
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!
BGM Ends
Explosions and sparks filled the air as those projectiles struck Kracko. When they cleared away, the eyeball was nowhere to be seen. Seeing this, the passengers cheered in excitement. "WE WON!"
"That's… awesome!" said Mica with sparkling eyes.
Dedede laughed and said, "Dyeheheh! Looks like it's no match for this ship! Great job, everyone!"
"Yep! Don't underestimate the Lor Starcutter!" said Magolor smugly.
The news that Kracko had been defeated spread to other parts of the spaceship. "See? I told you that this ship would be able to brave the storms!" Mast told the others. "I may be new on board here, but I have the eyes to tell whether or not a ship is strong, and this one has got it!"
"Yeah! The Lor is cool!" said Kirby happily while jumping up and down.
Anis sighed and then said, "At least we made through alive… I was worried for a second that we're gonna crash… This is my first time on a plane, and it's a terrifying experience…"
"Is the rest of Another Dimension going to contain more dangerous monsters like this…?" asked a nervous Blanc.
"Yeah, there probably will be," Kirby told her.
"Yikes… Guess we'll need a lot of luck to get through this…" said Blanc.
TO BE CONTINUED
This chapter's location is based on the first area of Magolor Epilogue. In fact, the entire Kirby arc will be based on Magolor Epilogue from Return to Dream Land Deluxe. I know the boss of that area is Electricky Dooter, but I wanted to avoid being too obvious and so brought in Parallel Kracko from Star Allies (hence the black coloring) instead. And remember that this Kirby world isn't exactly the same as the official one. Things have been changed for some reason, so don't expect everything to be the same as in the source material. The same will apply to every world.
The soda that Anis drank, Yellow Dunes, is based on a drink from Japan's Kirby-themed restaurant, the Kirby Cafe.